How Two Weeks in Tanzania Transformed My Perspective on Freedom, Opportunity, and Appreciation

Three weeks ago, I left America, frustrated and pondering my exit. After two and a half weeks in Tanzania, my perspective changed completely.

There are many reasons to be frustrated with the rhetoric in this country, with the political theater we are subjected to, the same one we have both enabled and have created with our focus, our choices, our words, and our actions.

On July 1st, standing atop Africa’s highest peak, supported by incredibly hard-working people earning $10 a day, I began to see my country in a new light. The Tanzanian landscape, with its vast savannas and towering mountains, was as breathtaking as the resilience of its people, who seem genuinely happy with what seems like so very little, in contrast to the country I left.

I traveled among and interacted with the Maasai people, slept in their lands, and saw an entirely different way of life. The lack of access to clean water, to running water for that matter, to medical care or supplies, to simple things we never question – ice in our glasses, so many food options (enough to throw away when we’re full). To own a vehicle (even a motorcycle) is to live like royalty there, and very few do.

The Tanzanian government brings in a lot of revenue from tourism, as well as extensive taxation, which helps keep people living in poverty. Dissent is not allowed. While I was there a local artist was sentenced to 2 years in prison for burning a photo of the president.

The protests in Nairobi were happening across the border in Kenya while I was there, and more than one local remarked that would never happen in Tanzania — the government would immediately kill anyone organizing to such a protest.

The sheer privilege we live with in this country became palpable to me. I’ve never felt so grateful touching down in ATL, navigating U.S. Customs, and ultimately arriving home. I’ve never fully appreciated how incredibly fortunate I am to have been born into a land where a good education was easily accessible. Opportunities to create wealth, to grow, to learn, to expand, and yes, to choose to leave this country if I want, are never questioned.

People from Tanzania know they cannot come here, even if they have the money. We make it incredibly difficult (no judgment here, just a fact) for people from many countries to visit, for fear they won’t leave. But I can get on a plane and go just about anywhere in the world I want, when I want, and not be denied access.

And so, as our American politicians and their respective parties continue to upstage each other, I’m not surprised. But I’m no longer dismayed, or really impacted in any way emotionally. The show will go on, and as long as we continue to react and fret and allow it to continue, it simply will.

Sensationalism sells here. Reality TV works, because we’ve become so privileged and lazy and ungrateful that we feed on the drama. So those with (or wanting) control serve it up to us daily, and we consume it without so much as a smell test.

But I’m grateful. I’m so incredibly grateful. I stood in the grocery store the day I returned, looking at a wall of bandage options — there were at least 8 selections in the size bandage I wanted. I couldn’t find a single one over 10 days and 8 pharmacies in Africa. I couldn’t even find aspirin there when I needed it. And, no joke, as I pulled into the garage in my complex arriving home from the airport, I got out of my car, looked down on the ground, and an unopened band-aid was just lying there.

The pharmacists in Africa told me it’s a supply issue — they can’t even get them there to sell (even if people could buy them). Here we drop them and don’t even care enough to pick them up. We have no fear of running out, or losing access.

The contrast has changed me. The journey has opened my eyes to the blessings I often overlook. I returned home with a renewed sense of gratitude and a deeper appreciation for the freedoms we enjoy. I appreciate this country, warts and all, in a way I hadn’t before.

And if I do eventually leave, it won’t be in anger or with bitterness. It will be with the gratitude of a citizen afforded the choice to agree or to dissent, to stay or to go.