Travel is fatal to bigotry

"Travel is fatal to bigotry, prejudice, and narrow-mindedness. Broad, wholesome, and charitable views cannot be acquired by vegetating in one tiny corner of the globe."--Mark Twain 

"Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.” 
– Maya Angelou 

Action. Compassion. Adventure

I have a penchant for being a peripatetic. I like to roam and explore, mingle with culture and climates, photograph and write of my journeys.  I visited Turkey in 2007. Last night the Ataturk Airport in Istabul was attacked. My heart hurts. This world is becoming more hateful. I will not join that. Instead, I work towards compassion. Embarking on this next adventure is rooted in compassion for the earth, power of the people, and education as the key. I'm following the footsteps of a hero: Jane Goodall. 

Just this week, I began an online course she's offering called Growing Compassionate Leaders: Empowering Youth Through Service in Education. Roots and Shoots, her environmental education program, began 25 years ago in Kigoma, Tanzania. This morning I finally skyped with my Roots and Shoots contact there to finalize plans for my own service with the program. I am looking forward to my continued learning, new friendships, and our shared experiences. 

The Penultimate Continent

I love the word penultimate. It packs such punch, sounds so erudite, and yet, the definition is so simple: Second to last.

So, watch out world.

I'm flying to my penultimate continent. Here are all 7 in the order of my travels.

1. Europe: being I was born there, Germany, France, Iceland, Norway, Turkey
2. North America: home, and I've traveled a fair bit of it North from Anchorage and Churchill, Canada and south down to Tulum Mexico. East from Maine to West in Hawaii.
3. Asia: Nepal, Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Japan
4. South America: Peru, Ecuador, and Central America's Costa Rica.
5. Australia: where country and continent are one
6. Africa: Tanzania and Rwanda
7. Antarctica: a snowy future dream

Reading list

For me, any adventure begins in the library. I am known to get all the juvenile literature books on a particular country and devour them in the months before I leave. This lets me flip through colorful pages of photos, learning about food, culture, textiles, government systems, wildlife, etc. It helps me know what to expect, and what to hope to photograph.

Most of what we in the US know about the continent of Africa, the dark continent, is generated through the world of West Africa--music, dance, kente cloth, etc. East Africa is less know to us for culture, and more for wildlife--big game.

Search children's books for Tanzania you get Jane Goodall's biography. Jane I know a bit about. I got to drive her around in my old Subaru in the summer of 2000 for Seattle's Bumbershoot festival. There will be much more writing about my connection with her and my trip to follow her footsteps.

So this is my collection of learning:

Jane. check. (She signed both those books to me!) Chimps. check. We are all completely beside ourselves was the 2016 Seattle Reads book. While fiction, there was plenty of collateral chimp knowledge gained.  Kili. check. Gorillas. check. I even had a chat with authors Bill and Amy; they are Yale profs and patients of my dad.  Rising from Ashes--a documentary movie about the Rwandan National Cycling team. The film left me in hopeful tears.

Despite this reading list, I feel less prepared for the cultural encounters. Which leaves me open to adventure.

Karibu.

Gearing up for the penultimate continent

I'm laying out the gear for another international adventure. 

It was helpful to "build a body"--an old technique I used with students in the field to make sure they had all the gear they needed head to toe. 

I even weighed my gear and recorded it on my pack list--cool tools to use on my new computer.

Gifts, first aid, trekking poles, snacks, reading material off the sides. 

Camera gear is another whole situation. 

Stay tuned.