Life is a Trip (2 page)

“You know how to travel deeply,” said another editor.

I had never really thought about it. My interest in travel had always been a fa
s
cination for what lies beneath the surface. I relished spontaneous meetings, arrows pointing me in a different direction from the one I had planned. Even mishaps. In South Africa, Paul got an ear infection and he couldn’t fly for a month. Panic. Stranded in South Africa. Opportunity. Adventure. We went to a Zulu
sangoma
(healer), stumbled upon an Ndebele village where the women are ar
t
ists and paint geometric designs on their houses, visited townships, met locals everywhere.

In Switzerland, some unexpected bad weather got in the way of touring, but led us to inquire about how locals predicted the weather. The next thing we knew, we were in the home of a
wetterschmecker
(literally a “weather taster”) and entered a world of people who predic
t
ed the weather based upon signs in nature—like the wool on a sheep or the way branches hang from a tree. Locally, they are also known as the “weather frogs.”

In Tunisia, we missed a desert festival, but I had a chance meeting with a Be
d
ouin horseman, which gave me precious entry into a beaut
i
ful and ancient culture, which led to a correspondence with the hors
e
man that went on for years. In the Israeli desert, I was disappointed because we arrived too late to catch photos of the sunset, but I ended up in a tent with a sheikh, exchanging ideas about marriage over se
v
eral bracing cups of tea and a meal of chicken couscous cooked on an open fire.

In Ireland, a comment by a guide about the truth of the nineteenth-century p
o
tato famine led me on a focused and fascinating trip through the country, where I discovered how the Irish people were starved to death and why they really came to America. In New Zealand, a keen interest in the Maori people and an exploration of their origination st
o
ries led to the joy of us getting “adopted” into an extended Maori fam
i
ly, who remain close to our hearts and lives today.

Eventually, all of these experiences resulted in published articles. And that e
n
couraged me to be continually on the lookout for stories, to find the characters, hi
s
tory, tales, and teachings that lurk and shimmer and are waiting to be discovered underneath the surface of our travels. Of course, I always hoped that the stories I wrote would enrich the lives of readers, but I knew for sure that they enhanced my life and kept me in a perpetual state of wide-eyed excitement. I was a hopeless, i
n
cur
a
bly-addicted traveler.

The difference between being a tourist and a traveler is that a traveler is open to unplanned experience and doesn’t have her nose stuck in a guidebook, tracking down famous sites. She ventures out from behind glass windows (in hotels and touring buses) and meets people. She connects. The difference between a traveler and a travel journalist is that the latter is always searching for stories. But it o
c
curred to me that
any
traveler can travel like a journalist—looking for cues and clues, diving into new cultures, and coming home with great stories and new ways of responding to life.

Maybe the marks of a good traveler—whether one treks for pleasure or as a profession—are the stories he experiences and retells and what he learns from those stories.

“How do you become a travel writer?” people always ask me. I decided that I would like to answer that question in order to let others know how to do it. I want to focus on the
way
of the travel writer, r
a
ther than the note-taking, interviewing, information-gathering process. I hope to encourage others to step out of their co
m
fort zones and really experience the places they are visiting and the people who live there.

I understand that not everyone wants to be a travel writer, but the skills that a travel journalist has can help anyone to travel more richly, in a safe, satisfying, and spontaneous way. And the traveler is sure to come home with fascinating stories and experiences that can transform his life and touch the lives of those around him.

In this book, I’m sharing with you what I absorbed and brought back from key experiences and encounters during my years of travel—experiences that have shaped me, opened me up to the world and been put to the test many times. I hope these experiences will touch you and help you as you navigate the challenges of travel and traveling through life. Maybe the experiences will inspire you . . . whether you are on the road or never venture beyond your hometown.

I live to leave . . . and I invite you to join me on my adventures.

C
hristine Wilson had a vision
—a travel vision whose participants i
n
cluded a gaggle of fidgety, vomiting infants; handfuls of potentially i
n
compatible adults; a few guardians who were strong enough to manage the unpredictable rages that sometimes erupted from a deeply traumatized brain; and Christine’s husband, John Wilson, an unflappable Maori elder.

This odd parade of pilgrims waddled, crawled, bounded, and walked into three aging, rented camper vans that had the annoying habit of breaking down. The chi
l
dren spewed and pooed, the women frowned, the men stared intently into the campers’ frequently failing engines, fiddling with this and that wire. And, throug
h
out it all, Christine Wilson exuded confidence that all would be well, and elder John smiled and flicked his woolen cap. Sure enough, the vans eventually hit the road again until the next automotive collapse.

