List: Eleven Reasons I Expected to Die on My Trip to Africa

So, tell me, if you die on your trip, are you allowed to take ashes in your carry on luggage? I told my adult daughter that if I died she was to be sure to have me cremated because I had heard horror stories of getting a body out of a foreign country. Would I be seized as suspicious looking bomb making material and lodged on a shelf in a customs office? I literally could not envision myself AFTER this trip. It was just so hard for me to imagine this could really happen even though I had dreamed of it all my life, that somehow I think it seemed this old boring self would jsut have to die to get to this other side. Somehow I just could not see survival being part of the deal, but I went anyway because I figured it was time to replace my wishbone with a backbone. I actually did live to tell about my trip and managed to avoid that dreaded shelf.

!) We lost our chance to stay at the Luxury Sheraton for free. This offer had pushed me over the edge in thinking it was now or never for me to travel internationally. My daughter taught at a school with two girls whose dad happened to be the richest man in Ethiopia, and he offered her a free room at the Luxury Sheraton which he owned in Addis, Ethiopia, plus a free car and driver while she was there. That's when I went, "Uh, ...do you think I could come too?" Details got fouled up at the last minute, and we went to Ethiopia with no place to go. We just got off the plane at Addis, haggled with taxi drivers at the airport, and stayed at $8.00 a night hotels. I think one section was a brothel, but our part was OK, and actually I would have felt very uncomfortable staying in luxury in the midst of such poverty, so I was glad.

2) We had no real plan. We hoped we were going to visit three World Vision kids in Ethiopia and Kenya, but no one would get back to us with any definite answer, so it was looking more and more like we were on our own. Month after month before our trip, I anxiously kept saying to my daughter, "Have you heard form World Vision yet?" and she kept saying, "No, Mom, relax, we are just going to have to play it by ear. " "Eh... what's that you say?" I don't know about her, but my hearing isn't THAT good. We never did hear from World Vision USA, but once we got to Africa, their people were outstanding and helpful.

3) I figured I would be abandoned somewhere because of excess poundage- not in my luggage, but in my body. How embarrassing! How potentially terminal! I really worried about being weighed on some small plane ride in Africa and being rejected as my daughter flew off into the sunset. We planned to try to ride a dhow on the river(somehow we never did), but I was worried about sinking the boat, and we would all drown because of me.

4) Everyone told me (ever so politely) that I was stark, raving mad to go on such an ambitious trip when I had never stepped foot out of the USA and not really seen much more than the East Coast here. "What are are thinking to go to Third World Countries when you have never even been to Canada?" You need to begin with a much easier trip. You can't go travelling to such an unpredictable destination when you've never really been anywhere.

5) What about malaria? What about poisonous spiders, snakes and -uh, lizards? What about weird and very disgusiting tapeworms? I know a woman who went to Africa in her twenties and who has suffered for 40 years. And I don't think she is quite right in the head either....

6) I have absolutely zero sense of direction. I made good grades in college, but if graduation had required a sense of direction test, I would still be there. We couldn't afford tour guides or even taxis, so we would be on our own. I can't even find my way around my city where I have lived for fifteen years.

7) We were on a bare bones budget with very little leeway for disaster or even a mild disruption. Losing our place to stay in Addis was not so much a problem because we were losing the luxury hotel, but because we were losing ANY place to stay that was free. It is a lot easier to find your way around with a little cash to pad the way.

8) I have a bad back, bad feet, and I am totally out of shape. Walking is the way to get around on a budget, so it would be a tough uphill climb for me. Did you know in Africa there are ancient, steep, uneven steps with no handrail and no lighting?

9) I have major sleep problems. How on earth was I going to be able to sleep when we slept in 14 different locations in 21 days? I expected to die of exhaustion if nothing else.

10) I would tell my one sister my mother always called Cassandra, who was the prophet of doom in mythology somewhere, that I was going to go to Africa, and first there was a dead silence, then a litany of reasons I should not go. "What if you get hurt or sick? The medical care will be awful, and I am sure your insurance won't cover you." (It did, or at least they said it would cover me; fortunately, I did not test it.) "You will be more likely to die over there. You need to think about being around for your children and grandchildren." I did fall out of bed for no darn good reason one night, but that could have happened at home.

11) How would I bear to see all the poverty before me? We planned to take donations to several AIDS orphanages and the three World Vision families. My daughter and I struggled with the idea of how to respond to beggars even before they were there before us. If you give begging children candy or pencils, are you teaching them that there is no other way for them to survive?

The good news is the $8.00 hotel was OK and felt fairer in the midst of poverty, World Vision came through once we got to Africa, I never got weighed (Praise the Lord!) or sank a boat, we got lost but always found our way again, we didn't come back with weird diseases, I actually slept better on this trip than at home (go figure), our money held out by being very careful, I found solutions for my aching bones, and my wishbone/tailbone feels great

The not so good news is that the poverty does break your heart, and you can not be the same after witnessing it so personally. A part of me did die, but I also fell in love with the courage, dignity and happiness of these people who still accompany me through my days here unexpectedly safe and sound at home.