My Life As a Nomad

Mary Smith was born and raised in a country behind the Iron Curtain. She lived in a tiny apartment and shared a bedroom with her parents during the frigid winter months. She wore school uniforms and red pioneer ties. She ate variations of potato dishes, stood in line for a loaf of bread, carried heavy blocks of ice during the hot summer days, played hide-and-seek with the children in the building, and thought that life was wonderful. Her nonconformist parents, however, talked of a world beyond the Iron Curtain and planned to escape to a place where they thought they would find freedom.

My Life As a Nomad recounts Mary’s peregrinations through five countries on three continents that began in 1964. What started as an adventure full of promises, evolved as a perennial search for a “home” amid the customs and traditions of an unfamiliar world.

“Adam was but human – this explains it all. He did not want the apple for the apple’s sake, he wanted it only because it was forbidden. The mistake was in not forbidding the serpent; then he would have eaten the serpent.”

Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain

“The quality of mercy... is twice bless'd;

It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes; ’Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes the throned monarch better than his crown.”

The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare

Mary Smith was born and raised in a country behind the Iron Curtain. She lived in a tiny apartment and shared a bedroom with her parents during the frigid winter months. She wore school uniforms and Red Pioneer ties. She ate variations of potato dishes, stood in line for a loaf of bread, carried heavy blocks of ice during the hot summer days, played hide-and-seek with the children in the building, and thought that life was wonderful. Her nonconformist parents, however, talked of a world beyond the Iron Curtain and planned to escape to a place where they thought they would find freedom.

Mary’s peregrinations through five countries on three continents began in 1964. What started as an adventure full of promises, evolved as a perennial search for a “home”, amid the customs and traditions of an unfamiliar world.

In her book, Mary Smith includes a quotation from Mark Twain: “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it on these accounts.”

As much as the author admires this great writer, she does not agree with his statement.

Travelling to places without living among the societies of sojourn may not influence the way one sees the surroundings. It is only upon inhaling their air, living off their food, laughing at their jokes and speaking their language, that the traveller may start shading the “prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness”.

My Life As a Nomad describes the people and places of the author’s sojourn, and most importantly, it attempts to analyse the impact of these experiences on her personal growth.

The book follows her journey as an inhabitant of five countries with vastly different political systems, cultural norms and socioeconomic structures. Mary Smith spoke the local languages, worked and studied with the natives, and at times, became impervious to the differences between “them” and her.

She watched, listened, and occasionally blended in. And in doing so, she realized that no matter where she would travel, she still has the DNA of her place of birth, and that this cannot be severed. So where is home, for even her own country of origin may be unrecognizable after decades of global changes?

By learning to accept humanity with all its idiosyncrasies, she may discard the “prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness”, and start building a home.