Rough Internet in Windheok

Sunday

This morning, as usual, begins with sucking life out of my inhaler; either this dry (and sometimes dusty) air or the air conditioning, or both, are really affecting me. The good side of all this though is that since the day I started treatment for asthma, my migraines stopped. At the time of my diagnosis, I was having three a week, so this morning at 5:00 I woke up and thought about the impact travelling has had on my life.

My poor father didn’t know what to do with me in the summers. Mother was paralyzed and in and out of hospital and then gone for good to a facility and he had to find ways to keep me occupied. During the summer I was sixteen, he arranged for me to work at Indian River Logging Camp. It was a Wellwood camp and he had a friend at Wellwood. I cried every morning while he drove me to the water taxi ferry that would take me to the camp. I came home every Friday after work like a refugee.

But that job paid crazy money for a sixteen year old so, on December 22, 1964, I announced to my father that I was taking a trip. I bought a ticket to Trinidad where a favourite cousin lived who, I was sure, would take me in. I flew from Vancouver to Winnipeg, Montreal, Bermuda, Barbados and then to Port of Spain. John Diefenbaker got on in Montreal. I introduced myself and flew to Bermuda with him in first class.

My Trinidad experience was overwhelming. I kept a diary that celebrates escape. Either I hated the job so much that the decision to go was the first evidence of a profound change in me, or it was the trip. I am not sure, but I came back changed. From then on, I made the decisions in my life; I was through with others taking my lead and that is when I first started thinking of a career other then math and science.

I credit travelling as a huge part of my education and the growth of my soul and it is an infinite resource. With only a week more to go here, I am feeling a rainbow of emotions about returning to cold, wet and responsibilities. But then there are Leon and my friends and my passion project, Knock Knock to look forward to.

Below: A King Cobra we saw on the road. It is a seriously feared snake (this one is dead) and it was full. It had recently eaten and there was no blood around so Peron figured someone had killed it and then thrown it on the road.