A Daughter is Forever

A daughter is forever. Tired as I am of travel, when my second daughter, Erika, needed help to drive her car from Minnesota to Texas before Christmas, I agreed to go.

(Picture: Somewhere in Missouri in the remnants of an ice storm)

We made a road trip together once before. When her husband Dan finished army basic training and was sent to California, her father and I didn’t want Erika making the thirty-four hour drive on her own. We figured three eight-hour days with a ten-hour thrown in somewhere along the way would work. (My British friends, who consider a four-hour journey to be a major undertaking, are shaking their heads in dismay.) Erika, who was eager to be reunited with her husband after ten-weeks of separation and only eight hours together at his graduation from basic, talked me into two fourteen-hour days and one six-hour final sprint.

We took a picture before setting off from Indianapolis. When we got in the car, Erika turned to me and said, “Mom, I want you to know that no matter what I say to you between here and California, I love you.” I agreed that any tension between us was travel related and not to be taken personally. In return I told her that any music she chose would be fine for one CD, but no repetition without mutual agreement and no two successive CDs that were not my style.

We had a ball. We alternated music with audio-books and took a picture in every state to commemorate the journey. I drove mornings while she dozed, and she drove into the evening as long as her wifely heart pulled her west. Of course the further west we got the more widely spaced the motels, but we always seemed to be approaching the last chance by 9 or 10 P.M. We marveled at the gleaming Bonneville Salt flats; gaped at the deep valleys and green forests around Lake Tahoe; and both fell in love with Monterey Bay at first sight.

The trip from Saint Paul, Minnesota, to Killeen, Texas was not so far—only seventeen hours according to Google, but Google didn’t allow for snow and ice in Kansas. We did it in two days with a couple cats who spent more time curled up in their nice soft litter box than in their carriers. Once again we listened to audio books and took pictures of ourselves in every state. This time Erika SMSed Dan in Iraq several times a day and sent an e-mail from the motel outside Wichita. Killeen is not Monterrey; I can’t say that I fell in love with the strip malls at first sight. But Erika (and the cats) are glad to be out of Minnesota's December cold and back in their own house.

My older daughter, Katie, has a daughter of her own now. Isabella toddles toward us with big smiles and extended arms. She says ‘kitty’ and pages through her board books. She climbs the stairs and descends on her belly. Katie cuddles her, plays with her and stays up in the night with her when she fusses. I watch and think back on Katie and Erika at that age. How much is still ahead for my daughter and granddaughter as their relationship grows through the years. It is just beginning, because a daughter is forever.

African Nights

[This entry has nothing to do with children or HIV. It does have to do with travel--lots of travel--5,300 miles of travel.]

When our Johannesburg flat was sold two months before we were to leave for overseas, it seemed like a good time to pack the car and visit theological schools in Southern Africa associated with our organization, SIM.

We left Johannesburg for the Zimbabwe border-town of Beitbridge, taking our own pillows in an effort to make the many beds feel a bit more like home. We were armed with a guaranteed internet reservation from Holiday Inn International. Zimbabwe is disintegrating as anyone who pays attention to African news knows. (We saw last night that they are now out of toilet paper. Fortunately we did not have that problem.) There was no guarantee on the price of dinner however--US$30 per person for the buffet. No options. As Steve said, with 1500% inflation, they have no concept of what thirty US dollars means.

I don’t think Holiday Inn International knew about the air-conditioner in their Beitbridge hotel. If the rattling had been constant, we could have lived with it, but it kept going on and off. Every time the banging stopped we woke in the sudden silence. Every time it started up again, we were jolted back to consciousness. Steve turned it off, and we slept in our sweat.

Nights two and three of our trek were at Rusitu, a Bible College an hour off the asphalt in the Eastern Highlands overlooking Mozambique. (See the entry “Zimbabwe.”) We slept the sleep of exhausted travelers, only vaguely aware of roosters and of RJ boiling water at four A.M. before the electricity went off so we could have hot water from a thermos flask for morning coffee.

