Our first full day includes touring Johannesburg and stopping to
reflect and sing in Soweto, site of an infamous massacre of whole
families protesting apartheid before the revolution.
I'm trying not to think about the fact that I'm feeling like I just
survived a huge Atlantic crossing, but I'm not due to land in
Johannesburg for about nine and a half more hours. Growing up with
Mercator projection maps, that make the northern hemisphere look
bigger than the southern, it's a surprise to learn just how BIG Africa
is.
As I have the next 16 or so hours to spend flying along without sleep,
I suppose it's a good time to think and write about what I expect.
Like all travel, especially to "first time" destinations, this won't
go the way I expect. But it's fun to mark down some expectations.
Quite a few different people contributed to the journey's cost, and my
entire trove of Delta frequent flyer miles (from back when I flew
frequently) went into this. So, what comes of it?
The music is a joy to perform, but nothing earth shattering. Just
seeing Africa will be an exerience worth the costs.
Seeing nation building in progress after a successful anti-colonial
revolution will be fascinating. South Africa pioneered the whole
notion of an active "truth and reconcilliation" process after it's
revolution. Its Constitution protects the rights of minorities more
carefully than does the (crumbling) US Constitution. But, things
aren't going completely perfectly. Will power corrupt, as it appears
to have done in Zimbabwe? If so, how far? How fast?
How do white and black people in ZA get along, now that political
power relationships have (nominally) inverted? Are they like oil and
water. If the new RSA Constitution is like an emulsion of the two, how
stable is it? It's one thing to read news services and editorials with
different points of view, get the "official" story through the
American media (which uses the technology developed for consumer
advertising to sell plutocracy), and have romantic visions of a state
crafted by the likes of Mandela and Tutu. But what do my German-South
African relatives have to say about actually living through the
revolution and post-apartheid realities? What might some other people
I might encounter say?
How does rule of law interact with freedom? Will I see kinds of
lawlessness that make me better appreciate the practical advantages of
life in Seattle, where I can count on a red traffic light to stop a
car from hitting me in a crosswalk? How is Johannesburg like Bangkok?
How is it different?
What questions am I not thinking about? The scientist in me likes to
define questions before setting out in search of answers. I've seen
some really bad science done by smart people who confused experiment
with exploration (conducting expensive experiments without a
hypothesis to test--answering the not-too-useful question "what
happens when I..."). Now, I get to try and be less of a scientist and
more of an explorer--fitting questions to the answers I observe.
I guess this will be like all international travel. For a few days, I
leave the restrictive "brane" of my domestic point of view, and see
the world (and America) from a different perspective. Along the way, I
see things differently. In this case, I get to add a background of
touring musical performance, and the sheer intensity of doing it all
in Africa.
I want to experience it, and see my universe differently.
Fortunately, I intend to enjoy this trip anyway. But the flights just
turned hellacious because no CPAP=no sleep.
Onward...
This trip will be my first attempt to sleep during the long segments, using the "laptop power ports" for my CPAP while in a coach-class seat. If it works, I'll be a very happy camper. It worked great when I flew to Turkey last May, but that was in business class (thanks to my dear sister's love affair with American Airlines). This will be a longer flight with less leg, shoulder, and elbow room. But, if I really sleep, it should be easy. I always have trepidation before a flight like this. Then it happens, and then it's over, and then I'm somewhere wonderful.
Onward...
