Mat's Travel Journal

Atlanta, GA 12/28/09
-Atlanta Hartsfield International Airport-

Jillian and I got to Johannesburg “yesterday” and turned on the news for the first time in about a week. There was a BBC report about a guy that tried to blow up his underwear on a flight a few days ago as it was landing in the U.S. As we watched the news I turned to her and said, “This is going to make getting home interesting.” Of course by “interesting” I meant complicated and I was right, well for me at least.

I’ve probably been in and out of the Atlanta Hartsfield airport a thousand times but today I’m here in a section I’ve never seen before; the immigration waiting area. It feels a little like the waiting area at the DMV. There are rows of seats that don’t look old but very used, facing a high counter with clerks behind it. I guess they are probably called agents in this instance but either way that’s who I’m waiting to see, or at least I think that’s what I’m waiting for. To tell you the truth I’m just waiting for someone to call my name. The interview rooms that connect to this waiting area give a glimpse that there are more serious issues being cleared up here than something you find at the DMV though and in case there was any doubt the restroom I was just allowed to use was clearly made to detain someone.

You match the surroundings along with the conversations I can hear from the counter; Q & A’s that include, “So where were you before you were in Tehran?”, “What was your business in Pakistan?”, “Are you a student in Venezuela?”, “Why do you travel to Columbia so often?”… and you realize you are getting close to the stuff you hear about on the news each night.

And then there’s me...here I sit waiting for my name to be called so I can explain that I have no intention of blowing up anything most especially my underwear.

Jillian has gone on ahead in an attempt to catch our connection to West Palm. I’m sure I’ll miss that flight now but oh well. Being stuck in Atlanta and trying to hop a flight home will be a familiar feeling to transition me back to normal life.

Jillian was a little taken back and annoyed when I was taken aside and asked to wait here for further questions. “Look around! You don’t belong here!” she said.

I am the only US citizen in a waiting room of about 25 people but I am fine with it. I told her I should be asked more questions. I’m the reason that you can’t profile based on race (not that it matters but I am the only Caucasian sitting here.) My passport is a dirty faded book of random stamps that show a non-traditional pattern of travel; in and out of the US several times in the past few years. Random “holiday” visits to unusual places like Cambodia, China, Nepal, India, etc. If they didn’t ask me more questions I’d be worried.

Of course there’s a good chance that my new wife will now be returning from our Honeymoon in Africa without me. I’m sure that will be commented on by many.

I think I’ll be constructive with my time here though as I wait and jot down some memories of our last few days in South Africa.

After Kruger we said goodbye to all of our new international friends from the lodge. We had shared a few fun nights with them sipping cold beers around a camp fire. As always it is one of the things I love most about traveling and I think Jillian now has a taste for it. I think that will help ease what little anxiety she has left about my travel style the next time we are able to wander somewhere.

We have one new friend that has been with us for several days now. Mark, from England, is on a whirlwind world tour hitting some of my favorite places. For the last week our schedules have synced up and we’ve spent hours together in various transports, safari trucks, or sitting around a campfire.

The 3 of us hit Jo’burg together and managed to meet up at the airport for one last pint. Marks just starting out and I tried real hard to not say, “You should do this or that…” the best part of traveling is the lessons you learn along the way. I did give him some tips and tried real hard to hide my envy. His next few months are going to be memorable.

Our time in Jo’burg was pretty uneventful. The city lived up to its billing of being large, non-descript, and sketchy in most parts. We even tried to pick a fun artsy area of town, an area called Melville, but even it was a ghost town by 6 p.m. with only a couple decent restaurants to choose from. The place we did pick for dinner, a Thai place, was so empty the only other couple in the place invited us to join them.

We politely said no but by the end of dinner the two, noticeably intoxicated, ladies were at our table trying to buy us shots. (Well, I think they would have been happier just buying Jillian shots but I wasn’t going anywhere so they tolerated me.)
We were able to visit the Apartheid museum for several hours before leaving town and I’ll probably take that as my most vivid memory of Jo’burg. That experience made an impact for sure. I remember visiting the Holocaust museum in D.C. years ago, or even standing at the A-Bomb Dome in Hiroshima, and thinking how crazy, naïve, and down right stupid the world was “back then”. Those events were history though; black and white photos from my Grandparents era.

The Apartheid Museum made it blatantly clear to me that governmental, societal, and human stupidity is still taking place. The events of Apartheid are not from the way back when and there are decades of color pictures that document Apartheid rules. The timeline of historical events like Nelson Mandela’s release from prison in 1990 happened in years when I was not only alive but old enough to know that Apartheid was wrong. I was 16 when he was released. If an inexperienced kid in a small town in Central Illinois knows something is just plain evil how can an entire government do it and how can the rest of the world let it go on for decades?

Of course it eventually did stop but I wonder what museum I’ll be standing in 20 years from now wondering the same thing; maybe Darfur or Tibet. Then again, as I’m reminded of my current setting, I sure hope it’s somewhere in the middle east in a time when we wonder how so many were once so misguided enough to blow themselves up for any cause, or use a bomb of any kind to solve a problem.

On a lighter note this will probably be my last entry of 2009, another amazing year if I do say so myself. There was a lot of hard work this year but I think it all paid off, as usual. I don’t kid myself though and I know if I was able to add up all the hours in the year I’m sure I still had more time having fun than not. I wouldn’t change a thing.

The gang for NYE starts arriving in WPB tomorrow, a big group this year too. I’m excited. We are heading down to Key West on the 30th…and I’m still really looking forward to spraying a bottle of champagne as the conch drops and wrapping up 2009.

I don’t know if I’ll get a chance to use my passport again for quite sometime. I know this trip is the final end of a certain chapter. Well that chapter probably ended back at the start of 2008 but this was the final encore. The next few years will bring new priorities to my life; priorities that will force me to use my resources, mostly time and money, for other things besides airfare and wandering. They are all choices that I have made freely so I’m not sad about ending this era, just nostalgic. Plus I also know eventually I’ll find/make a way to resume my travel and even expand my explorations.

In Walden ol’Henry wrote, “As long as possible live free and uncommitted.” I didn’t set out to do that but looking back it seems like I followed this great advice. I lived the life I imagined and I did in fact meet with a success unmatched in common hours. Now the life I imagine for myself looks a little different.

MJF