My uncle, a lover of travel, history and culture once called me a “citizen of the world.” I was taken aback, flattered by the phrase. It seemed a high title for someone who simply enjoyed seeing the planet and its people.
As the world gets smaller economically and socially, however, more and more people are becoming citizens of the world. They are thinking globally in terms of business, politics, service and all sorts of other issues.
The other day I received a Facebook message from a dear old friend. I lived with his family for two years when I was a Peace Corps volunteer in West Africa in the mid-1990s. During that time, our village house had no running water or electricity. Most mornings I went with the other women to pull water from a deep well and carry it back to the house in a bucket balanced on my head.
At night, a kerosene lantern illuminated the house where we ended our days with a simple dinner, bucket baths under the stars and fading conversation. Fifteen years later, my old friend can reach me online to say: “Hello. How is your family?”
Now that’s keeping in touch — over time, through shifting cultures, across oceans.