Every once and a while on this trip, we have the pleasure of moving between countries on something other than a plane.  We spend so much time flying, it is always a relief to take another form of transportation.  We were ecstatic when we found that we were traveling from Togo to Benin by car.  ROAD TRIP!  This gave us an excellent opportunity to see African life as it passed by beside us.  To some, it may come as a surprise that although life was simple here, I was able to see so many instances of happiness during that three hour drive.

WIth communities and small businesses stretching along the side of the road, the examples of simple pleasures in life where plentiful and in just our short drive, I saw plenty.

There were kids playing soccer with makeshift goals on the side of the road.  Some of them didn't even have shoes as they kicked up clouds of dust while running, laughing and yelling back and forth.  

People were relieved to take shade from the oppressive heat under a variety of objects from trees, palm leaves laid over sticks and even the underside of parked eighteen-wheel trucks.  

Two guys selling a mysterious beverage on the side of the road sported large grins while calling after a girl that was walking away from them.  She, in turn, was smiling as well at the attention.

A farmer with a roadside plot of land sat down to take a satisfied rest after pulling the last weed from the ground.  He stretched his face to the sky and you could see the pleasure of having finished his work.

A flatbed truck road past and the back of the pickup was loaded with people sitting around the edge.  They were packed tightly and I had fear that one of them would pitch over the edge on one of the many bumps in the dusty road.  One man in particular closed his eyes, leaned his head out and smiled as he took the time to enjoy the wind coming from the moving truck in the sweltering heat.  

Pleasure raced across the face of a man crossing the border on foot when he took the first bite out of an ice cream bar he purchased from a kid with a cooler attached to a bike. 

And the moment of happiness that touched me most during the ride:  A small, barefoot boy with no shirt was running down the street, rolling a bike tire beside him.  When he saw me looking at him from the car window, he gave me a emphatic thumbs up.  When I broke out in a big grin and gave him thumbs up in return, his face opened up in a joyful smile and his pace increased as he tried to keep up with our van, while continuing to smile and throw the thumbs up sign into the air.  Seeing his smile as he ran with that bike tire warmed my heart.  

I guess what I want to say is that here in Benin, life is very simple but, if you know how to find it, happiness is too.  

Coming into Lesotho was like a breath of fresh air. It is such a beautiful, natural and tribal place. There are many poor countries that you can visit where the local populace will try to extract money from you in a variety of different ways. Although Lesotho is a country with a lot of people living in what we would call poverty, and despite a taxi driver named Mike trying to kidnap us, everyone there had nothing but smiles for us. Even Mike, the kidnapping taxi driver. 

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Our new friend Mike -which we met outside of Lesotho's airport- is gonna show us around his beautiful country. It's early in the morning, it's cold outside, the landscape is just amazing. We're enjoying Mike's big smile and his slow way of speaking. His telling us about the things that he loves about his country: the nature on its infinite manifestations: mountains, caves, waterfalls. Now he's gonna show us around. I'm glad we met him.

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When we arrived at the Lesotho airport it was pretty empty. There were only five people on our entire flight coming to see this beautiful place. We noticed that we didn't have a local contact there to meet us, which sometimes happens, so we set off to see what we could do. A local taxi driver, Mike, informed us that he was the only taxi option available and looking around, we could see the truth of that. Having only six hours or so in town, he suggesting taking us on a beautiful day trip. After waiting to make sure we didn't have a contact, we set off. After a while, Mike got a phone call. We didn't know this at the time but it was our local contact looking for us. Considering there were only five people on our flight, everyone in the airport knew that we had left with the only taxi driver, Mike. Our contact asked Mike if he had two guys with him that had on green shirts. We saw Mike glance back at our green shirts and then, not wanting to loose his big fare, sad no, they we had on black shirts. Then, asked if we were two brown guys, he said, "No, they are white." Long story short, after an hour of giving our local host the slip, she threatened to call the police and that's when good old Mike let us know that someone was looking for us and we went to meet up with and hang out with our host. We went to the local market and neighboring bus stop where a lot of the locals congregate. As soon as we started talking to people, they flocked to us and were eager to share the things that made them happy. There were old women selling wares and men leaning on sticks and wearing blankets wrapped around like capes, all of them wanting and willing to share with us. Throughout it all there was one word that we kept hearing over and over again. One word that seemed to be the consistent answer to what made people happy in Lesotho. That word sounded to me like Hu-To, although I'm sure that's not how you spell it. It translates into: Peace. Peace in their lives, peace with their friends, peace in their land. Peace is what made them happy, an answer we don't get very often.

