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One of the absolute pleasures of working on this website is that I am able to connect with some phenomenal people. Individuals who have done unusual things, and in many cases made a contribution to important causes.

The connection to Mony came to me through my friend Sue Kenney who put me in touch with another kindred spirit. Just today I added another woman to my list of spiritually evolved human beings, and that was Danielle Lafond, who is setting up a non-profit community development program in a little town in Peru. So the circle of fascinating individuals keeps on growing.

Here is part 1 of Mony’s story (she is still working on the rest of the interview questions), who went from being a Microsoft sales executive to completing a pilgrimage on the world-famous Camino de Santiago, which made her decide to complete a 5000 km long Walk for Peace for 13 months through 13 countries.

1. Please tell us a bit about your background. Where are you from, where did you grow up?

I’m originally Lebanese. My parents emigrated to Canada in the early 1960s. I’m the oldest of four children. I, my brother and two sisters were all born and raised in Canada. Until the age of ten, we alternated between living between Canada and Lebanon. I was educated in Lebanon, where I learned to speak English and French. When the Lebanese civil war broke out in 1975, the whole family moved back to live in Ottawa for good.

2. Please give us a bit of an idea of your educational and work background. What made you decide to leave your corporate career?

I have a Bachelor of Science (Biology concentration) from the University of Ottawa and an MBA from Queen’s University. I was originally trying to get into medical school, but after several failed attempts, I decided I was more interested in the business world and pursued the MBA. I started my career working for Arthur Andersen in their technology consulting group, and then three years later, moved to Microsoft where I stayed for seven years working in various roles in sales and marketing, mainly as product/marketing manager and account manager. I also worked for one year at the corporate head office in the US as part of a team focused on customer satisfaction.

In the last two years of work, I had been going through a lot of personal changes and was feeling the need to make a change in my life as a whole. It started with my divorce in 1998 which started me down the path of questioning how I got to that point, why this had happened to me, what my life was about. I went to a therapist but found it only answered part of my questions. It was a good start but I was searching for deeper meaning. My search led me to the self-help and spirituality sections of the bookstore. One book especially completed changed my life and perspective on how I saw the world and my place in it. It was Conversations with God Book 1 by Neale Donald Walsch. The book spoke simply and defined God as an energy of unconditional love that was around us and within us, waiting to be manifested through our thoughts and actions. That God spoke to us constantly through our feelings and intuition, and through signs, coincidences, synchronicities using all instruments so that we would receive the message. It challenged me to accept responsibility for my life, and not simply blame my circumstances on other people; that I was the creator of my life and not its victim. It spoke of sacred contracts before birth and the people and experiences in my life as opportunities for my spiritual growth. That to change my world, I had to change myself first.

I didn’t understand it all at first, but it rang intuitively true. I started trying to live what I read. I started being aware of signs, of people walking into my life coincidentally just when I needed them. I would read or hear something that was an answer to a question I had. I started meditating in an attempt to calm my mind and to allow my deeper wisdom to surface. I started practicing yoga, originally to stretch my body, but found the incredible openness and flexibility that it gave me, not just physically but emotionally as well. I started to look at all the difficult relationships and situations in my life more honestly, and tried to heal them. I became (and still am) vegetarian and found that it helped me feel physically lighter and more energetic. I took the lessons that I read to heart and tried to change my life.

I tried to bring my newfound peace and positive thinking into my work situations, but found the struggle too difficult. I was increasingly unhappy and dissatisfied with what I was doing, but was afraid to leave the comfort and security of what I knew. After an especially stressful period at work, and with all the personal changes going on, I finally decided it was time to leave. I resigned in August of 2000.

3. After you left your corporate career, you went on a pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago. Why did you do that and what was your experience?

After I quit, I decided I needed some time off. I booked a one-year return ticket and started my travels in January of 2001, starting in Egypt and moving around Europe.

