Being immersed in other cultures can both illuminate aspects of that culture and newly or differently highlight aspects of one's own culture. Throughout our travels, the idea of "welcome" was an important theme and also very connected to the idea of community. Many places we visited take extreme pride in their sense of welcoming friends, family and strangers into their midst. In Morocco, we were almost always welcomed into an inn, store, event, home etc. with a tea ceremony. In Turkey, we learned that hosts will always offer visitors food, and if the visitor doesn't accept AND doesn't finish everything offered, that is a sign of conflict or disrespect. In Malawi, the warm heart of Africa, we heard stories of families, communities and churches welcoming in outsiders without hesitation and with care first and then, sometimes, questions later. Families welcome in friends or distant family members in times of need, simply because "that is what families do". Each of these experiences showed the value in these cultures of caring for one another, of truly welcoming one another without first needing to asses "fit", and of offering hospitality as a default position. Though we talk often about welcome and hospitality in the US, I have rarely experienced this kind of genuine warmth from a stranger or upon first meeting.

I wonder if part of our lack or loss of welcome comes from our American busy-ness and our seemingly endless need to always be performing or checking things off our to do lists. In Morocco, I would be lying if I didn't admit that there were sometimes we whispered to each other something about maybe we could just skip the tea ceremony and get on with whatever was next as if the welcome was just something to get past to get to the "real" experience rather than an integral part of experiencing their culture. It seems to me that Americans, as a generalized people, have lost the ability to just linger in one another's company for no other reason than just being together. Meals in many of the countries we visited, dinners especially, would last hours and hours. Again, our American sensibilities (and to be honest, often our sheer exhaustion) would often make us try to "hurry along" the end to the meal rather than just lingering in the time. It's not really about patience, though we could probably work on that too, but more about rethinking how we spend time and that there is value in being with people even without an agenda.

With this in mind, and with an admittedly peripheral and surface-level view, it seemed that many of the places we visited had much stronger family and friendship bonds than in the US. One thing that struck us early, in both Egypt and Morocco, were the physical displays of affection between friends. Groups of teenage boys, or fathers and sons, or adult girlfriends would walk down the street holding hands or with arms around each other. It seemed like there were fewer inhibitions in expressing love and affection between people, which I often find missing (and especially amongst men) in the US.

One last musing about the idea of welcome from our travels is in the language of saying "you're welcome" after a thank you. I'll confess that I had never really thought about how we use that same phrase when someone walks into our house and as the simple response to a thank you. I am not sure if it was hearing that phrase often by people for whom English was not their first language or a different emphasis on the word or what, but I definitely started hearing that phrase differently over time and thinking about what we mean when we say it in passing conversations. And, what if we really meant it? We offer someone a cup of coffee to which we receive a thanks, and in return, we insist that he is welcome -- welcome first, questions later. Or we spend time with a hurting friend who offers her thanks, and we remind her that even in brokenness, she is welcome.