Today’s blog
Lynn Murphy Mark
In Africa
The word from Africa is, not much yet. Two boys met their cousins, Tife and Bibire. They met their ageless great grandmother, their grandfather, an aunt and some uncles. So far we’ve gotten two pictures, each one in the Abuja, Nigeria, airport. In each picture Xander is tucked in close to Jackie and Cameron is fiddling with some toy. According to Jackie, the boys had their first ever sleepover at their cousin’s house and discovered that not much actual sleeping happens at those occasions. They spent time in a pool. There was a playground, straight out of the 1980’s, complete with one of those go-round things that usually results in stomach problems as it whirls around. Xander has a scraped arm, presumably from flying off of it, and Jackie remembers why those things are no longer present in USA playgrounds.
The latest picture shows them waiting to board a flight for Lagos, Nigeria and then a connecting flight to Johannesburg, South Africa. If I’ve got this right, they will rent a car in South Africa and make the drive to neighboring Namibia. They will start out in Windhoek, Namibia, the capital city. Windhoek was always a main city, but was the site of wars and armed hostilities in the 1800’s. Then the German Imperial Army re-established the city as the Germans colonized the territory.
What the boys will find there is the main gathering place for politics, economics, and cultural affairs. In the past, the boys have been taken to museums on their other travels within the USA, so I have every reason to believe they will visit them in Namibia. I don’t know how much they will remember of what they absorb, but I do know that their minds are like steel traps, especially Cameron’s.
Next on the tour is Sossusviei, site of a large national park. The name, Sossusviei, means dead-end marsh. It is a salt pan area with huge sand dunes in different shades of orange, mostly from oxidation of the iron rich soil. They will no doubt visit a sand dune named, “Big Daddy” that is over 900 feet tall, and “Dune 7” which is over 1,100 feet tall.
I’m not sure what one does with big sand dunes besides admire them. The most interesting thing that Wikipedia taught me is that there is a desert beetle that has developed a way to collect water from early morning fog “with the help of specially adapted bumps on its back.” The boys will be all over that one.
Namibia is the central part of this trip. Next comes Swakopmund, a city on the Western coast of Africa. Perhaps the boys will dip into the same ocean that they know from New Jersey, only this part is 7,365 miles away from home.
Finally, a trip to a national park in Etosha, known for its wildlife sanctuary status. Lions, elephants, leopards, cheetahs, zebra, antelope, are all denizens of this area. I think this might be the most exciting part for the boys. They have been rabid “Lion King” fans most of their lives. Cameron has chosen a lion as his animal. Xander likes tigers – he will have to wait until they travel to India to see his animal, but maybe he’ll settle for a cheetah.
Just writing this, and learning how to spell the names of places in Namibia, has taught me a lot about a country in a continent that I find fascinating, and will probably never get to see in person. However, my grandsons, who are becoming world travelers, will grow up with a sense of the world as a connected place. They have now met one half of their relatives and their heritage. I can’t wait to hear from them when they get back!