On my right - Deck. An adorable 19 year old Dutch boy embarking on a life-altering 6-month solo journey through East and Southern Africa and Asia. Dressed in typically stylish Euro fashion of well-fitting jeans, grey hoody, grey striped scarf and gorgeous Asics kicks (soon to be browned by Africa's rich earth) and with a mop of curly hair and endearing slight stutter, Deck shares with me his excitement over his first trip to Africa and beyond before returning to Amsterdam to start at the University. During our stop over from Amsterdam to Dar es Salaam in Kilimanjaro airport to let off passengers (90% of the flight) coming for safaris and Mt Kilimanjaro climbs, Deck is a child on Christmas morning - straining his eyes as he looks out the airplane window at the airport terminal ("There are only two other planes here!") and, like a child unwrapping the corner of a Christmas gift to get a peek at what is to come, confesses that he wants desperately to get off the plane just to see his first real glimpse of AFRICA.
On my left - Sidell. Barely 5-feet tall with a Nike hooded sweatshirt and shoes maybe size 4, she'll be turning 80 next month. Originally from New York and now residing in North Carolina, Sidell, who takes a wheel chair to and from the airplane but still able to shuffle around on her own, is disembarking at Kilimanjaro to begin a 3-week safari tour. She says she does a big trip like this every couple of years. Her favorite trip so far was two years ago when she did a tour of Fiji. I assume she is a widow, though I never ask her if she has children or what work she may have done.
I am flying to Tanzania in a generational sandwich that I can't help but compare to the new Jim Carrey's A Christmas Carol preview I keep seeing at the theatre: Deck is the (adorable, male version of) ghost of Drew's travel past, I am the (very much alive, thank you) present traveling Drew, and Sidell is the ghost (also very much alive) of an amazing travel future yet to come.
Deck reminds me so much of my own experience in terms of the sheer excitement and glee of beginning a long solo journey at a time of rapid personal growth, knowing it will be life changing but having no idea of how and to what extent. He infects me with the excitement of arriving in a new place, and his blind energy and youthful naivety remind me that I am long past the age of 19, and while I have lost some of the naivete, I have not yet gained the jaded perspective of travel that seems to infect people who travel for work (this being my first work travel).
Sidell is everything I hope to be at the age (almost) of 80: of good mind and body; able to do things for myself but not afraid to ask someone to help open the darn plastic cutlery pouch; reading mystery novels; and traveling the world fearlessly. I always feel that I should grasp every opportunity to travel I can, since I cannot guarantee it in the future. It would be the most comforting and satisfying psychic reading ever if a Madame Crystal were to tell me I'd be traveling well into my 70's.
Today's generational sandwich has left me fully invigorated - wanting to travel more than ever (even though I am right now!) and greatly looking forward to the next 6 days in Tanzania.
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