Don't Call Me A Tourist

Please don't call me a tourist.
I understand why you do. It's a term everyone uses. Everyday.
I understand that my accent is a bit different than yours. I understand that my Passport is stamped differently. I understand that you were born here and I was born there.
Just, please don't call me a tourist.
I understand that I do activities that a tourist would do.
I still get excited over a plate of gallo pinto and I am still mesmerised by the blue-ness of your water.
I understand that much of how I behave is classified as tourism.
I pay different prices for park entrances and I gaze at monkeys and sloths and canopies with the eye-twinkle of an amateur.

I just think that maybe we have got it all wrong.
And the more you call me a tourist,
The more I become one.

When was it that we stopped being nomads?
And became tourists?

When was it that we stopped being care-takers of the land?
And became conquerers?

When was it that we stopped being us?
And became you and I?

Please don't call me a tourist
Because I didn't come here to tour this world.
I was born here from it.

I didn't come here to see and take.
I was birthed to experience.

If I call myself a tourist, I separate.
Me from you. My land from your land.
When I call myself a tourist, I feel that I am not home.
I feel that I am searching. That I do not belong.

I forget that my home is this Earth.
The mountains and the rivers, the air and the sunlight
The smiles
The food
The embraces
This is all my own. My home.

It is all mine. All ours.
Belonging. Yet, not permanent.

It is not ours to keep. None of it.
Just to experience. Just to embrace the essence. Embody it and carry it with you, passing it on to all those people and places you encounter along the way.

We are nomads.

And we have forgotten our very nature.

We have built communities... that have turned into civilisations...that have turned into societies....

Societies
Separating us.
Settling us.

And we have forgotten that the soles of our feet love to sink into the soil.
That our hands love to know the textures of the trees.
And our skin longs to be wrapped in the waters
And kissed by the winds.

We have forgotten that as we walk
We arrive with each step
To a new place that our bodies long to know
Where our souls already belong
We just need some time to become familiar and comfortable.

And there are things there that will help us to understand
Connect again
To this new place
An old home

And we must remember.
With patience and an open-mind.
Choosing love over fear.
Opening our ears and our hearts
To listening and accepting
What this new place has to share with us. Living beings that come in unique shapes and colors and sizes. Cultured by the environment they grew from.

We must remember, as we arrive
not as tourists
As nomads
not as conquerers
As caretakers

Of the same Earth. Of the same land.
That gives us the necessities to live. Oxygen. Heat. Wind.
And also pleasure. enjoyment. Love.

We must remember, as we arrive from a place that shaped us a bit differently
That we still walk with the same feet upon the same Earth
And we must ask ourselves

What makes us human together?
All temporary inhabitants of this planet
All sharing the space together

We have all taken
Our whole lives
Take from the Earth its fruits
We have harvested it
We have drawn lines
That have determined what is mine. What is yours. Where you can go. Where I can go.
We have gone so far as to called some of Earth's babies
Illegal.

Because we have forgotten
That at one point we all walked this place together.
Nowhere was mine
Except in my mind.

And now we are remembering
The wisdom that we all carry inside of us is waking up
As we begin to move again
From the settlements
That are beginning to suffocate us

We are picking up and going. Longing to share. Learn. Discover. Awaken.

Just
Please don't think like a tourist

Be humble, as you arrive, as a nomad slowly and patiently gets to know the land and its people
Its landscapes and life forms

Be respectful of the new place you go.
Yes.
Understand that you know nothing when you get there
Yes.
Be careful. And open-minded.
Stay curious. Ask questions.
Because you have forgotten.
Because you were settled and shaped and separated
So that you could "develop"

And now
You are ready to remember

You are already home.
You are a nomad.
You are me.
Learning to adapt.
Ready to understand.
Willing to accept.
Longing to love.

Don't be afraid.
The people and places look different.
Be open to love.
And you will see how much is the same.

Don't come to take.
It is already yours.
Come to experience. And it will forever be with you.

The path of tourists: "out-of-towners, travelling or visiting a place for pleasure"

This is how we have come to interact with our Earth
Our Mother
As out-of-towners

And it is time that we remember that we are home.
Everyday. Everywhere.
No one is illegal. No one is a tourist.
These are inventions of our human society.

We all belong
Here

And everyday
Every where
With all living beings of all forms with whom we interact,
It is our right
And our responsibility
To love, respect, listen, receive, give, and care
With our deepest desires for good
And highest intentions for integrity
Just as our Mother Earth has always provided

And instilled within us
This right and responsibility to love
As nomads, living with the Earth, caring for her and her inhabitants
As she so willingly does for us.

Don't you think it is time we remembered?