Murphey travels abroad, finds enlightenment
7/28/2011 12:00:00 AM | Volleyball
July 28, 2011
Megan Murphey did not need to see Peruvians eating out of trash cans to realize how good she has it, but it certainly added to the ever-growing list of experiences that are paving the path for the Montana volleyball player's life and career beyond college.
A pre-med major, Murphey has been traveling internationally - both with her family and on school trips - since the age of 11.
The trips, early on to Spain and Peru and this summer to Spain, Italy and North Africa, have given the sophomore defensive specialist a rare and attractive worldview for a 19 year old from Montana.
"I grew up in Bozeman, where it's really, really sheltered with very little ethnic diversity," Murphey said shortly after her most recent trip.
"To me the best part about traveling is getting to experience the different cultures and see how other people live their lives."
Murphey, who was a key ball-handling presence on the Grizzlies' Big Sky Conference tournament team last fall, posted perfect 4.0 grade point averages her first two semesters at Montana, but she prefers the type of learning experiences you don't get in the classroom.
Her travels abroad have not been the type you would picture if your only exposure to international travel has come through the television and movie screens of popular media.
There are no fancy MasterCard restaurants, art galleries with the supercilious set or time spent on tour buses, where real life passes by - totally unexperienced - on the other side of a safe, reality-filtering window.
It's given Murphey one of the most valuable characteristics she possesses: perspective.
"It helps you realize how fortunate we have it in the United States," she said. "It's easy to fall into the trap of taking everything we have for granted, but that's because most people don't know what it's like living anywhere else."
Murphey's most recent trip began in May in Puerto Rico, where her older sister, Caitlin, was finishing up the spring semester studying abroad.
They continued on to Spain - Barcelona, Valencia, the island of Ibiza - then took a short flight to North Africa, where Caitlin reunited with friends from an earlier semester studying abroad.
It was in Morocco, in the midst of abject poverty in the inner city medinas, that Murphey found the most unexpected gift of all her travels to date: happiness.
Not hers, but of the poor, those struggling through day-to-day life selling scarves and jewelry boxes to English-speaking tourists for the opportunity to survive another day.
Smiles somehow blooming in the squalor, a most un-American scene. It immediately became Murphey's favorite place yet: because it moved her the most.
And a life of service in international medicine gathered more momentum.
In less than two weeks Murphey will return to the West Auxiliary Gym as Montana opens its 2011 season with its first practices of another promising season. She will likely take over for Brittney Brown as the team's libero.
Classes will begin, and Murphey will go back to the life of a student-athlete, just not the kind of Division I athlete you've come to expect.
An incident driving to campus that might spark a case of road rage. A road-trip hotel room that lacks a remote control for the television. A restaurant with slower than expected service. A post-match shower that isn't quite hot enough.
When you see things in a different light, you realize they just aren't that important. Welcome to Murphey's world.
