I am composing this inaugural journal aboard Turkish Airlines en route to Istanbul, where we will disembark for a few hours before traveling to Entebbe Airport in Kampala, Uganda. Therefore, it is appropriate to share some of the initial experiences this trip has had to offer thus far.

The first day in a new, foreign city can be unsettling. You feel like you must stick out. That your way of interacting with the world is so different from the locals that each move you make is interpreted by those curious eyes upon you, starting with the customs official to fellow passengers at baggage claim, to the taxi driver who colorfully taught me naughty Italian words because he ‘knew’ I was an American…and the list goes on and on.

Fueling stop in Lomé, Tongo. Some passengers deplane, and new travelers emerge.

The assigned travel companion for this leg of the trip sitting in row 11 of the 787 Ethiopian airliner with me, is a young man named Wisdom; yes, that is his name. A 22- year-old Nigerian on the second of three legs on his way to the Philippines to attend university for the first time.

From the friendly skies over the Atlantic Ocean, I begin my journey closer to the origin of our species than I have ever been before. I am headed to Amman, Jordan, in the Middle East. I have, to date, been incredibly fortunate to trek across numerous countries dotting our fragile planet. The Middle East, though, is a region undefined by my eyes outside of the digital walls of movies and television.