When we arrived in Kuwait City it was 50 degrees Celsius. For those who don't know, that's 120 degrees Farenheit. WOW. Our priorities quickly shifted from finding happiness in others to finding happiness for ourselves in the form of an air conditioned building and something rather cold to drink.  When we set out exploring the city, we realized that during this type   of weather, happiness for the locals didn't differ to much from the immediate happiness we sought for ourselves. The Kuwaitis flock to   malls as a preferred place to hang out and meet with friends. The   buildings are large and thoroughly pumped with AC. They are also full of specialty iced beverage shops and swimming facilities as well. There was also a lot of watersport activity with lots of people riding jet skis. The malls even had water and wave pools inside and beside the famous Kuwaiti Towers stood the city's water theme park. With such an oppresive, overwhelming heat, happiness for us and the locals came in finding ways to deal with it and have fun at the same time.

Llegamos a Beirut en la noche. Muchas personas se encontraban afuera del aeropuerto ofreciendo sus servicios de transporte. Después de cambiar un poco de dinero tomamos un taxi que era manejado por un joven de nuestra edad. “De dónde son? Cómo se llaman? A dónde van? A qué se dedican?” preguntaba nuestro conductor mientras nosotros nos sorprendíamos con su curiosidad. Después que procuramos contestar con la misma rapidez con la que él nos hizo todas las preguntas, con una gran sonrisa en su cara nos dijo: “Bueno, ahora lo más importante: bienvenidos a Líbano!”. Dicha bienvenida nos llenó de gusto. En poco tiempo nos dejó en nuestro hotel y nos dijo: “Cualquier cosa que necesiten, díganmelo!” y pronto partió nuestro fugaz amigo. Al día siguiente mientras recorríamos las hermosas calles de Beirut nuestra anfitriona nos dijo: “Los libaneses somos muy amigables y después de tiempos difíciles en los que hemos atravesado guerras e inestabilidad lo que más nos importa es ser conciliadores, vivir en paz y tratar de vivir en el momento: sonriéndole a la vida”. Y eso fue lo que pudimos apreciar en nuestra corta estancia en Beirut. Una sociedad que ha procurado volver su vista a aquellas cosas que los unen y que les permiten llevar una vida feliz y llevadera.

Arriving in Jordan was something like a fantasy for me. A plain of grass, burnt brown by the sun, stretched into the distance, converging on a city filled with white stone-walled buildings. Seeing the view as we drove into the city, I was very tempted to start singing the theme song from Alladin; the picture in front of us looked so much like the movie.  

We hopped into a taxi to headed to a place called the Citadel and we queried the driver on the things that made him happy along the way. He gave the usual answer of family and friends but he also said that he loved to share his culture and his country’s history with the people who visited. He said that he wanted to show visitors that the people in  his country were good people and that it was a place worth visiting.  A lot of people we meet along the way on this trip ask us what makes us, or keeps us, happy. When we arrived at the Citadel, it provided another perfect example of exactly what keeps us smiling. We stood inside a structure over a thousand years old, perched atop a hill, and we looked out over that magnificent city with awe as we watched the sun set.  Moments like that, seeing something new, something breathtaking, meeting someone cool, someone inspiring, those are the moments that keep us happy.  

Those are the moments that keep us going.