Diversity

One of the greatest things about living in the Washington DC area is the diversity of the population. Our next-door neighbors are from Argentina. Elisa spends many hours at a coffee shop a few minutes away run by two very sweet and very smiley Ethiopian women. We like to go to the tropical ice cream place run by Jamaicans. At my office I have managed people from Kenya, Bulgaria, Ghana, Turkey, Korea and even Kentucky. In the last 10 years we have dined at a variety of ethnic restaurants including Lebanese, French, Burmese, Indonesian, Japanese, Spanish, Vietnamese, Salvadoran, Indian, German and Thai - I just love the variety of options (and I've got the gut to prove it). I guess that most people in America would call the Olive Garden or Chili's ethnic restaurants, but really that's kind of silly. And so many places across the country have people who regret that their community is home to people with different skin color or native language, and that's just plain sad. Soon after I returned to the States after living in Europe many years ago, a distant family member was so incredulous that he actually said to my face, "I don't see why anyone would want to go over there." But my perspective is: What fun is it to just linger in your comfort zone? And what is the fun of having everyone around me be pretty much exactly like me? BO-ring. There is just no adventure in that. One of the reasons I'm more of a city guy is my preference to embrace those very differences - it keeps things interesting and is a constant reminder that my universe is only a grain of sand in the actual universe. There is the Great Wall of China, there are border checkpoints between countries, and there are obstacles of ignorance. A simple wrecking ball can destroy the first two - too bad the third is not as easily obliterated.