T.W.S

Pour la traduction en français, cliquez ici

One downfall of moving on a regular basis is the actual movement itself. 

The mere thought of having to pack yet another time seems unbearable.

If you put things in perspective, there are several species of packers.

• The fanciest one is the paying packer; they are the smart, disciplined and richer people who pay others to pack their belongings and deal with the transportation from A to B.
• The next type is a crate packer; another smart, organized and well-travelled expat, who will use the moving allowance fully and perhaps add a substantial amount, and will have the shipment delivered once after the arrival at destination.
• The nomad family that we are, is sadly from the third category: the TWS (Travelling With Suitcases). Scarred deeply after a shipment being detained in customs by evil airport services in the old Ottoman land, and having had to retrieve the shipment for a price much higher than it’s actual value, this family has decided to travel by suitcases. An incredible challenge indeed!

This explains how a seemingly mad couple and their two young children arrived with 9 suitcases, a little over 3 weeks ago, in Tunis.

Now, does what you own make you the person you are?

In a way, it reflects on your personality; the way you arrange your furniture, you fill them with a certain amount of “things”, which has a sentimental value to you, a trophy of some sort, or perhaps just for the sake of improving your décor. And then of course, there is society.

Nowadays, we are encouraged daily, on the roads, the streets, TV, the internet, social networks and more, to buy/consume. There are countless subliminal and narcissist messages to convince you that you need more, that this new “thing” will make you prettier, better, fuller, stronger… And not only because you need it, but also because you deserve it, you are entitled to it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjGZltVZORA

I always recall the Ted talk that refers to a rigged Monopoly game, and how regular players, who were benefiting from a strong advantage, started to change. Suddenly, their body language was dominating, their vocabulary became undermining towards the “losing” player and they kept on praising themselves for doing so well as they felt entitled to it.

http://www.ted.com/talks/paul_piff_does_money_make_you_mean?language=en#

Of course, this is a cliché, and hamdullilah, there are many people who are showing great generosity and empathy with their wealth.

A few years ago, I could have happily collected hundreds of items of clothing, little “things”, and any form of memories I could. As we left the land of the pyramids, which I greatly miss daily, we had to make a decision and it is when having seen this part of the world helped us.

One attribute of this geographic area, from Turkey, to Egypt and now Tunis, is that it will make you a better person. You will see, with your own eyes, (not behind your comfy TV screen) people who are living with one tenth of what you have and still manage to smile and get by. Whether it is in the East of Turkey, in the small village or garbage city in Cairo, people are getting by.

For the past six years, we have not thrown away one toy or piece of garment, unless it was completely impossible to repair it. Every time our children’s or our own clothes/toys/belonging became unnecessary to our lives, we have given it to people who needed it more than we did.

It is proven that the less you have, the most empathic you will be to others, and witnessing blind generosity from people who lived on the bare minimum, we started to stop not caring! 
It became impossible to walk by someone who is lying on the ground and walk past him; it became impossible to see a guard, spending his entire nights outside as a job, and not bring him coffee, sandwiches and/or soups when we could do it.

When packing our nine suitcases, we told our children that they had to donate their toys to children who needed them more than they did, and they understood it.

In a world, where people are sending off their children and women on inflatable boats to escape a war that started despite them, it is crucial we all tap into the well of generosity that we have within us, however filled it is, and realize that we were lucky to be born in a place where “problems” really aren’t problems.

Even though we are encouraged to only look at ourselves and feel as though our lives were incomplete, it is crucial that we step out of our first world vision, and embrace with as much empathy and humanity as we can those whose world has collapsed and need help.

Many of us do it, because sharing or donating really is caring, and because we must never forget how fortunate we are.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cy6iwP9Ux3A