I was featured on the Citizen!
not once but twice!
I was recently featured on the Citizen. More than pride, it was filled with a lot of mixed feelings. At first, it was shock and apprehension. I did not know I would be featured once more and when. I did not know the content of the article. Once I saw it, I was kinda embarrassed. There is so much great work I do, and here I am featured on the Citizen for my crazy travel love story!!! As someone commented, “Is that even newsworthy?”
You see, our capitalist society tells us it’s only great news if you have achieved great success. It especially loves the story where you have made it from nothing to a billionaire! Or how you overcame something and now are the next messiah! And those stories are amazing, they give us hope, something to strive for, and feel like, “If they can, I can make it too!” It didn’t help that I was asked, “Did you pay to be featured?” or “Oh wow! What were you featured for?” And so I remained embarrassed, did not share it much and quietly let it pass. But, the comment about paying to be featured did not leave my head. I kept thinking, I do so much social work, creating awareness for mental health, women’s empowerment and rights, fighting patriarchy and what do I get featured for…. how travel built a stronger bond in my marriage?
I kept thinking about how this article could have been so much more interesting with facts about how I found myself through travel, how I found my partner through travel, how many crazy travel experiences I have had, or how he has entertained my crazy ideas… anything but this!
Today, I sit and contemplate on the article, that I have not physically received a paper of, not got the online article for, but managed to read it only from bits and pieces from what everyone sent me. And you know what, I feel proud. I feel proud of the little girl who was so curious in life, who grew up to be this woman who not only found so much through travel including her husband and “the bond” as they called it, but also her little inner girl. I feel so proud of that little inner girl who not only feels seen by me, or people around me, but the whole of Tanzania! This little girl who used to be so shy, but yet so bold and adventurous found her way into someone’s heart enough to move him to write my story!
So today, I want to thank the guy who found so much awe in our story. Most of the time, the crazy travel ideas belong to me, but it is my partner who executes them - if this is not building a strong bond, then what is? So today, I am proudly re-sharing my featured articles of being on one of the biggest newspapers in Tanzania!