Monday morning, we packed up our suitcases for the very last time. This was a little less stressful vs. our prior dozen packups, as we didn’t need to try and keep clean and dirty organized, nor did we need to try and keep everyone’s individual clothes grouped together. The suitcases would not be opened again until we reached Nashville.
Ahead of us, we had a 36 hour journey consisting of 4 flights, 26 hours of air time, and 10 hours of airport time. We were flying from:
• Windhoek, Namibia to Johannesburg, South Africa
• Johannesburg, South Africa to Dubai, UAE
• Dubai, UAE, to New York-JFK
• New York-JFK to Nashville, TN
Fortunately, the two longest legs of this journey were on Emirates Airlines. They are a relatively young airline, but from what I know have developed a fairly good reputation. Leaving Namibia, we decided to shrinkwrap our bags, as in my planning I had read that Johannesburg has had a bit of a problem with rummaging through luggage. Really there was nothing of value in any of our checked bags, and the joke would be on the unlikely thief who would find nothing more than some really dirty clothing, but nonetheless, to provide a little piece of mind it seemed worthwhile.
When we checked in with the airline, we were ecstatic to hear that they could put our luggage all the way through to BNA (Nashville). As my understanding was that our return trip was made up of a compilation of 2 or 3 separate “tickets”, I had figured this would not be possible. However, there was a problem with Air Namibia’s computer in Windhoek, and she had to manually check everything in, as well as print two ribbons, each with two destinations on them for each bag. The process took about a half hour, so hopefully all 6 bags will actually show up when we get there….fingers crossed.
Our series of long flights gave me some time to think about the trip. Logistically, I couldn’t have asked for anything better. Only one cancelled flight, which ended up ultimately helping us. All of our lodging, transportation connections, and even the few “leaps of faith” that I knew existed in the itinerary worked themselves out flawlessly. In terms of planning, the only thing that will gnaw at me, is that I really shortchanged Mauritius. Three days, following a red eye flight was not near enough. There are a lot of touristy things to do, and there are beautiful beaches that alone are worth several days just to relax on. We struggled a bit there with clear direction of what to do, as we wanted to do a bit of both, and not having the time rushed it. I think everyone left with a luke-warm perception of the place, and our lodging, and that is unfortunate, as I think 2 more days on the itinerary could have fixed that.
In terms of health and safety, it will always eat at me that Alexandra missed the Taj Mahal. One of the most beautiful architectural masterpieces in the world, and she made it to within a mile of it, and didn’t get to see it up close. She still says this doesn’t bother her, but I think at some point in her life, it may be a disappointment. With her experience for those first 3 days of India, I doubt it would ever be something that she would ever go out of her way to reattempt. As Natalie and I had discussed and prepared for the trip, I had said with some certainty, “Someone will get sick, we should expect it.” As long as we were prepared to deal with it we were fine. My sincere hope was that Angkor Wat, and the Taj Mahal would be the two things un-impacted by it. I had built flexibility into the plans to allow for some cushion, but with the timing of her ailment, it didn’t matter. All in all, as a percentage of the trip, it was only 3 days that she was really out of commission which is a small component, and the rest of us remained in fairly good health, with the exception of a few acute digestive issues, and Kalyssa and I catching an annoying cold.
Most importantly however, were the educational and cultural benefits of the trip. These will be hard to gauge immediately. At Alexandra’s point in her life, she will not come out and talk about how much this has impacted her in this way. Kalyssa also unfortunately, will often mimic her older sister’s attitudes towards things. In a one on one conversation she’ll open up a little bit more, but will still put up the wall that she’s getting trained on from her sister. This is something I hadn’t personally prepared for. I, of course, had a bit more of a romantic expectation, of the trip, of open emotional discussions flowing from our experiences and learnings from the trip. I think deep down I knew they wouldn’t be likely, but still had the ideas in mind. Instead, as we return back home, and transition our experiences to memories, I’m left with the directional evidence of conversations that will occur over the coming weeks, months, and years.
Clearly, Kalyssa had interactions in both Cambodia, and India, that has given her the opportunity to build the connection with cultures and lands far away. Even in Mauritius, she did spend a little bit of time with Athena, the daughter of the guesthouse owners who is only 2 years older than her. Those interactions made me wish that I could have arranged and expanded the experiences in other countries. Namibia for example, would be a perfect place to allow for that, with a culture of hospitality, and a lot of English speaking people. It’s not quite the level of extroverted friendliness that you experience in Cambodia, and Oman on my prior trip, but it is still a more reserved friendliness, where a homestay experience could have been really awesome. Even in India, I wish we could have incorporated a broader cross section of interactions, as Minnie and Spiky where her only 2 relationships at her level she was able to develop. Nonetheless, I think the outcome for Kalyssa was tremendously beneficial, and will shape her perspective going forwards.
