If I had never sent an email message to the U.S. embassy in Liberia, I never would have had the absolutely in-cre-di-ble experiences that I shared in previous blogs. So, you should know how I travel by now. I can live without running water and electricity. Warm soft drinks and cold bucket baths don’t phase me. Three people riding a motorcycle taxi? Bring it on. An outhouse or a shared bathroom down the hall don’t make me blink. My only hardship in Liberia was very intermittent access to email.
I love my Internet.
I’d gone two weeks without my fix and I was more excited than I like to admit when I finally found myself at a hotel with both air-conditioning and internet. I never left my room. There was so much email to sort through and two of the messages were simply dance-around-the-room exciting. There were two, count ‘em, two invitations from embassies that wanted me to paint murals in June. Now, I’m good at what I do, but even I can’t paint murals in two countries at the same time. And, the two locations couldn’t have been any more different.
I tend to write to one kind of embassy about muraling. Most of my contacts are located in countries off the beaten path from where normal people tend to travel. I love those kinds of places. And, my first invitation certainly fit the description. I learned on Jeopardy that it is the least visited country in Europe. My kind of place! And, since I’d already said yes to their initial invitation for June, I had to commit to Moldova.
And, I had the most gracious welcome by the warmest people in Moldova!
But, there is the other kind of embassy. That’s the “Whattheheckitneverhurtstoask!” embassy. I think that in the list of 70 embassies that I’ve contacted, only one embassy fits that category. And, they wrote with a request for June and even included a flight schedule! Please, oh please, be flexible and let me come in July!
They were flexible.
Usually, when I wander away from Columbus to paint my murals, my friends wish me well. Nobody really wants to join me in places like Liberia or Moldova. But, that all changed with my second invitation. It really isn’t my usual kind of destination. There were lots of people who volunteered to help me. Everyone, including me, wants to go to Fiji!
So, you see, it really never hurts to ask.