I had read about the Camino to Santiago before my travels and felt drawn to it. In June of 2001, I arrived in St. Jean Pied du Port in the south of France and took my first steps as a pilgrim. I was walking with the intention of trying to find clarity and purpose in my life. I wanted to live a life with meaning, doing something positive that contributed to the good things that I knew were going on in the world but were unknown and uncelebrated. I had always been attracted to the peace process in the Middle East. As a child, I would sit and listen as all the men sat and talked about the latest news from their homeland. I loved the political discussions and was always fascinated by what I heard. So I knew I was interested in doing something for peace, but I didn’t know the details of what that meant. In walking, I was hoping to receive some new details.

It’s hard to summarize in a few sentences my experiences along the Camino. I can tell you that I learned some important lessons. In the beginning, I tried to dominate the Camino, seeing it as one more thing to conquer. But the Camino quickly fixed that, giving me unbelievable blisters and pain that stopped me in my tracks as soon as I started. I had to leave my ego behind, and learn to open my heart. That was my first lesson and the foundation for doing a pilgrimage. As I walked, I saw that the Camino was alive and had its own rhythm. I needed to learn how to flow with it, not master it. Only then could I hear the wisdom. I learned to stay in the present and only focus on what was in front of me. I learned to walk slowly and in gratitude. I felt grateful for sunshine and for rain; clear blue skies and clouds; flat open trails and hilly mountains; solitude and companionship; strength and flexibility. I found strength I never knew I had, physical and emotional. I learned that I needed very little - a roof over my head, a warm sleeping bag, one change of clothing, and basic toiletries. I could wear the same clothes and eat the same food every day without question. I felt free in the simplicity.

I saw my fears presented before me through the many encounters I had. The majority can be summarized as one thing - the fear of standing out and doing something different, always worrying about what other people thought. I needed to release that fear before I could really receive what I needed. The Camino gave me the gift of seeing these fears and the opportunity to heal them. The biggest lesson I learned was that when I change, others around me also change. Although I had read that, it was not until I lived it that I saw its truth.

4. While on the Camino, you came up with the idea of going on a long walk for peace. I also hear that September 11 had something to do with it. How did that idea come about?

Really, it was inspiration. I was taking a break after a day’s walk along the Camino when I heard a group of pilgrims nearby talking. They were sharing their stories of the day when one of them said, “I heard that this Camino is called the Way of the Sword, of Strength. It’s where you battle your demons and find your strength. The way to Rome is called the Way of the Heart, the way of Love. And the way to Jerusalem is called the way of the Soul.” It was those last words that struck a chord deep inside me. I didn’t know what it all meant exactly, but I knew in that moment that I had to walk to Jerusalem, that it was the way of My Soul. It would take me until the end of my Camino before it would become clearer in my mind that I would walk to Jerusalem for peace, and that that would be my contribution to the peace efforts there. In the following two months, I had moments of absolute certainty where I knew that this was the way, mingled with bouts of anxiety and doubt, thinking this was the stupidest idea I ever had. My mind kept playing out its deepest fears over a woman walking alone on such a long journey through unfamiliar countries, cultures and languages. In my heart I was already walking and felt excited by the whole idea. But I deferred to my mind, feeling more confident in its wisdom than in my heart’s.

And then September 11 hit. I was horrified at what I saw. The subsequent American threats of retaliation and revenge only confirmed my belief that what the world needed now more than ever were people doing their part for peace, holding on to the hope that peace is still possible, even in the midst of the carnage and violence. I believed that people can do their part, no matter how small or insignificant it may seem, to change the world. I learned first-hand on the Camino that when I changed, the world around me changed. I now had the chance to live it for real.

