What Travel Reveals About Our Shared Humanity as Women
Over the past month, I’ve traveled halfway around the world — from the seamlessly choreographed chaos of motorbikes weaving through the streets of Hanoi to the vast, breathtaking stillness of the Masai Mara.
In both places, life moves with its own rhythm. Distinct. Yet deeply human.
In Vietnam, I sat beside women whose childhoods were shaped by the long shadow of the Vietnam War — and others, like me, who rode banana seat bikes in suburban cul-de-sacs, blissfully unaware of what was unfolding across the globe while we grew up. Some of us had brothers who fought. Others had families who protested. Few of us understood what was happening in a country largely closed to us after the war until Vietnam’s economic reforms began in 1986.
Despite our dramatically different childhoods, we found touching common ground with our Vietnamese sisters in our shared concern for family, generational change, the impact of technology, and the questions of belonging many of us face as women at this stage of life.
We each move forward.
In Kenya, we gathered with highly accomplished women in Nairobi who have built substantial networks of leadership and economic resilience through chama circles — a community model of mutual support for women that rose after Kenya’s independence in 1963.
Women strengthening women. Quietly. Strategically. Collectively. Joyously.
We danced and sang, exchanged stories and gifts, and explored ways we might stay connected — including HHJ weaving the community organizations they lead into future journeys and their own hopes of joining this global traveling sisterhood.
The reach of their economic leadership within the community, their tender care and respect for parents, and their deep concern for the young men in their lives touched us all. We continue to stay in touch and reconnected with several of them for big hugs our last day in country!
Days after this incredible circle, we experienced another face of Kenya as young girls interpreted for their mothers while we gathered at a newer Maasai school on the edges of the Naboisho Conservancy.
Everywhere we traveled, curious onlookers would ask:
“Who are you?”
“What are you doing here?”
“Sisterhood,” we would answer.
Global in its reach.
In Vietnam, mindfulness practices grounded us as we explored a history far more layered than the war that has defined so much of the American narrative. We learned of centuries of resilience — including a thousand years under Chinese rule, nearly a century of French colonization, war with America, and the complicated aftermath that followed.
Yet what revealed itself most powerfully was not conflict — it was character.
Our beloved guide, Tho, shared stories from his small village outside Hanoi and his determined rise into the tourism industry. Each story revealed a tender, steady, generous man — his humility, his pride, his hope. Through him, Vietnam felt personal. Alive. Forward-looking. And caring.
He so purely lived the Mindfulness we were studying — his priorities, responses, and ability to forgive himself and others so evident.
One feels a certain restraint in Vietnam — something subtle, perhaps shaped by a political structure different from my own lived experience. Yet beneath it, the country pulses with ambition and vitality. It is modernizing rapidly, culturally vibrant, and economically rising. There is something powerful about witnessing a nation actively redefining itself.
Though it carries a similar entrepreneurial spirit, Kenya is also distinct.
Wide, radiant smiles greet you everywhere. The warmth of hospitality is unmistakable. Almost every young person you meet is pursuing tourism or hospitality.
The strength of communal life is foundational.
My longtime Kenyan sister, Terry — who grew up near Lake Victoria and later founded a school in her home village of Migori — interprets her culture for us with wisdom shaped by both tradition and global experience. Years ago, she and I worked side by side caring for students at a boarding school in the United States. When I wanted to bring women to Kenya, I knew I needed her eyes, her context, her truth, to take this experience beyond the typical tourist narrative.
In Kenya, the small village life of her childhood gave context to everything we experienced — from family and community to education and role expectations.
When we visited an impressive growing Maasai school on the edge of the conservancy, she knew how to facilitate distributing sanitary supplies to help ensure young girls do not miss school during their cycles.
She also brings context to how our group can appropriately approach our desire to establish an ongoing legacy of support for this school community that captured our hearts.
What we discovered amongst the Maasai was a generous, determined tribal culture in the midst of transition — shifting from ancient nomadic ways toward more settled living, introducing new housing traditions and diets that now include agriculture.
I knew I needed her eyes and heart to make this experience authentic.
Among Kenyan women — in chama circles and beyond — community is not an accessory to life.
It is life.
You cannot help but feel it.
And on the savannah, Maasai guides speak of wildlife not with detachment, but with reverence. When they lift their binoculars and quietly say, “Beautiful,” they mean it. Nothing is jaded. Nothing is routine.
Life is a daily wonder…they, the land, and all that live on it.
We find ourselves missing dear Alfonso and Kisemei, whose joy, knowledge, and playful spirit enriched our days. Their love of surprise and ready laughter became a cherished part of our experience.
As I curate these journeys, my goal is never simply to visit a place. It is to gently guide an inner journey alongside the outer one — to move beyond sightseeing into soul-seeing. To allow women to feel the spirit of a place and its people, and to notice what awakens within themselves in response.
This time last year, my own life felt heavy. Uncertain. The world felt fractured.
Today, I feel light.
Grateful beyond words for genuine connection. For expanded perspective. For the reminder that humanity is far more nuanced — and far more beautiful — than headlines suggest.
As we travel, we witness evolution everywhere.
Vietnamese entrepreneurs planting roots in rapidly growing cities while the countryside shifts around them. Women who lived through the most recent war looking forward, most concerned for what comes next for their youth.
Maasai navigating the tension between nomadic tradition and modern settlement—adapting to change without letting go of who they are. And in Nairobi, our sisters leading powerful networks of economic strength while embodying the warm, generous, and deeply inclusive spirit that draws us to Kenya.
These are women of strength and grace.
Across continents — as within our own lives — change is constant. Rarely easy. Often uncomfortable.
Yet it also carries possibility.
The world has been overturning in visible ways since the pandemic. Systems shake. Norms dissolve. Certainties fade. And yet, beneath it all, something enduring remains.
Resilience. Forgiveness. Hope. Oneness. Unity. Trust.
Travel — when entered with humility and curiosity — reveals that these are not abstract ideals. They are lived realities in villages, in cities, in women’s circles, in shared meals, and in quiet glances of understanding across cultural differences.
What is forming now, across our world, will not look like what was.
But perhaps — if we are willing to see one another clearly — it will be wiser. More open. Understanding. United.
And more whole, as we discover what binds us.
This is my celebration of International Women's Day — vibrant, hopeful women steadily and patiently reshaping our world.
With special love to all my HHJ sisters who shared these recent journeys with me. I see you still reflecting on what we learned together and keeping our connection alive.
XOX, Jen
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