Travel Read: Culture Smart! Ethiopia

by Sean McLachlan on

I’m headed to Ethiopia soon and I’m busy reading everything I can get my hands on about the country. Thus I eagerly picked up a copy of Culture Smart! Ethiopia. The Culture Smart! series offers insights into the customs and cultures of dozens of different countries. As a first-timer to sub-Saharan Africa I hoped to get lots of insight into a very different world.

Sadly, I didn’t.

The book’s main problem is its brevity–168 small-format, illustrated pages. This means pretty much every section is superficial. For example, in the “Ethiopia’s Cultures” section, the Amhara, Gurage, Oromo, and Tigray, making up two-thirds of Ethiopia’s 79 million people, get one paragraph each. The rest of the country’s numerous and varied cultures are lumped into a single short paragraph. In these thumbnail sketches we’re treated to such statements as, “Gurage people are traders and know the value of money.” Perhaps this is true for a large number of individuals, but it’s simplistic to the point of stereotyping.

The space problem is made worse through frequent repetition and bland statements. In the two-page section on children we learn that parents want them to be educated and will send them to private school if they can afford it, hardly a startling revelation. What we don’t learn is how to interact with children. Do we shake their hand? Kiss them? Tousle their hair? All of these actions are acceptable in some cultures and considered odd or even insulting in others. Is it OK to play with them? Bring them gifts if their parents invite us to their homes? Are boys and girls treated differently? Behaving correctly with children is one of the best ways to do well in a foreign culture, and messing this up is one of the easiest ways to cause offense.

The book is made worse by occasional mistakes and typos. The Italians didn’t “misinterpret” the 1889 Treaty of Wuchale, leading to the Battle of Adwa in 1896, they deliberately mistranslated it in an attempt to gain control over Ethiopia’s foreign affairs. And titling the section on Eritrea “A Thorn in Ethiopia’s Side” is unnecessarily provocative and ignores the numerous periods when the two regions have been united.

Other sections can be quite good despite the space constraints. The sections on driving and doing business in Ethiopia provide a useful primer. Also, there’s enough basic information in the book as a whole that someone who hasn’t done any other reading would find it of value. So if you’re only going to read one book besides your guidebook, you might want to give this a try. But if you’re serious about being “culture smart”, you’ll be reading a lot more than that.

Have you used a Culture Smart! guide? Tell us what you think of them in the comments section.

Where the Hell is Matt—the book version, a perfect read for 2010

by Jamie Rhein on

This time last year, Matt Harding was named traveler of the year by World Hum. His video, “Where the Hell is Matt?,” the one funded by Stride gum had gone viral earlier that year. No wonder. If there’s a secret to world peace, Harding had found it.

Start dancing a silly, but engaging dance and people will dance with you-most people. The guard at the DMZ in North Korea won’t dance.

In his book Where the Hell is Matt? Dancing Badly Around the World, published earlier this year, Harding tells the stories behind the video. The book is as real and honest as the video version. What makes Harding’s brand of world travel work is his lack of pretense.

This is a guy who likes people who people are drawn to by the droves.

What is made clear in the book is that Harding was as surprised by his success as anyone. He merely started out dancing at various spots around the world and filming his flailing. It was a spontaneous gesture. Once that video gained recognition, Stride gum approached him about round two and that’s when Harding’s life changed.

His book, as well as being an engaging and humorous look at the stories behind the story, delves into issues that can haunt the traveler using the people in various parts of the world for personal gain.

Harding, along with his girlfriend Melissa who held the camera for part of the video, was uncomfortable knowing that he was earning money for his efforts while some of the people he filmed were living in dire conditions. A guy with heart, Harding came up with solutions he–and Melissa, could live with. For example, at the school in Madagascar, Harding made a donation to the school as thanks for allowing the children to participate in his creation.

Making a video of dancing badly is not the easiest endeavor, even though the dancing looks as easy as pie. The shot snorkeling in Vanuatu was a feat in perseverance where a couple of minutes are, thankfully, all that was needed. That’s just one example.

The book also makes clear that Harding had no idea what a treasure he was creating. Even after the video was finished and Harding began promoting it, he had no idea. It wasn’t until he sat down one night to watch it over and over that he knew. When Harding saw his creation from the rest of our eyes, he did what most people who saw it did. He cried.

If there’s a book that will keep you engaged and give you the motivation to keep up the good work of honest, open world traveling in 2010, it’s this one.

The newest edition of Moon Belize is a gem

by Brenda Yun on

The first things that come to mind when I think of Belize: Mayan ruins, world-class diving, bird-watching, and hiking through nature. Sounds like a vacation in paradise, if you ask me – and I’m from Hawaii. Joshua Berman, a travel expert to both Nicaragua and Belize, recently revised the 8th edition of Moon Belize, and the result is a comprehensive, informative guide for any kind of traveler.

Seeing the best of Belize is a piece of cake, but what makes Moon Belize such a rich resource is Berman’s behind-the-scenes knowledge of the country. The 24-page front section of the book offers fantastic itinerary ideas – my favorites being “The Mundo Maya” (scattered across the inland part of the country are over thirty Mayan ruins), Belize’s “Best Dive Sites” (live-aboard to your heart’s content, or visit one of the country’s many atolls, reefs, and cays), and two off-the-beaten-path nature guides.

