Hello from "the land
of the free, the home of the brave."
For the curious among my loyal African "postcard" readers,
I did make it back safely to the U.S. After several messages from
concerned friends, I realize there might be others following my journeys
that also crave closure.
As I look back on my foolhardy antics of the past year, I cannot help
but read new meaning into those words from The Star Spangled Banner,
America's national anthem. How fortunate I am to be an American; how
American it is to be fortunate. Free spirits like me overrun the
neighborhoods of America and their relative affluence, by world
standards, makes it possible for them to do frivolous things unthinkable
in most of the towns and villages I visited throughout Africa last year.
Immediately after returning to the developed world, I found myself
overwhelmed by the hemispheric contrasts of complexity, choices, and
affluence. Hectic and anxious, I began paying unfamiliar attention to
little things like choosing among a dozen brands of shaving razors,
preoccupied with selecting among so many choices. Only a few weeks ago,
my concerns naturally focused on finding rather than choosing. If I
were asked to compare Africa and America with single words, it would be
“simplicity” and “complexity.”
America’s technology and economic prowess are the envy of Africans.
Americans are admired, viewed with awe, expected to provide solutions to
every African ill… personal and national. Still, I have found
populations in both places are pretty much the same in their basic human
traits. Small fractions of humanity anywhere will prey on the
vulnerable; small fractions are exceptionally generous, altruistic, even
saintly. Most are like the rest of us, just regular folks with
unpredictable talents and foibles.
As we approached the Miami tarmac, I wondered how much life in my
country had changed as a result of the 11 September terrorist attacks a
few months earlier. Immediately upon disembarking I noticed the American
flags. The last time I saw so many flags displayed publicly, American
Independence Day calibrations were in full swing. The Stars and Stripes
were everywhere: on patriotic posters in the airline lobbies, on luggage
coming and going, on tee-shirts, in windows along the roads, from the
antennae and on the bumpers of cars; and even some in the gutters lost
and forgotten. The nationalist fervor remains palpable.
But there is something else, too: people going out of their way to be
nice to one another. Traffic pauses atypically to let other vehicles
merge into the stream without the usual jostling, and obvious strangers
smiling and greeting one another like long lost friends recently
reunited. Apparently the 9/11 tragedies have made many of us realize how
much we need one another… or, is it just the way I see things that has
changed?
My meandering track home took me through Miami, Orlando, Los Angeles,
Big Bear Lake, and Santa Barbara. In a couple weeks it will be back up
to Big Bear Lake for a few months of solitude and quiet work. At the
moment I am hunkered down sharing a hiking friend's house in Santa
Barbara, conveniently located only blocks from the Wake Adult Education
campus where I monopolize one of their free Computer-Lab terminals and
have access to the Internet. My own new 2.0 Ghz P4 machine still sits
isolated from the rest of the world, but it is FAST. Windows XP is a
delight. The newest PenCam 400 arrived last week and I am still
marveling at its extraordinary XGA resolution and enormous 400 image
capacity. Battery life of only one full photo session appears to be its
main limitation.
Since my last postcard from Portugal, drifting back to Southern
California has been relatively tame. After a few more days in Madrid and
numerous conversations with American Airline representatives regarding
my cancelled reservation on the recently defunct Sabina Airline, they
finally found me a return flight by way of Miami. Perfect. I've been
longing to visit Walt Disney's Epcot Center for decades and Sabina's
misfortune made it possible.
Epcot is truly wonderful, though a mere crust of Walt's original
pie-in-the-sky dream. One of the four kingdoms of Disney World, there is
just enough forward looking technology to make the place much more than
an amusement park. To my surprise, the Animal Kingdom far exceeded my
expectations. The featured African Safari is better than some of the
game drives I took while exploring the real Dark Continent. The rest of
the Orlando theme parks are pretty much like Disneyland in Anaheim
California or Paris France or Tokyo Japan. I'm sure the same grubby set
of plans served the Magic Kingdom construction crews in all four
locations.
The flight to Los Angeles on 21 January got me back in the vicinity
of where "home" has been for most of my life. An un-crowded
train and buses whisked me back up the hill... no need to buy two seats
for safety and comfort on these. The tiny cramped apartment where I've
stored all my stuff in Big Bear felt like a palace after some of the
"make do" lodgings I enjoyed this past year. The ancient Vette
started instantly; one tire had lost its oomph, but a little mountain
air fixed that. A week after arriving, I finally finished reading
through all the mail and managed to get the few problems that had
accumulated, at least prioritized.
Located near Los Angeles high in the San Bernardino Mountains, Big
Bear Lake in the winter could be paradise for penguins... skiers flock
there for the celebrated slippery slopes. My initial brief stop in Big
Bear Lake gave me a chance to become reacquainted with that frigid
conical ice-cube factory. January icicles hanging from the eaves
sometimes grow seven feet in length. After Africa, I found it rather
chilly... 10 degrees Fahrenheit one night... very freezing. Even cold
Spain felt warm by comparison.
From my perspective, this adventure is not over. After the initial
week in Big Bear Lake, I’m now enjoying some of the amazing Adult
Education programs offered each semester in Santa Barbara (See hiking class
photos)
and renewing old friendships. Returning alive from such a lengthy and
unpredictable adventure has produced a brief period of minor celebrity
status with many invitations to lunches, parties and coffees. It seems
that almost everyone wants to hear a bit about about places they would
never dream of visiting themselves. Of course, they might also just want
to get a close, first hand look at a certified idiot. Either way,
it has been an enjoyable and interesting period for me.
My piles of notes, journals, records, and reference materials are
waiting to be turned into something coherent. Cleaning up the travelogue
will put me well on the path to creating what I hope will be both a
unique and interesting personal commentary on my experiences in Africa.
Already I have hypertexturized the postcards and produced a story freer
of the disjointedness, which characterized the original missives sent
from the field. By the time you get this I will have put everything
together with navigation links and nice graphics in a special website on
the Internet. I'm still working on revisions and augmentations, but
progress comes daily. Even now the collection is eminently more readable
and slowly grows fatter with added text and a few of the better
pictures. If you'd like to see my progress, take a look at
the website
here. The
Fredbellomy.com domain is where I keep all the drafts of my various
writing projects. I intend to complete some of them before flying off on
my next ill-advised adventure later this year.
Pictures I took with the older PenCam while in Florida can be found
here.
With that, I close this series of Postcards.
Until our next cyber-meeting,
Peace
Fred Bellomy 21 January 2002
22 March 2002
Lessons Learned