Allie is the tougher one. On the walk that I took with Suheil around the mountain at Desert Camp, we talked about travel and opening our kids up to understanding of other cultures. He said he took his daughter on her first international trip when she was seven, to Pakistan, just the two of them. That would certainly be quite the trip, and quite the change of scenery for a seven year old growing up in the UK. This would be something Natalie never would have allowed me to do, (though Suheil also said that in today’s Pakistan, he would not feel comfortable doing that.) Prior to the trip, I had thought that Allie was at the upper limit of this opportunity being most beneficial with us. I now wonder if we’d already past that point. Being a typical emotionally guarded teenager, it’s hard to tell. The only insight from the last 4 weeks that made me think that perhaps it had achieved its goal was the dinner conversation with Margaret in Swakopmund, Namibia, when Allie began to talk about the Khmer Rouge and how said it was that everyone there seemed to have a story about it. I could certainly sense the empathy in her voice. There’s no shortage of tragedy these days. Over the last few decades Cambodia, Bosnia, and Rwanda went through terrible episodes of genocide. Today you have Darfur, Syria, and Somalia where there are millions of people suffering at the hands of our fellow humans. Awareness can’t solve the problem, but ignorance can certainly help perpetuate it.
Similar to the blankets that we worked on in Windhoek with a simple bible message on it, this trip was simply to sow seeds that may sprout into something throughout the rest of their life. Perhaps they’ll join the Peace Corps. Perhaps they’ll become missionaries. Perhaps they’ll simply carry on a more traditional life and never travel outside the US again, but at least will do so with a greater connection to their fellow man on other parts of the globe. Perhaps, I’m still being a hopeless romantic, and it wasn’t anything more than a very long vacation stuck in close quarters with their annoying parents. The ultimate answer is outside the scope of this blog, and may never become apparent to me. None the less, I have no regrets, and I will certainly always relish the memories, which I’ve been able to memorialize and share in this blog, and I appreciate any of you who have travelled along with us by reading it.
As for Natalie and myself, I think this trip was a tremendous opportunity for us to put aside the stresses in daily life that get in the way of just enjoying each other’s company. I think I speak for both of us, that as much as we enjoyed sharing this trip with our children, now that they are getting a bit older, the two of us look forward to the next such adventure will likely be just the two of us. Though she has already reserved the right to make all the decisions on what countries that trip will include.
Ryan Ziemann
June 18, 2012
Flying somewhere over Northeastern Africa
Ahead of us, we had a 36 hour journey consisting of 4 flights, 26 hours of air time, and 10 hours of airport time. We were flying from:
• Windhoek, Namibia to Johannesburg, South Africa
• Johannesburg, South Africa to Dubai, UAE
• Dubai, UAE, to New York-JFK
• New York-JFK to Nashville, TN
Fortunately, the two longest legs of this journey were on Emirates Airlines. They are a relatively young airline, but from what I know have developed a fairly good reputation. Leaving Namibia, we decided to shrinkwrap our bags, as in my planning I had read that Johannesburg has had a bit of a problem with rummaging through luggage. Really there was nothing of value in any of our checked bags, and the joke would be on the unlikely thief who would find nothing more than some really dirty clothing, but nonetheless, to provide a little piece of mind it seemed worthwhile.
When we checked in with the airline, we were ecstatic to hear that they could put our luggage all the way through to BNA (Nashville). As my understanding was that our return trip was made up of a compilation of 2 or 3 separate “tickets”, I had figured this would not be possible. However, there was a problem with Air Namibia’s computer in Windhoek, and she had to manually check everything in, as well as print two ribbons, each with two destinations on them for each bag. The process took about a half hour, so hopefully all 6 bags will actually show up when we get there….fingers crossed.
Our series of long flights gave me some time to think about the trip. Logistically, I couldn’t have asked for anything better. Only one cancelled flight, which ended up ultimately helping us. All of our lodging, transportation connections, and even the few “leaps of faith” that I knew existed in the itinerary worked themselves out flawlessly. In terms of planning, the only thing that will gnaw at me, is that I really shortchanged Mauritius. Three days, following a red eye flight was not near enough. There are a lot of touristy things to do, and there are beautiful beaches that alone are worth several days just to relax on. We struggled a bit there with clear direction of what to do, as we wanted to do a bit of both, and not having the time rushed it. I think everyone left with a luke-warm perception of the place, and our lodging, and that is unfortunate, as I think 2 more days on the itinerary could have fixed that.