So, in a strange way, these attacks gave me the push that I needed. Not because I had overcome any of my fears. Or because I had any answers. But because walking was the only constructive thing I knew how to do. Walking to Jerusalem would be my contribution to peace. I felt empowered by the idea because it placed the control and responsibility for creating peace in my world and in my life back in my hands. On the Camino to Santiago, walking was my meditation, an inner focus reflected in an outer journey. With each step, I felt closer to myself, to the best part of me, the part that was open, trusting in the goodness of people, seeing their light rather than their darkness. That was the part of me that wanted to emerge and share itself with the world. That was all I could offer. Walking to Jerusalem would become my meditation, my prayer, for peace. With each step, I would attempt to find the peace within me and share that with the people I came in contact with.

The full interview with photos is published at Travel and Transitions - Interviews

Susanne Pacher is the publisher of a website called Travel and Transitions(http://www.travelandtransitions.com). Travel and Transitions deals with unconventional travel and is chock full of advice, tips, real life travel experiences, interviews with travellers and travel experts, insights and reflections, cross-cultural issues, contests and many other features. You will also find stories about life and the transitions that we face as we go through our own personal life-long journeys.

Submit your own travel stories in our first travel story contest(http://www.travelandtransitions.com/contests.htm) and have a chance to win an amazing adventure cruise on the Amazon River.

“Life is a Journey

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Here is part 2 of Mony’s story who went from being a Microsoft sales executive to completing a pilgrimage on the world-famous Camino de Santiago, which made her decide to complete a 5000 km long Walk for Peace for 13 months through 13 countries. Click here to access part I of her fascinating story.

8. From Italy you continued on into the Balkan countries. Please comment on your pilgrim experience there. I believe that Croatia was a particularly unforgettable experience for you. Please tell us about your experience in the other Balkan countries.

We walked through Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia/Hercigovina, and Serbia/Montenegro. Our experience in Croatia was the most intense. The people here embraced us totally. We were in the newspapers and on television. Their hospitality and desire to help us was incredible. Our message seemed to resonate especially strongly here, in a country recovering from their own war. It was also there that Alberto and I separated. He walked ahead to Medugorje, in Bosnia/Hercigovina with the agreement that I would only be a few days behind him. Medugorje is a village in Bosnia/Hercigovina where it is said that the Virgin Mary appeared to five young children about twenty years ago offering messages of peace at a time when the country was strife with war. The messages of peace continue to this day with a new message announced every month. Alberto wanted to arrive for the next message while I couldn’t walk that fast. We ended up being separated for over a month with no way of contacting the other. We only managed to speak twice during that entire time. He called me once to let me know that he had arrived safely. And I managed to finally contact him, after days of failed attempts, the evening before I was about to arrive in Medugorje.

Circumstances seemed to conspire to keep us apart. I fell ill a few days after we separated with an infection of the lymph nodes under my arms. I was told I may need surgery to drain them since they were badly infected and the doctor didn’t know if the antibiotics would be strong enough. In the end, they did work but I needed over two weeks to recover from it and to regain the strength to walk again. I was taken care of and welcomed by an incredible community in Brodarica where the priest of the local church took me into his home, brought me to doctors and medicine, and where the nuns there oversaw every step of my recovery. They appeared as angels in my way to help me at a time when I was alone.

That experience of being looked after and protected on my way gave me the confidence to continue walking alone. For Alberto as well, it was important for him to know that he can walk without me. We always felt more confident together knowing that a couple would be accepted easily and given accommodations. It was more difficult for people to trust in a young man walking alone and give him accommodations. His experiences were not always easy but he found angels along his way, just as I did, who stepped in and helped him when he needed it most. It was a valuable lesson for us being apart and one that reminded us that we enjoyed walking together but we didn’t need to do it. We would always be taken care of.

9. After the Balkan countries you went through Greece to Turkey. Please comment on this portion of the trip. What made the Turkey portion unique and different?

