My husband sort of grew up in Istanbul, Turkey. He has a special fondness for the place. We were planning to visit last year but this year because of the recent violence to the US embassy, it will not be the place. I have other places to visit.
This discussion has devolved from the wisdom of organizations such as DWB going into dangerous areas to dumb tourists making dumber decisions. It’s not the same thing, so let’s not pretend that it is.
Actually Kayla Mueller’ torture, rapes and death is merely one example of the horrific systematic violence and sexual enslavement being committed against non-Muslim girls and women such as the Yadzi and mideast christians by Isis. If the public revelation of the treatment of Kayla Mueller finally has the US public focus on what the heck is really happening and that systematic sexually slavery is alive and well throughout the world, including the US, then her death will have served a purpose. The lives and treatment of these girls and women is far more important than the idiotic slaughter of one lion.
People are free to go where they want to go and do, but do it with eyes wide open. It is unfair to expect someone else’s kid/spouse/parent (loved one) to bail them out when they get in the harms way. I hurt for the family whenever I read about those incidents on the media. At the same time, I do wonder why they did what they did knowing the risk, and if they knew at what length we had to go through to get them back safely.
Someone I know has become a doctor in SE Asia. The reason is children die because that place has lousy basic health care. They have spent years making trips to vaccinate kids. The reason is you want to help and you feel the such a strong need that you uproot your life.
@TatinG said “Apparently there are no people needing medical treatment in this country. No mentally I’ll homeless, no alcoholics, no drug addicted, no people in rural areas far from clinics, no children who have never seen a doctor…that it’s necessary to go half way around the world to help.”
Yes, there are mentally ill, homeless, alcoholics, drug addicts, people in rural areas far from clinics, chidren who have never seen a doctor in this country who have never seen a doctor.
You’ve brought up a lot of serious problems. So the next logical question is this: what are YOU doing to solve any or all of those problems?? DWB are helping others. What are you doing?
When we adopted my son from Korea, someone had the temerity to ask me why we hadn’t adopted domestically. My reaponse was: We chose international. Have YOU adopted domestically??
Funny enough, the answer was no. They were more than willing to tell me how to run my life, but unwilling to take their own advice.
And @stugace, I know someone who ran down 32 or 33 flights of stairs to survive 9/11 in the World Trade Center. A number of kids I’ve taught in the years since lost a parent on that day. If you’re under the impression that staying in the US will keep you “safe”, you’re incredibly naïve.
I think we tend to underestimate the dangers of the familiar and overestimate the dangers of the unfamiliar. For instance, as I was writing about the relative dangers of the travel to Mexico vs. the US I thought about the Baltimore riots, the World Trade Center bombings and weather related dangers in CA such as earthquakes and mudslide, but I totally forgot about the Boston Marathon bombings, which happened right in my back yard. My kid’s school was closed as the police combed the city for these dangerous lunatics, yet since that sad day I have never hesitated to send my kids into the city. I just don’t worry about terrorists, domestic or foreign, attacking my city although obviously it’s happened before and could happen again.
You know what, I think you just nailed it.
I should add that this doesn’t mean I wouldn’t discourage any of my kids from traveling to or working in Syria. The problem with getting into a lather about statistically remote dangers and lumping relatively safe places in with unsafe ones is that it makes the truly dangerous places seem less so. To say “I would never travel to Turkey” seems to me to be an overreaction. My family and I had a wonderful time in Istanbul and Cappadocia and found the people to be warm and welcoming. I felt as safe there as I would walking down a tree in DC or NYC. That said, I would not take my family to Southeastern Turkey. Travel to the Syrian border would entail risks I wouldn’t be willing to take with my family.
And you wouldn’t expect someone else’s loved one to to bail you out if you should decide to take such risk. And you wouldn’t expect your government to trade a terrorist for your safe return either.
Everything depends on timing.
^^ What does that even mean? How is this cliche germane to this conversation?
It is because some places were considered great to visit last year and not so great this year. Take for example the Greek Island Kos is now been crowded with Afghan refugees. Even Greeks are complaining that it will affect tourism. Have you been watching the news?
Oh, I see. We’re back to tourism talk.
My post is in response to post #68 about the part never visit Turkey. I’ve made comments Turkey was in the works until there were violence at the US embassy recently.
My girls visited Turkey last year, hiked part of the coast with a friend. There were some demonstrations in Istambul just prior to their arrival. Things were fine for them, no dicey moments aside from hiking too late in the day at a point.
Having family overseas, in Bangkok specifically during some of the demonstrations of recent years, has made me aware of how unaffected most residents of a city are by what seems to be horrific news as reported internationally. Yes, one street or area is filled with demonstrators. A few streets over, as well as in the rest of the million plus city, life goes on as usual.
Not to say that war zones such as Syria are not better avoided.
Totally right about overestimating the dangers you don’t know and minimizing the dangers you do know. In Chicago, there have been 260 people shot and killed this year. Are tourists avoiding Chicago? Some internationals probably are, as we have a rather violent reputation seen from some countries overseas.
Although there are countless of cities in other countries which are more dangerous, generally speaking, excluding the non-developed countries, some of our cities like Chicago are indeed more dangerous than, say, some major cities in Japan or S. Korea. We would not hear that 260 people have been shot and killed this year over there. (For one thing, the gun violence is quite rare there – it takes more efforts to kill 260 people when guns are not the choice of weapons.)
Whats the use of having the Mission Statement:
…if you are not willing to go where there is conflict, epidemics, disasters or exclusion from health care.
This thread might as well ask why someone would want to be Navy Seal instead of having a cushy office job w air conditioning.
@GMTplus7, I will be the first person to admit that I will take the latter job (a cushy office job) than the former job – even if I were capable of doing the former job.
That may be the reason why I do not have much achievement in my life. LOL. (Also, I would avoid visiting any place on the Earth that is perceived as unsafe. I am, by my own nature, very “chicken.”)
@mcat
Don’t look at me. I’m not a Navy Seal neither!