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Stranger in a Strange Land Newsletter: April 2007

Dear Readers,
In the last newsletter I announced a presentation of my travels that ended up having a good turnout: the people, kids and adults, who turned out really appreciated the photos, stories, and cultural observations I had to share and I really enjoyed consolidating the thousands of photos I have down to gems of a couple dozen per country. Still, only about a dozen people were there. And half of them were related to me. That was disappointing.

But despite the small turnout, as an indirect result, I was invited to speak at a big unschooling conference this summer in Texas. I'm going to give a speech entitled: "How NOT to Find a Shaman in Korea," because they say one should write about what one knows, and I really know how not to find a shaman in Korea. The subtitle of the speech is: "An Unschoolers Initiation and Search for Meaning in the World." I'll send out the first ever Stranger in a Strange Newsletter Supplement: an e-mail the conference sent out with my bio and a description of my speech and the workshops I'm doing. It's the Rethinking Education Conference and it looks really cool actually.

And this has been my dream: speaking and sharing my experiences and what I've learned from educating myself, travelling, and staying in touch with my ancestors as much as I can (sometimes they call and I'm not there to answer, I feel bad, but I do try my best). The conference people are flying me down, putting me up in a hotel room, and paying me generously. It is wonderful and humbling to have my words valued so. And I pray I can justice to that value and that it can lead to further engagements of this kind, speaking to unschoolers or others about education, the value of travelling, and other strange things. That would kick ass.

Some readers may be saying to themselves, "That's great Eli. Good for you. Now, what in the world is unschooling?" The simplest definition is: another name for homeschooling; being educated without going to school full time. But, really, unschooling is a state of mind. Unschooling is when you get up in the morning and say to yourself: "Wow, today I am doing what I want with my life." Or, "Wow, today looks like it's gonna suck. And the person I have to blame for that is myself." In other words it's when you're able, and even forced, to use the resources around you and inside of you; when you realize, and are often surprised at, the depth, beauty, and strength in those resources. It's like discovering a well, dipping a vessel into it, and drinking deep from the clear, cold water thereat.

"Alright, alright, but where are the travel stories?" Well, I haven't been travelling, I've been here in Boston. Now, I'm less than a mile away from where the U.S. started 232 years ago on April 19th, 1775. I've enjoyed being here and understandably a lot of the people of I've hung-out with have actually been foreigners. I've been hanging out with these three French Au pairs, which isn't quite as sexy as it sounds, but they're pretty cool. I was introduced to them by my friend Farid whose dad is from India and whose mother is from England. And my friend Nafi grew up in Israel and on his birthday I hung-out with him and his friends: one guy whose family is from Trinidad, one guy from China, and his friend Adam whose parents and wife are from Egypt. At one point Nafi said to him, "I just don't understand why you have a Jewish name?" To which Adam replied, "Adam was the first man! Anybody can claim that name!"

That's about all I have for news. I am trying to plan how I could do travel tours for people so you're not just reading about these amazing places but actually experiencing them. Otherwise, I'm enjoying riding my bike and doing my landscape work. I hope you're enjoying your spring as well.

All the best to you,
Eli


Actually, one story from my travels that I've been thinking about is a time in Thailand when I let someone use my laptop, they messed it up somehow, and eventually I decided to take a break trying to fix it. I was staying at a hostel right on the river that formed the Laos/Thai border and I walked over and stood underneath a tree to watch the sunset on that political boundary. It was lovely and relaxing and it turned out someone else was enjoying the view as well. It was a middle-aged German man who became very excited when he realized I was from the U.S. He said matter-of-factly, "Oh, I like your President Bush! And I really don't like Muslim people!" But actually, I think I'll save the rest of that story for the next newsletter, this one is getting a little long. Until then!