Shortly after finishing Becoming Fearless: Finding Courage in the African Wilderness, I wrote an enthusiastic assessment of the best travel journal I'd read in my adult life. Brenda kindly thanked me for the review and offered to let me read an advance copy of her next book. Naturally,, I couldn't resist. After all, reading her experiences made me feel at home in a world of curiosity and I was dying to hear more about her work abroad.
Becoming Amazed: Discovering the World With Eyes Wide Open
While Becoming Fearless was the chronicle of a fairly normal person on an abnormal adventure, Becoming Amazed shows us the perspective of someone who has been on so many journeys that she remembers the extraordinary parts of her work as a diplomat in exquisite detail. The first book called to mind my multi-day canoe trip in Maine and what it was like to hike in the Andes. This one reminded me of eighteen months of speaking a foreign language in my own country and finding a wonderful culture in the exotic San Fernando Valley. Two weeks after receiving the Advance Reader Copy, I also read her tale of a Pakistani Thanksgiving dinner and laughed in cross-cultural sympathy because it brought back memories of having a perfectly American Thanksgiving dinner except for the jalapenos.
The first several dozen pages of the book are dedicated to a similar plot to the first book. Brenda, the accountant turned river guide, joins an expedition in Ethiopia and experiences the wilds of the beautiful African country under dazzling starlight and with expectations of hippos chomping on a raft or not being prepared in some way for some trial. I fondly remembered that this was where Brenda in the first book learned to flourish and was delighted to see that continue. Once the tourists left, she took on another adventure and due to automotive troubles, she was part of the first contact with a tribe who had probably never seen someone a white person before. The story of finding a way past the communications barrier to form an alliance and friendship during the time she and other travelers spent stranded and at the literal mercy of people who showed them hospitality and protection was heartwarming.
From there we follow several of her experiences working with the United States Agency for International Development and this is where we discover the "eyes wide open" strategy that makes Brenda an inspiring writer. She describes the struggle of disagreeing with cultural practices in Pakistan before noting the work friends who helped her appreciate the romantic elements that are possible in an arranged marriage. In an experience that taught her to be aware of dangers, she lost a friend named Chuck in a hostage situation that made her reevaluate her sense of the country she was working in.
I won't give away all of the text, but my favorite was a pilgrimage she took in Guatemala to visit an idol called Maximon. Being bilingual, I laughed at this term, as it's a superlative of a superlative and translates to "A HUGE FREAKING BIGGEST THING EVER." It is, in fact, a statue that people ask favors of and Brenda, having visited the shrine, asks it to prove its power by reuniting her with a friend. She reunites with the man, but a wrench is thrown into the works, proving that she earned that hiccup by doubting the power of Maximon.
Becoming Amazed released on December 3, 2024 through Eye Opener Press.