Royal Blue Passport Privilege.

When I travel situations always arise that remind me the power in a royal blue American passport.
Not all passports are treated equally.
Its quite the opposite really.
While others undergo third degree questioning,
 in a language far from their mother tongue,
in accents so thick I can barely identify it as English,
my passport doesn't even warrant a second look.
What makes me different from the woman being repeatedly asked why she wants to enter the country?
The fact that I was born in the right place at the right time?
The fact that my passport is royal blue with that golden United States of America imprint?
Why does that provide me with automatic respect and a guarantee of a visa in most countries?
I bow down to those in developing countries who have worked incredibly hard to obtain that passport.
My dream of travel is not a unique dream.
It is however a dream that I can fulfill with little difficulty due to my nationality.
Most of the world will never get a chance to travel to their countries capitol city let alone another country.
I feel that often times we get wrapped up in our American Royal Blue Passport Privilege and forget how fortunate we are to be able to travel pretty freely.

I've looked at clouds from both sides now.

If I would have posted a blog last night it wouldn't have looked like this. It would of been angry and not a fair representation of the situation.

Am I hurt that some one broke into my hotel room and stole my laptop, camera, and my friends camera? Of course I am.

Do I wish any harm to the person who did it? No.

After living in an area of extreme poverty for a little over 6 months now I find myself  trying to look at things from both sides. Here in Ethiopia the punishment for theft is pretty hefty. For someone to be willing to risk that punishment for a laptop means to me that they must be pretty desperate. Life here is very difficult. Last night I felt very angry and hurt. Violated even. Upset that a someone from a country that I have grown to love so much would steal from me. And then today at my physical therapy appointment the ladies who help me figured out that I spoke some Amharic and oromifa. The usual clintal of the clinic are wealthy Ethiopians and foreign diplomats. The diplomats usually take a total of zero minutes to learn the language and so the ladies got very excited. They told me over and over agin how much they appreciate me trying to learn their language.

I'm not going to let little things like material possessions get in the way of why I am here.