The Turkey portion was unique for several reasons. Physically, we were walking in Turkey in the summer, in temperatures of well over 40 degrees Celsius every day. We started walking at 5:00 in the morning so that we could finish by 10:00 at the latest, before it became too hot. The heat sapped all our energy and left us feeling drained most of the time. Emotionally, we had also started our romantic relationship. It had started at the end of Greece but intensified in Turkey. As in every new relationship, it brought out the best and worst in both of us. Culturally, we had left the Christian world and entered fully into the Muslim one. All of these factors combined made us turn more inwards, to focus more on ourselves and to only see only the negative in our situation. As a result, we attracted more negative experiences that directly reflected our beliefs. Because of judgments that we had about the Muslim world being more conservative and un-accepting of two single people walking together, we didn’t seek help in mosques, nor did we try to engage people as we did earlier in our walk. We were walking along the touristy Turkish coast, and felt that people saw us more as tourists than as pilgrims, and didn’t really care about our message or what we were doing. We felt they were more interested in our dollar value than in our true intentions. So of course, we attracted exactly the situations that reinforced those beliefs. It was an incredible lesson in watching how our thoughts and beliefs directly influenced what we attracting into our lives. It was exactly as we had been saying all along - we had the power to change the world through our thoughts and intentions. Once we saw what was happening, we could step away from it and try to heal the prejudices and misconceptions that we had about this world. It was when we did this that our experiences totally turned around and we were finally able to see the true heart of the Turkish people.

10. Please comment on the final portion of your route. How did you get to Jerusalem? You also referred to a unique coincidence (that maybe wasn’t so coincidental at all) related to the 12 gates of Jerusalem. Please comment on some of the other “coincidences” you experienced on this trip.

The final portion of our trip was into the Arab world. We walked through Syria, Lebanon and Israel. The Lebanese-Israeli border was the only border we could not cross on foot. It was physically closed with land mines and barbed wire blocking our way. We had to take a plane from Beirut to Cyprus, then to Tel Aviv. From there, we took the train north to Haifa to begin our walk again. We were deeply frustrated by this because we really felt the message of peace needed to cross at this specific border, site of so many hostilities and conflicts. But it wasn’t meant to be. From Haifa, we continued along the coast, then cut inland towards Jerusalem.

Our entire pilgrimage was a series of synchronicities, coincidences, and people arriving when we needed help. We do not believe in coincidences, but that all has a Higher Purpose which often eludes us, but that is always for the greatest good of all involved. We arrived in Jerusalem on December 24, 2003, Christmas Eve, completely unplanned. We walked to the old part of the city, which is surrounded by high ancient walls. We knew there were twelve gates, not all open, and decided to simply follow the road that led to the first gate on the way. We found ourselves in front of a huge arch called Bab Al Khalil, the Gate of Khalil. An Arab friend we had met during our walk had told us that the name Khalil meant Albert in English (or Alberto in Spanish). So after thirteen months of walking, we entered the Old City of Jerusalem through Alberto’s Gate! We were also fortunate enough to be able to go to Bethlehem that very evening and to be in the city where it all started. In a way, we were coming back to the beginning.

We also had another unusual coincidence during the last leg of our pilgrimage. During the entire walk, we always carried signs announcing what we were doing. In Israel, our signs said the word Peace in English, Arabic (Salam) and Hebrew (Shalom). The very day that we put on the signs, the letters started to fall off as we were walking. We tried to paste them on again, but it didn’t work. It was as if we weren’t meant to carry this sign to its final destination. It was a difficult thing to accept because for me especially, I felt this was where the sign was most needed. But upon later reflection, we realized that the outward message of peace had served its purpose. It had touched those who needed it. But now it was time for us to go inward, to focus on the inner journey of peace, to bring that energy into Jerusalem with us. We realized that the only way to bring peace into such a troubled area was not to shout it from the rooftops, but to live it in our everyday lives, in our actions towards the people who are like us and unlike us. The work of peace is an inner journey, people changing themselves and their attitudes and beliefs about their neighbors and the world they live in. They can then come to the world from this place of peace, acceptance, tolerance and openness. When they can be that peace that they wish to see, is when they can affect the most incredible change. When they can see the other point of view, when they can forgive themselves and their neighbors for their mutual acts of atrocity, when they can truly listen and have compassion for the other, that’s when true peace can be created.

