Adventure Ends

Like everything in life, my Adventure in Southern Africa has come to an end. Thankfully I have a lifetime of memories. I would be remiss if I didn't thank HLO Tours in Lake Mary, Florida and if I didn't let everyone know that Hamdy Nossair, President of HLO Tours is a great tour operator. He worked very hard planning the trip, and kept busy during the trip so that everyone of us would have that lifetime of memories. He and Ellie Leinaweaver of Focus Travel Club had to have worked for many months to create such a great trip. This adventure was my second with Hamdy and my third with Ellie and the group. As many of you know, I used to do Southern California tours for the eighth graders at several Bureau Schools. I know how much work our 5 day tours were. Planning a 21 day trip on another continent is beyond most of my comprehension. Hamdy and Ellie are both perfectionists and work very hard to make sure that we have amazingly memorable trips in Africa any beyond. They both work long hours during the trip and ensuring that we never have to wonder what to do. We do have plenty of free time and are given great suggestions of safe places to go.

Many of my next blogs will be dealing with what I saw, and what I learned. I will try to keep them interesting and will include some pictures. Other pictures and videos will be posted on other sites. Going through all those pictures and videos will be quite a job. My hope is that after I recover from the jet lag some miracle will occur and I will find a way to make the presentations of pictures and videos into some sembalace of some kind of global order. I will try to keep the presentations at about 5 minutes or less so that no one will get bored. I will not be doing Day one, Day two... presentations. Firstly because I am not that good with that format, and secondly because the trip was so much more than that. The miracle I am hoping for worked for both Scotland and Egypt. Egypt easily fit into 3 basic presentations: Ancient Egypt, Mordern Egypt, and The Nile. I am sure an organizational miracle will work for Southern Africa as well.

My first overall observance has to do with PERCEPTION. That is "immediate or intuitive recognition or appreciation, as of moral, psychological, or aesthetic qualities; insight; intuition; discernment." I was able to visit Cape Town, Robben Island, the Apartheid Museum, and Victoria Falls. In South Africa there are whites, colored, and blacks. And Apartheid found a very destructive means of separating these groups. Coloreds might be mixed race, they might be Indian or Pakistani, they might be Chinese. Whites might be light skinned Europeans, they might be Japanese. Blacks might be from one of many tribes--who were grouped togheter much like the US did with our 'American Indians'. If that wasn't hard enough to understand, there were also the Afrikaans. Some Apartheid started in the late 1920's and didn't end until the 1990's. On his release from Robben Island Prison, Nelson Mandella told the people of South Africa to move on from Apartheid and live with Reconciliation. In less than 20 years the voice of many white South Africans have had to change from calling Mandella and the ANC (African National Congress) Terrorists to Heroes. Blacks and Coloreds have moved from Freedom Fighters to Heroes. It is all about preception. When the Dutch, French, Brits arrived in the area they renamed everything. Mosi-oa-tunya (The Smoke that Thuders) was renamed Victoria Falls by a Scotsman. After his death an island was changed from 'The place of rest and shade' became Livingstone Island. Like so many who have invaded or colonized, the native language was ignored. It's all about perception.
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Other regular features will return tomorrow. I'm just too lazy to do it tonight.

I do hope everyone honored our Vets on Wednesday. While going through customs in DC, I was shocked to learn that our soldiers have to stand in the same lines as the rest of us to re-enter the US. One soldier just behind us in the customs line was coming home on emergency leave--his brother-in-law had been killed in Arizona. He was held up one day because no flights could leave Afghanistan. He was on is third tour over there. In that same line were at least 10 other camoed out military. It seems that our 30 minute wait was OK for me, as a returning tourist . It seemed to me that military personnel should have a shorter line. None of them were complaining, but it seems to me they should get at least that perk. It was nice to see how many returning American citizens did take time to thank the military personnel while they stood in line. Our flight from DC to Denver had three soldiers and a college basketball team. The stewardess was talking to the coach because the crew wanted to recognize the team over the PA system when we landed. I asked her to also thank the soldiers. She did both. It was nice.