Nights four and five found us in a guest flat at Theological College of Zimbabwe in Bulawayo. A few years ago they were able to buy a former hotel for a very decent price. How many theological schools do you know that have dance floors in their auditorium? I think they are still using the old hotel sheets, most of which were about 18 inches shorter than the beds if not rotted through. Our second night we spent more than four million dollars on a pizza and three cans of Coke with a friend. The friend had to go home to get more money because he hadn’t brought enough. Of course, that was Zim dollars. The pizza was surprisingly good. (Now if they can just solve the toilet paper problem…)

The next day we waited an hour and a half in line to cross into Botswana. The little border post has its hands full trying to cope with crowds of Zimbabweans crossing daily to do their shopping. (I hope the Francistown shops have stocked enough toilet paper.) Nights six and seven we relaxed in a comfortable hotel in Maun on the edge of the lush Okavango Delta. The air-conditioner worked without banging, and the bill for dinner did not run into the millions.

Steve didn’t need much convincing to take a small detour to see game, but he regretted my encouragement to follow the signs to the giant baobab tree in Namibia’s Caprivi National Park when our Toyota Corolla got stuck in the sand. It took two lots of German tourists to pull us out. At least we didn’t spend the night. Do you have any idea how hot and dry that part of Africa is in October? Let’s just say we didn’t need any of that toilet paper Zimbabwe doesn’t have.

In Rundu, Namibia, we spent nights eight and nine in the house of a retired school teacher from U.K. who has come out to teach teachers. She has a PhD in education and is no doubt turning Namibian education up-side-down with her creative methods. One evening we ate dinner and watched the sunset at a restaurant overlooking the river that divides Namibia from Angola.

Night ten. Etosha National Park. We should have stayed five nights. We saw nineteen lions--more than in all our twelve years in Africa put together. Our home away from home was a short walk from the waterhole overlook. The bed was heaped with a white, feather-filled duvee and surrounded by gauzy white mosquito netting. It was all very romantic by candlelight when the lights went out. Somewhat less than romantic was the incessant beep of the air-conditioner resetting every time the current flickered as they tried to get the generator going.

In Windhoek we had twelve-year-old Caitlin Gunning’s room. The walls were plastered with magazine cut-outs and photos of her friends. The house was lively with five children plus a cousin studying for exams.

Our thirteenth night was definitely not bad luck. We relaxed in a room filled with antiques, and enjoyed a private dinner of bobooti and roast vegetables on a vine-graced veranda overlooking a river valley in Western Cape. I wondered about the choice of burnt orange for the sheets and towels until I opened the tap in the claw-footed bath and saw the iron-rich water that came out. Burnt orange. Good choice.

With more than five thousand kilometers under our belts, Cape Town seemed awfully tame. We stayed, as we always do, with Brazilian friends in Parow. Five nights in the same bed felt like luxury. Steve thought he was going to get all his reports written. Yeah, right. He and Lucio spent more time talking than either one of them spent writing. The night South Africa played the rugby World Cup final Steve stayed up to watch. It was past my bedtime, but I followed the course of the game with the rising roar from every house in the neighborhood, and there was no doubt who had won when the car horns and fireworks began.

On the twentieth day of our journey we loaded the car and headed across the southern strip of the continent to Tsitsikama National Park. I was a bit hesitant when Steve announced that the only accommodation available was forest huts with shared ablutions. They did have toilet paper, and the toilets flushed, so I can’t complain. The huts were tiny A-frames tucked under a tangle of vines with only room for two beds, a built-in table and counter, and a little braai/barbecue grill on the front porch. The rain held off while we cooked our boerwors and warmed our can of beans. We turned off the lights by seven thirty and were lulled to sleep with the roar of the surf a hundred meters away.

We made an early start. Good thing. South Africa is a large country. It is a long way from Tsitsikama to Kokstad, KZN. The national road is narrow and curvy, and stops for construction were frequent. The needlepoint canvas I had stitched across Zimbabwe’s wide-open spaces, sat untouched in the back seat. Eleven hours later we arrived exhausted at a little farmhouse surrounded by flowers and filled with antiques. The spring water ran clear and cold, and a large dog slept on our porch as though our security was his job for the night.

Tonight we stay with friends on the hill above Pietermaritzburg. Their garden, bright with lilies and bougainvillea, looks very civilized after the deserts, mountains and rolling pastures we have been through on our trek. Tomorrow we are off to Johannesburg and after that...

I won’t be able to take my own pillow to Wales while I research a sequel to my novel Glastonbury Tor (Kregel, 2006), but I do intend to sleep every night in the same bed.