The full interview with photos is published at Travel and Transitions - Interviews

Susanne Pacher is the publisher of a website called Travel and Transitions(http://www.travelandtransitions.com). Travel and Transitions deals with unconventional travel and is chock full of advice, tips, real life travel experiences, interviews with travellers and travel experts, insights and reflections, cross-cultural issues, contests and many other features. You will also find stories about life and the transitions that we face as we go through our own personal life-long journeys.

Submit your own travel stories in our first travel story contest(http://www.travelandtransitions.com/contests.htm) and have a chance to win an amazing adventure cruise on the Amazon River.

“Life is a Journey

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When I first met Helga Smith at the Canada-US Servas Conference, she gave me a brief introduction to her life decade by decade, and every decade held something else that was interesting and completely different. Helga will have a chapter in a book called “Women Who Rock”, which is to be published in the near future. The book features a variety of female movers and shakers who stand out not so much for their financial and entrepreneurial success but for their unique way of overcoming major challenges in their lives, their athletic accomplishments and community involvement.

The story starts in 1963 when Helga escaped from just outside of Berlin, in East Germany. A year and a half later she came to the United States without knowing any English. She got a job as a domestic and soon started to work in an office. Then she married an American who did not speak any German. Five years later she had three children and was single again.

Without any source of income, Helga briefly went on welfare but also managed to complete an associate degree in computer science. She worked for two major financial institutions in New York, developing skills in graphic design and business presentations. Typical of so many other Servas members, she dedicates her spare time to community activities. She volunteers for numerous worthy causes and trains with blind people.

As a matter of fact, Helga came to running in her late 50s. She initially accompanied her daughter, another enthusiastic Marathon runner, but got inspired to start running herself. Since then, Helga has completed several Marathons, including the highly competitive Boston Marathon.

Helga’s athletic achievements don’t end here: she decided to climb Mount Kilimanjaro to raise funds for the Foundation for International Community Assistance. She raised $10,000 to help women in Tanzania obtain small loans for business creation. Mount Kilimanjaro was a special challenge for Helga: although any reasonably fit person can do it in theory, only 50% of the people starting the trek actually make it to the top. Interestingly, most of the failed attempts come from men in their early 20s who underestimate the power of the mountain and difficulties hiking in high altitude.

Of course Helga is also a committed Servas traveller and has been part of the organization since 1985. Being located in New York City, a very popular travel destination, she has hosted several hundred Servas travellers. In return, she has visited more than 50 countries. Helga thinks outside the box and has passed her unconventional ways of thinking on to her children: her daughter has cycled around the world and now works for International Development. Her daughter has lived in Egypt for four years and is now assigned to another Middle Eastern country. Her son also lives in New York City, together with his Ecuadorian wife. They are both recognized and respected graffiti artists, producing murals for the City, for fun and for pay.

Now, that Helga is semi-retired, she has joined another group of peace-builders: the “Non-Violent Peaceforce”. This is an organization that trains people to physically put themselves in harm’s way where a human buffer zone can be useful to defuse a potentially dangerous situation. She said that this would be a cause that she would be willing to take a risk for.

Very soon we’ll be able to hear Helga’s story, her athletic achievements, community endeavours and future plans for activism.

Susanne Pacher is the publisher of a website called Travel and Transitions(http://www.travelandtransitions.com). Travel and Transitions deals with unconventional travel and is chock full of advice, tips, real life travel experiences, interviews with travellers and travel experts, insights and reflections, cross-cultural issues, contests and many other features. You will also find stories about life and the transitions that we face as we go through our own personal life-long journeys.

Submit your own travel stories in our first travel story contest(http://www.travelandtransitions.com/contests.htm) and have a chance to win an amazing adventure cruise on the Amazon River.

“Life is a Journey

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