Nice Day For a White Wedding

Planning a trip to sub Saharan Africa is a lot like planning a wedding, minus the shots. Planning a wedding takes a lot of energy, time, resources, and sheer will power. And when all is said and done, the day is over in the blink of an eye. It effortlessly transforms from the ever approaching dream day to a distant memory.

I feel like this trip has been coming down the pipeline FOREVER. And yet, it is 18 hours before I leave and I still have yet to pack. How does that happen?

Much like a wedding, this trip is the product of a lot of planning.  In the past few weeks alone, in anticipation of being gone for two weeks in a place where I may or may not have internet connection, I have done my taxes, paid bills, graded over 150 essays, lesson planned two weeks out, gone to the drug store no less than three times for meds I may or may not need while abroad, bought warm weather clothes and sprayed them with mosquito repellant, collected and packed 61 t-shirts, 17 soccer balls, 850 pencils, 100 pens, and nine boxes of chalk, went to the doctor for four shots, sent in my visa paperwork twice (the directions were confusing!), and spent several hours on the phone reassuring my mother that Ghana is safe. Really.

But, it is good that a trip like this is not easy. Dealing with passports and visas and worrying about where my meals will come from (and if I will get violently ill from accidentally brushing my teeth with the tap water) makes me appreciate how difficult it is to go to place as exotic as Ghana. The simplicity of hopping on a plane to go anywhere can strip away the wonder that is travel.  Buying copious amounts of Imodium will bring you back to earth rather quickly.

Allow me to share a memory.  The last time I went to Africa (Uganda) in 2011, I remember sitting on the plane as we had a layover in Kenya. I felt like a hot shot because I had been to Uganda before and traveling to sub Saharan Africa was no big deal. (Might as well have been traveling to Alabama to visit the in-laws.) But then, just as we were about to depart, the lovely Dutch flight attendants closed the doors and announced that everyone needed to keep their heads down because they needed to spray mosquito repellant in the cabin. They put on these World War I gas masks and opened up bright blue spray bottles and walked briskly through the cabin citing everyone and everything with a noxious gas. I overheard another person saying that they had to do it because of a particularly deadly outbreak of malaria that was hopping borders by infesting itself in unknowing travelers. That was humbling and provided a much needed reminder of how big the world really is, despite the relative ease of air travel.

Much like my wedding day, this trip is already flying by and it has not even started yet. Because now it is 17 hours before I depart and I still have not packed.