The main and middle portion of the guidebook is a comprehensive 230 pages of country information, broken up in seven parts: the Belize District, the Northern Cayes, Belmopan and the Hummingbird Highway, Cayo and the Mountain Pine Ridge, the Southern coast, Punta Gorda and the Toledo Villages, and Northern Belize. Each section begins with a handy “Highlights” guide and map and contains well-written, informational insets featuring local lore or facts where you can learn about such things as the cashew nut, jaguars, and manatees. There are also helpful walking guides within town centers or ruins for those wanting some direction and not wanting to pay for real tour guide.

The back section of the book provides helpful historical information, environmental background, and travel tips – all catered to the informed traveler. Berman leaves no stone unturned: he even writes about “Gettin’ Hitched and Honeymoonin'” in Belize on page 314 (my sister’s best friend had her destination wedding in Belize, so the book really is spot on in including such details). Berman adds personal touches to this edition as well, with a generous first-person Foreward and first-hand accounts sprinkled around the guide and back sections too (check out the cool interview on whale sharks on pages 210-211 and “The Future of the Reef” interview on pages 266-267).

The newest edition of Moon Belize really is a gem. With over 40 maps, a colorful front section of suggested itineraries, readable and informative guide, and amazingly detailed background information, Berman produced a true traveler’s notebook.

You can purchase this latest version of Moon Belize on Moon’s website. While you’re there, stop by Berman’s Moon Belize blog, or visit his Tranquilo Traveler blog if you are a fan – which you will be.

Also, stay tuned to Gadling for a special “Talking Travel with Joshua Berman” and Moon Belize book giveaway!

Travel Read: The Weight of Silence, Invisible Children of India

by Sean McLachlan on

If you’ve been to India you’ve seen them–they beg at the train stations, or collect plastic from the side of the road, or sell candy and tissues on the buses. They’re India’s 25 million abandoned children, and the ones you see count themselves lucky. Millions more are worked to death in sweatshops or brothels, or simply left in the wilderness to die.

The Weight of Silence: Invisible Children of India, a new book by Dog’s Eye View Media, explores the struggles of India’s homeless or orphaned children. Author Shelley Seale’s discovery of this human tragedy led her life in a whole new direction, and it is this that gives the book its impetus. Not only do we learn about the struggles of India’s children, and the living saints who dedicate their lives to helping them, but we watch Seale’s personal transformation from a Yuppie into something much more real.

Besides her personal story, two things really set this book apart from the “see the horrible things happening in the Third World” genre. Firstly, it takes a mostly positive spin. While Seale doesn’t flinch from the uglier side of Indian life, she focuses on the children’s resilience and dreams. They don’t come off as poor victims waiting for rich peoples’ help. Her main point is that these kids aren’t in need of handouts, but the basic human right of a childhood.

The second strong point is that the book is well grounded in fact, skillfully interwoven with the narrative so that it never slows down the writing. We learn such nasty tidbits such as that rural doctors give their patients the wrong medicine 50% of the time, or that only one in three rural medical practitioners know how to make rehydration solutions to treat diarrhea, and horrible statistics about child prostitution. All of these are carefully annotated.

The Weight of Silence is part travelogue, part expose, and gripping reading. The fact that this book shows deep respect for India’s people while not ignoring their faults sets this book apart. Even people who have traveled extensively in India will learn a lot.

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Traveler’s Bookshelf: A Rotten Person Travels the Caribbean

by Sean McLachlan on

When I see a book written by someone associated with a graduate writing program, I generally avoid it. There’s something about that culture that encourages carefully crafted, elegant prose that never manages to say anything. Gary Buslik, who teaches literature and creative writing at the University of Chicago, manages to avoid this all-to-common pitfall. Sort of.

A Rotten Person Travels the Caribbean, published by Travelers’ Tales, is a refreshing antidote to the overly precious writing of most English professors and MFA students. Even Buslik advises in an interview with Vagablogging that any aspiring young writer should get as far away from college as possible.

Buslik’s book is a collection of short tales of his adventures through the Caribbean, usually accompanied by his long-suffering yet completely unforgiving wife. Our hapless hero accidentally pees on ousted dictators, pukes during a guided tour, and gets into arguments with beggars. While the writing is funny enough that it made me actually laugh out loud in places (a hard thing to do) Buslik’s self-portrayal as an uneducated, oafish tourist rang a little hollow considering he has a Ph.D. in English and teaches at a major university. He is much more convincing when he gets serious, like when he tracks down an old friend of his literary hero Hemingway, or when he is shocked by the brutality of a cockfight. Then we’re with him, seeing his trepidation at meeting Hemingway’s aged friend, feeling his stomach turn as the cocks rip away at each other behind some West Indian shack. These pieces really grip the reader and hint that this is the real Buslik. They are well worth the cover price; the funny bits are just an added bonus.

I wished there had been more of the serious pieces and less of the silly (yet genuinely funny) romps through Touristland. I came away with the impression that Buslik has compensated too far in the other direction and sometimes forgets what so many of his colleagues also forget–that the best writing comes when the writer is being genuine.