Christine’s travel vision was broad, chaotic, and inspired by history. In the mid-nineteenth century, British immigrants and convicts b
e
gan arriving in New Zealand. The former were seeking a better life and they were accepted as long-term residents and citizens. The la
t
ter—young offenders—were roundly rejected and it was difficult for them to find work. Most of them were guilty of petty crimes and they had been raised with poverty and deprivation.

As more European immigrants arrived, there was a degree of hanky-panky, love, lust, and marriage between them, their descendants, and the Maori tribes who had populated New Zealand for many centuries. The Maori were a robust Polynesian cu
l
ture, and their tattoos, taboos, wood carvings of ancestors, pride and proficiency at seafaring, navigation, or
a
tion, hospitality, as well as their custom of dining on human flesh made them seem quite exotic compared to the more reserved Europeans (called
Pakeha
by the Maori). There are few records documenting the mixing and matching of Pakeha and Maori, but Pakeha today will often tell you about Maori ancestors in their family trees and Maori will acknowledge their Pakeha forebears.

As is most often the case with indigenous cultures, the Maori were tricked and abused by the colonial powers (in this case, the British Crown). More bellicose and efficient than most, they have refused to take broken treaties lying down. Their fight to regain land, money, language, and dignity goes on today. But, at the same time, they are intertwined with Pakeha culture, and many Maori have Pakeha spouses.

Perhaps because she is a Brit who married a Maori man, Christine Wilson b
e
came very interested in the historic blending of Pakeha and Maori—two cultures she admired greatly.

“I thought that my husband and his kin might be interested in going back to Europe to find out about their Pakeha roots,” she said simply.

Other Kiwis (New Zealanders) have certainly thought about a roots route b
e
fore, but Christine moved from musing to action. She booked flights, rented cam
p
er vans, and peopled them with an assor
t
ment of folks connected by blood, affinity or, in a few cases, smolde
r
ing antipathy.

John Wilson’s son, Carin, and daughter, Virginia (from his first Pakeha wife), were among the chosen. Carin’s wife, Jenney, and Vi
r
ginia’s daughter came along as well. Accompanying them through ancestral lands were Christine’s children from her first marriage to a Polynesian—Natasha (with her three young boys), Hans (who was navigating a born-again Christian phase), and Antony (a young man of indomitable spirit who had been run over by a transport truck when he was a child and suffered horrific brain damage). There was also Kri
s
tina (the semi-estranged wife of Christine’s son Nicholas) and her three daughters.

In addition, Christine invited her friend Maria, a singer with Lebanese roots; Maori marrieds Russell and Becky (who were going to help Antony on the trip and also share the driving); Kip, a Maori guitar player and singer; Marta and Brandon (she, an adept of diverse spiritual practices and he, a Canadian man with First N
a
tions ancestry who played his drum a lot); my husband Paul, and me.

“I carefully chose the pilgrims who would come with us,” Chri
s
tine explained. “This isn’t a trip, you understand. It’s a pilgrimage.”

Paul and I had never met Christine or anyone else before the pilgrimage. Christine had read my published writings, began a corr
e
spondence with me, and sent us tickets to fly to Frankfurt and meet the questers in her vision.

Paul and I had never traveled in a camper van, but we should have known that clumps of people could not sleep comfortably—if they could sleep at all—in those tight, flimsy, traveling boxes.

We met Christine and the clan at the airport in Frankfurt. John, tanned, manly, vigorous, and gentlemanly at almost eighty years old, greeted us with a
haka—
a Maori war whoop. He ritually slapped his chest and thighs and rolled out his co
n
siderable tongue. Originally designed to intimidate the enemies of the warlike Maori, the haka delighted Paul and me. And a small crowd of people, who prob
a
bly thought that the water in the airport was spiked and they were halluc
i
nating, gathered to watch the shouting, breast-beating, panting, and eye-rolling.

Then, as his beaming, blonde wife stood proudly next to him, John presented Paul and me with beautiful pendants made of large, polished
pounamu
(jade). In Maori culture, as I understand it, a piece of pounamu is considered to be a
taonga
(treasure), which has
mana
and also bestows mana on its owner. Defining or translating mana is a tricky business. It was explained to me as a combination of perso
n
al prestige and character.

If you are so inclined, you can purchase a piece of pounamu from a shop in New Zealand, but its mana comes to you when you receive it as a gift. The pou
n
amu is found in a river on the south island of New Zealand, and only the Maori are licensed to gather it.

Being presented with two pieces of pounamu by an elder of the Ngati Awa was no small honor for us. For many years afterwards, our pounamu pendants bobbed along on our chests wherever we went—including into the shower. Christine said that the pounamu would change color after contact with the flesh, which it did. It became bu
r
nished by the heat and oils of our bodies.