Take the time to explore the world around U.S.

Most of you reading this have been to Charlotte. It is 141 miles from Chapel Hill, roughly a two- hour drive going slightly faster than the speed limit.

Now imagine that when you arrived, you discovered that the average salary of an adult was $16 a month. Ninety-five percent of all businesses were government-run. And outside half of the houses were busts of George Washington and the painted slogan, "Long Live George W. Bush."

Now you'll begin to understand how different life was for me during the four months I spent in Havana, Cuba, last semester.

Although it sits only 90 miles south of Florida, Cuba is as close to a mirror opposite of America as one could find anywhere in the world.

To start with the obvious, Cuba is a communist country.

The type of communism where you buy eggs from ration cards and find ice cream on a black market.

Yes, black market ice cream.

First you walk down the driveway of a nondescript house. You reach your hand through two metal, gated doors and give the woman behind them your plastic shopping bag.

Your ice cream would be dropped into the plastic bag and you would be instructed to wait two blocks before eating your contraband.

We're all familiar with feeling like it takes an hour to get an omelette at Lenoir. In Cuba, it literally takes an hour.

In Cuba, it's a common occurrence to have nine people working in a restaurant with 20 tables and five customers, and it still takes 45 minutes to get a sandwich. That isn't a joke, it is a daily reality.

Both of these problems would be fixed if people had the ability to sell the goods the market demanded and would receive payment based on their performances - two of the pillars of a free-market system that were outlined in your Economics 10 lecture right before you fell asleep.

The simple economic principle of supply and demand is made real when literally five to 10 people a day ask you for a lighter because no one has taken the time to evaluate the demand for lighters.

In Cuba, things become real.

When your credit card suddenly becomes useless and you have only $200 left in your pocket for the next three weeks, the policy readings that you had skipped over seem a lot more relevant.

Past American presidents such as Ronald Reagan become more than just historical figures when the policies enacted during their terms explain why the housekeepers keep eating the chocolate powder and Pringles in your closet and leave the $600 in your drawer alone.

The experiences you have while abroad are ones you can neither replicate nor forget.

Going randomly door-to-door with a few hundred dollars, trying to find and pay Cubans for illegal cable so we could watch the Tar Heels play for the national championship, is a memory I share with only five other Americans. And also a few Cubans, who were confused by animated foreigners screaming at the 20-inch television screen.

Like an inside joke, you just had to be there.

When you arrive back on campus, everything suddenly isn't clear, every theory learned in class automatically isn't validated by your experience and you suddenly don't want to drop your pre-med major to join Greenpeace.

To be honest, a lot of your experience begins to fade and you can't remember those things you swore you'd never forget. But if you really think about it, you begin to realize how much you have changed.

Having spent a semester watching premier league soccer, you have a lot more to talk about with the foreign exchange student who sits next to you in your policy class, and you have a new friend to help you paint the town on Friday night.

After spending a summer teaching in Africa, you might use an APPLES course to spend two days a week helping out in a learning disabilities middle school class.

These aren't just random scenarios I've imagined; these are my personal experiences.

Travel of any kind, be it a week-long trip during winter break or a yearlong study abroad program, can have a profound impact on you as a person and as a student.

I've yet to meet anyone who has gone abroad and has returned wishing she had never gone.

Many people come in with a four-year college plan they feel has no room for travel. They have clubs, classes and life plans that can in no way be compromised to accommodate an international experience.

Travel of any kind affords you a break, a moment to catch your breath and gather yourself again.

I urge you not to take time to smell the roses, but to take time to go to Ecuador and see the rose farms where they grow.

The next time you see a rose, it'll mean a lot more than a bunch of cliches.

 

Contact Andrew Patterson at hopa@email.unc.edu.