AFRICA 2011

In 2009 my parents, like so many others, lost a huge chunk of their hard-earned retirement savings when the bubble burst, the stock market crashed, and the shit hit the fan in the US economy. My father was back out on the hunt for a job. My father, unlike so many others, was fortunate enough to find one … albeit in Mozambique, on the opposite side of the world from his family. Still, it afforded him not only an income, but an exciting professional challenge, and an opportunity to return to the continent of his youth. In January of 2011, he said goodbye to his life of napping in hammocks, he said goodbye to his days of reading on the beach, he said goodbye to his family and rejoined the workforce.

                It was not until the middle of June that same year that my older sister, Rory, and I would have the distinct pleasure (sarcasm yet to be unveiled) of being Dad’s first family visitors. The plan was to fly to South Africa (incredibly accessible since the 2010 World Cup had been hosted by this, Mozambique’s lovely, sophisticated, up-and-coming neighbor to the west). Here we would spend a few days on safari in the Timbavati on a private game reserve recommended to us by a friend who, since fleeing Zimbabwe with his family (like so many other white farmers when Mugabe commenced his atrocities) now makes his living in Mozambique doing, among other things, hunting safaris. From Timbavati, we would drive the four hours across the border to Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, with Micas, the owner of a taxi company often contracted by my father and others in his office. Upon arrival, Dad would be keeping up his normal work schedule, so Rory and I would pretty much be tagging along, hitching a ride, or, as she so delicately put it, “we’re luggage”.

This last point had us both a bit concerned. I find that a trip is greatly influenced by the person whom one is visiting: when I visit my aunt on Cape Cod I know to expect restful nights with down pillows and cotton sheets with exorbitantly high thread counts, fireside chats and warm cups of tea; when I visit Mom in Honduras I know there will be no shortage of good food and tons of activities planned daily. Now we were visiting Dad, the ex-Navy Seal, after he had been living alone for five months in southern Africa in survive-and-spare-every-penny mode. We were not too sure what to expect, but it would most certainly not be anything plush, fancy or, God forbid, girly. In fact, we decided to approach it more like a camping trip: packing plenty of antibacterial hand wipes, a roll of toilet paper, and our own little lunch bag/cooler packed to the brim with everything from powdered “Amazing Meal” shakes from Whole Foods to the crackers they gave on the plane. Alright, fine, I admit it was actually Rory who had so much foresight! I just thought to take half a suitcase of clean underwear. Little could we have known how much we would actually end up depending on these little comforts!

I met up with Rory in Boston for a quick hop down to Atlanta where we prepared for our trans-ocean journey to Johannesburg. Still fearing that my sister, the crowned queen of procrastination, would have forgotten something, I was relieved to find that we were actually in good shape: visas for both South Africa and Mozambique can be taken care of at the airport or border crossing; we had both started our anti-malarial regimen even though we were heading over in winter (low mosquito season); and we both had our Visa credit cards (having been forewarned that they are preferred over MC or AmEx in Mozambique- I guess their ad is accurate and Visa really is “everywhere you want to be”- and that you can often wait HOURS in line for cash at an ATM). Right! That under control, I sat back to wait for our flight. At the time, I was reading Paul Theroux’s book “Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Capetown”.  In it he explains that, in Swahili, the term “safari” actually means “journey” and has nothing at all to do with the animals. In fact, he says that “someone ‘on safari’ is just away and unobtainable and out of touch”. This was sounding like a dream! I work for myself. Anyone who does that knows that you are supposed to make yourself available 24/7. There are no office hours. So, four weeks of being unplugged, with no cell phone signal, no suits, no heels, and no make-up was sounding very appealing, indeed! I quickly changed my cell phone greeting to let anyone know that I would be out of the country, unobtainable and out of touch. Sign me up for safari.