Preparation for a long trip

Soon I will leave my comfortable home and set out for Africa. Its my second visit to Johannesburg. It is a world so very similar and so very different from my own. The reason for this trip is not a vacation, or a cultural experience (although both of those will occur). I'm going to visit my grandchildren and their parents.

Its our own fault. My husband and I. We had visions of our son marrying the girl next door and living somewhere down the street or at most across town. He married a woman from Mexico and lives in South Africa. For future reference - South Africa is as far away from Sacramento that a person can get without treading water.

But we are the ones who introduced him to the ups and downs of international travel at a very vulnerable age. He was 16.

We had taken a 6 week trip to Europe, pre-children, back when it wasn’t so fashionable and you really could do it on five dollars a day. It impressed us enough that we decide our children must be exposed to these experiences. In 1989, we made arrangements to exchanged houses for a month with a family in Harlow , England.
The trip got off to a rather auspicious start. Our daughter, Cheryl, was 12 and truly excited. Our son, Jeff, was 16 and cool. My husband’s father drove us to the airport and dropped us off. The first leg of our trip was a puddle jumper to get us to SF. As we waved good-bye and watched his car recede, our daughter mentioned that she “wasn’t sure but thought that maybe she might have possibly left her purse in the car.” Which is 12 year old speak for “I definitely left my purse, including my passport in the car.”

Alas, this was pre-cell phone. A payphone call to Grandma insured that Grandpa would make a quick reversal when he got home. But would it be in time? My husband paced sidewalk in front of the terminal while the rest of us sat in the little plane and tried to formulate plan B.

The stewardess, (That’s what they were in those days) was preparing to raise the staircase when, looking for all the world like a foot ball linebacker, my studious, bespeckled husband emerged full speed from the terminal clutching a purse under his arm and leaping for the staircase with a vigor I had never seen before. Talk about a major whew.

The four of us strolled toward the SF terminal laughing about the bullet we had just dodged, when Cheryl felt her shoulder tapped from behind. The pilot, no less, was standing there with her purse in his hand. “Did you forget this?” he asked.

My daughter did not have a passport in her possession again until well after her 18th birthday.

This same trip included a defining moment for our son and his eventual vagabond ways. We decided to spend a couple of days in Paris. Anyone who has traveled with a 16 year old knows that there is inevitably, a little, shall we say - tension. It is understandable. Here is a very cool person forced to be in extended company with, his parents. And not any parents – the dorkiest parents that nature has seen fit to produce. Lets have a little empathy here.

The first morning in Paris we said to him “Here – take money – go see Paris – leave us alone for awhile.” Sort of “Teenager, quick, leave your parents, take care of yourself - while you still know everything”.

Well, he did. He had a wonderful time. He mastered the metro (subway) in no time, climbed Notre Dame, went up the Eiffel Tower, had ice cream near the Champs Elise , found a sandwich shop for lunch and was actually able communicate, a little, using his high school French. It was an epiphany to him. Different languages really work in different countries.

He came back for dinner that night more enthusiastic than he had ever been about anything. He found his true self - A man of the world, a traveler extraordinaire. He hasn’t been the same since.

He spent half his college Freshman year in Mexico, learning Spanish. He met a girl there. He spent his Senior year in Spain. He met another girl there, who was German. He then spent several years in Germany working for Daimler-Benz. His return to California was a brief as possible. Just long enough to get a Business degree from UCLA. And get married – to the girl he met in Mexico. And to have a son. And then off they go to the very tip of South Africa, lock, stock, and Grandson.

Like I said, it was our fault.