A Narrative About Jane's Trip to the Midddle East - 2004 Some Thoughts Before Embarking A Quick Stop in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia From Ababa Addis to Kuwait Arriving in Kuwait More Tidbits

Some Thoughts Before Embarking Even as a child I was vaguely scornful—admit it!  Flat-out scornful!--of what people didn’t know about Africa in general and Ethiopia in particular.  Now that I’m a grown-up, many of my books have been at least partly driven by the determination to offer glimpses into the land of my childhood and divest readers of the notion that Ethiopia is mostly hot, flat, and dry with large animals lumbering around.  So I’ve had to take many a deep, humble breath these past few years, as I discover what I don’t know of the world.  For instance, what did I think of when I thought of Kenya?  Flat, hot and dry with large, lumbering animals.  To my surprise when I first went there in 1999, Nairobi turned out to be gorgeous and cool with flowers dribbling over fences, bright against the soft red clay of the background hills.

What did I think of when I thought about the Middle East?  Women rustling along the streets looking like the ghostly black outlines of people.  A man in a flak jacket speaking into a microphone while something explodes in the background.  In short, I had the most vague, media-related images and little else.I’d waited for two years to go to the Arabian Gulf--as most people in that part of the world prefer to name the body of water we usually call “the Persian Gulf”--long enough for uneasiness to take root.  Shortly before I embarked on my journey, I spoke at the Ohio State University children’s literature conference.  One of the long-time organizers had spent years teaching in Saudia Arabia and still has family there.  When I told him that I would be one of the presenters at TARA, the annual International Reading Association conference in Bahrain, he casually mentioned that his family drives almost every weekend across the long causeway that links Saudia Arabia and Bahrain.  “To go shopping,” he added.

Driving.  Shopping.  Those words rang in my nervous ears, whispering the relief of vastly familiar comforts.

From the first email inviting me to speak at TARA, I reminded myself about the years when news about Ethiopia reaching the outside world was grim and scary at the same time as life inside Ethiopia unfolded, day after day, in its typical, timeless way.  Since I would be speaking in international schools and at an international conference, I knew it only made sense to depend on those living in the area and attending (or working in) those schools to let me know if I should fret.

In 2003, they told me I should.  The schools in Kuwait evacuated.  The TARA organizers cancelled the conference two weeks before war in Iraq started.  

In 2004, I had a hard time believing that something similar wouldn’t happen.  So, for all my long planning, the trip still rumbled down on me with a last-minute whoosh, bringing little gasps of surprise and a few uneasy, sideways glances.

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