It’s no secret that I love to travel. What’s becoming increasingly clear to me, though, is travel’s long-term dividends. Even trips that seem difficult at the time pay off in the strangest of ways.

I’m thinking of my first trip for Winrock, an around-the-world extravaganza with a prima donna videographer. Even though there were moments I’d like to forget — being told we’d not be let into Indonesia unless we ponied over $5,000 U.S., for instance, a “fee” that the prima donna videographer negotiated down from $1,500 (proving that prima donna videographers are good for something, besides shooting beautiful videos).

What I remember from Indonesia, though, is the beauty of Sumba, the smiles of the schoolchildren there, the bumpy road to Kataka School and a late-night swim in a humongous Jakarta hotel pool.

These details are all wrapped up with the sights and sounds and smells of that country, with its crazy traffic and its friendly people. They are a part of me now, just as the red clay roads and rocky peaks and singing school children of Malawi are.

I’m one grateful lady.