My friend recently faced a fresh challenge. With
her son’s 4th birthday approaching Jane decided to launch Ben overseas to
experience new climes. Feeding Ben’s natural curiosity for different people and
places, she’d figured, was a fundamental parental responsibility. Just where to
take Ben on holiday was more difficult to fathom.
In this age of kid's clubs, summer camps and ‘time to ourselves’ on spa and
golf breaks - the idea of booking a holiday where it's just you and your brood
seems to have become so uncool. If we do venture overseas ‘en famille’ it’s
oh-so-tempting to book a homely resort that caters to our undeniably frazzled
cravings to lounge in a poolside chair, being waited-on, and without ever
venturing off the resort grounds. The children, meanwhile, are charmed away by
nannies and nurtured in a corner of the resort well out of ear-shot.
No, the sort of family holiday Jane wanted was one where she, her husband
and son had each other to themselves; an exotic location where Ben would be
immersed into another culture; a chance to talk more, laugh more, see more and
take the time to strengthen the bond that connected mother, father and son.
It wasn’t by chance that Jane reached for my
phone number asking for advice. Researching a series of guidebooks over the
last 16 years - my own sons George, Jack and I have made scores of overseas trips,
largely alone, and often to places as virgin to me as they are to him. For us
the question of whether to travel had never arisen, only the question of when.
Aged just 6 weeks George joined me transatlantic
for the first time. Contemplating the drawn-out flight and change of time
zones, admittedly my spirits had slumped. Still my work as a travel writer
revolves around travel (a lot of it) and I had entered parenthood knowing that
wherever I went in the world next, George would have to come too. Thankfully, as it turned out, those early months
were actually the optimum age to travel. Incredibly portable, a virtually free
ticket, still on a controllable diet, and the perfect size to stretch out in a car seat, George enlisted
himself amongst the jet set by snoozing the entire way.
Some sixteen years on and George and Jack have scaled
mountains, soared over rainforests and volcanoes in tiny planes, voyaged in air boats, in
kayaks, on the shoulders of cheery guides; they've tried sandboarding, diving, lit a
camp-fire with sticks, herded goats, helped dart wild dogs and tracked alligators.
Despite the added hassles and obvious hiccups
it’s the laughter and tears, the mistakes and joyful discoveries we share that
makes travelling overseas with my sons such an incredibly rewarding and
enriching experience - for us both.
First and foremost, children have a wonderful
way of opening doors and breaking down cultural barriers. However different our
language, our customs or our lifestyle, universally - as parents - we share a
common empathy. Inherently undaunted, inquisitive and (for the most part)
uninhibited George and Jack lead me into the sort of encounters with strangers I would
never have imagined possible.
A few years ago at Negernde airstrip in the
depths of the Maasai Mara our bi-plane was delayed. Safari-suit clad clichés
distanced themselves from the tribes people and sat impatiently in a lean-to
shelter. Instead 6 year old George plonked himself down in the midst of a circle of
giggling women and children and got on with the not so onerous task of
filling-in time. We sat cross-legged, we played, we grinned
gleefully and spontaneously exchanged gifts. I offered one mum a washed-out Gap
tee-shirt I’d grown tired of; she insisted on handing me back an intricately
carved rhino. George showed a saucer-eyed toddler how his toy car worked, left
it in his clutching fingers and was instantly presented with a tiny, beaded
bracelet. Unable to reach them with language I felt an insatiable need to touch
their hands, their arms, to reach out to them physically. I was overwhelmed by
the experience. And eternally thankful to George.
Away from home comforts too, travelling with
George and Jack has meant them confronting situations far outside an established norm. Both boys have learned to face predicaments they don’t fully understand, let alone
feel in control of (mixing with children who don’t speak his language, for
example, or having to trek in areas where there’s no transport) Of course the boy’s subsequent
understanding and sense of accomplishment far outweigh any temporary setbacks.
In today’s world where success is so often equated with the accumulation of all
things material and where success at school is measured by percentages it’s
these kind of real-life challenges that present junior travellers with a whole
new criteria for achievement.
Venture somewhere exotic, of course, and
children like George and Jack profit equally by witnessing the sort of things that
otherwise exist only in the pages of a text book.
Back in Kenya at first-dawn (around
5am), a bush-breakfast beckoned; George and Jack were already standing at the door,
binoculars in hand. To start with we saw little. A few impala, the occasional
dik-dik. All hell broke loose when George spotted Pumbaa in the flesh. It
reached a crescendo when Simbaa himself strolled past the jeep (thanks due to
Disney’s ‘Lion King’ for baiting their fascination for
all things creepy, crawly and cuddly) The task of reeling them in on our game
drive was expertly managed by a young Maasai tribesman named Fred. Just two
hours into his first bush-drive and my youngest son was already recounting the life
cycle of the wildebeest, camouflage techniques and tracking signs.
Scrambling from the jeep and before I could even
say ‘kuhari’ (Swahili for bye!) they disappeared with Fred -
reemerging hours later with a hand-made bow and arrow and a self-styled
toothbrush hewn from a twig.
There’s no doubt the chance to witness Maasai
children walking to school barefoot through the plains, the wildebeest
gathering for their annual migration, to talk to, to touch and to be touched by
the villagers are holiday opportunities unlikely to survive George and Jack into
adulthood. Yet they will live with them for a lifetime.