In terms of health and safety, it will always eat at me that Alexandra missed the Taj Mahal. One of the most beautiful architectural masterpieces in the world, and she made it to within a mile of it, and didn’t get to see it up close. She still says this doesn’t bother her, but I think at some point in her life, it may be a disappointment. With her experience for those first 3 days of India, I doubt it would ever be something that she would ever go out of her way to reattempt. As Natalie and I had discussed and prepared for the trip, I had said with some certainty, “Someone will get sick, we should expect it.” As long as we were prepared to deal with it we were fine. My sincere hope was that Angkor Wat, and the Taj Mahal would be the two things un-impacted by it. I had built flexibility into the plans to allow for some cushion, but with the timing of her ailment, it didn’t matter. All in all, as a percentage of the trip, it was only 3 days that she was really out of commission which is a small component, and the rest of us remained in fairly good health, with the exception of a few acute digestive issues, and Kalyssa and I catching an annoying cold.
Most importantly however, were the educational and cultural benefits of the trip. These will be hard to gauge immediately. At Alexandra’s point in her life, she will not come out and talk about how much this has impacted her in this way. Kalyssa also unfortunately, will often mimic her older sister’s attitudes towards things. In a one on one conversation she’ll open up a little bit more, but will still put up the wall that she’s getting trained on from her sister. This is something I hadn’t personally prepared for. I, of course, had a bit more of a romantic expectation, of the trip, of open emotional discussions flowing from our experiences and learnings from the trip. I think deep down I knew they wouldn’t be likely, but still had the ideas in mind. Instead, as we return back home, and transition our experiences to memories, I’m left with the directional evidence of conversations that will occur over the coming weeks, months, and years.
Clearly, Kalyssa had interactions in both Cambodia, and India, that has given her the opportunity to build the connection with cultures and lands far away. Even in Mauritius, she did spend a little bit of time with Athena, the daughter of the guesthouse owners who is only 2 years older than her. Those interactions made me wish that I could have arranged and expanded the experiences in other countries. Namibia for example, would be a perfect place to allow for that, with a culture of hospitality, and a lot of English speaking people. It’s not quite the level of extroverted friendliness that you experience in Cambodia, and Oman on my prior trip, but it is still a more reserved friendliness, where a homestay experience could have been really awesome. Even in India, I wish we could have incorporated a broader cross section of interactions, as Minnie and Spiky where her only 2 relationships at her level she was able to develop. Nonetheless, I think the outcome for Kalyssa was tremendously beneficial, and will shape her perspective going forwards.
Allie is the tougher one. On the walk that I took with Suheil around the mountain at Desert Camp, we talked about travel and opening our kids up to understanding of other cultures. He said he took his daughter on her first international trip when she was seven, to Pakistan, just the two of them. That would certainly be quite the trip, and quite the change of scenery for a seven year old growing up in the UK. This would be something Natalie never would have allowed me to do, (though Suheil also said that in today’s Pakistan, he would not feel comfortable doing that.) Prior to the trip, I had thought that Allie was at the upper limit of this opportunity being most beneficial with us. I now wonder if we’d already past that point. Being a typical emotionally guarded teenager, it’s hard to tell. The only insight from the last 4 weeks that made me think that perhaps it had achieved its goal was the dinner conversation with Margaret in Swakopmund, Namibia, when Allie began to talk about the Khmer Rouge and how said it was that everyone there seemed to have a story about it. I could certainly sense the empathy in her voice. There’s no shortage of tragedy these days. Over the last few decades Cambodia, Bosnia, and Rwanda went through terrible episodes of genocide. Today you have Darfur, Syria, and Somalia where there are millions of people suffering at the hands of our fellow humans. Awareness can’t solve the problem, but ignorance can certainly help perpetuate it.
Similar to the blankets that we worked on in Windhoek with a simple bible message on it, this trip was simply to sow seeds that may sprout into something throughout the rest of their life. Perhaps they’ll join the Peace Corps. Perhaps they’ll become missionaries. Perhaps they’ll simply carry on a more traditional life and never travel outside the US again, but at least will do so with a greater connection to their fellow man on other parts of the globe. Perhaps, I’m still being a hopeless romantic, and it wasn’t anything more than a very long vacation stuck in close quarters with their annoying parents. The ultimate answer is outside the scope of this blog, and may never become apparent to me. None the less, I have no regrets, and I will certainly always relish the memories, which I’ve been able to memorialize and share in this blog, and I appreciate any of you who have travelled along with us by reading it.
As for Natalie and myself, I think this trip was a tremendous opportunity for us to put aside the stresses in daily life that get in the way of just enjoying each other’s company. I think I speak for both of us, that as much as we enjoyed sharing this trip with our children, now that they are getting a bit older, the two of us look forward to the next such adventure will likely be just the two of us. Though she has already reserved the right to make all the decisions on what countries that trip will include.
Ryan Ziemann
June 18, 2012
Flying somewhere over Northeastern Africa
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