"the era of the hobo is not over"

the words of the train engineer last night just after I boarded the #14 Coast Starlight in San Jose, CA bound for Seattle, WA.  We had just taken off from the station and stopped within a few feet.

“Well, ladies and gentlemen, we almost made it.  Had somebody try to jump the train so we need to stop for a minute to get them off the train.  The era of the hobo is not over.”

Usually I write from my concrete desk in my room, sweating in the stifling afternoon heat, or the back left desk in the singles’ office in the ECS office strip.  But today, Tuesday 6 May, I write from a temperature controlled car aboard the Coast Starlight, rolling along through western Oregon somewhere north of Salem.

2 weeks in Philly

2 weeks in St. Louis

2 weeks visiting friends/supporters in CA/Seattle/DC

3 weeks traveling in N. Africa/Spain

That’s a lot of weeks of traveling.  A lot of time with people I love.  A lot of asking and answering questions.  A lot of reconnecting.  A lot of really blessed, really rich time.  A lot of emotionally charged time for this introvert.

The train is a wonderful way to travel.  “We’d be happy to buy you a plane ticket” friends say when they hear I’m taking the train.  “No, I’d really rather take the train, but thank you” I respond.  Reading, watching the world go by, moseying down to the dining car for a G&T with your lunch, leg room, power outlets, interesting fellow passengers from all walks of life - tie dye wearing retirees from Berkley who drop the name of their friend Ben Cohen, “of Ben and Jerry’s” they add, into conversation about the group with whom they are engaged in a bill (US Dollars) stamping campaign I didn’t quite understand that somehow was meant to stick it to “the man,” and with whom I discussed attempts at entering Bhutan (theirs successful, mine decidedly lacking success), and a young Canadian air traffic controller and his PT student wife headed to Montana with conversation about the recent FAA air traffic controller furlough rules/fiasco and the benefits of careers like Physical Therapy and Nursing and the diversity of options they offer.  

10 hours LA - San Jose (SF area).  Leaving LA, the land where every other car is a Prius, where I was 3 for 3 seeing daily photo shoots/movie filming on street corners, where your friends point out neighborhood sights like the lofts where New Girl is filmed, the Disney Concert Hall, and skid row, where you can get in the car and be watching amazing waves crashing into the hot sandy beach in Malibu in less than an hour, where you’re spoiled rotten by friends who have known you and your parents for a long time and love you anyways, where you can get online and 10 minutes later have plans to find $20 “day-of” tickets to an amazing show called “Fela” chock full of Afro-punk music and dance based on the life of a Nigerian musician and the show is within walking distance, where these friends want you to meet their friends who end up being amazingly genuinely interested in your life in a way in which they ask good questions about this far away land known as South Sudan and what life is like there with interesting discussion of joys and frustrations quickly ensuing, and where you learn that ramen and macaroons are the semi-current food fads you have entirely missed while living in Africa for the past year and get to partake of both.  The trip to the Bay area is 10 hours of gorgeous coastline and rolling hills, less gorgeous industrial areas, mile after mile of cauliflower and strawberries growing in vast mechanically irrigated fields, solid black and brown cows grazing on the rolling green hills, rocky canyons, and a seat with a Lazy-Boy-esque foot/leg rest.

The Coast Starlight rolls into San Jose where your friend picks you up in her Honda minivan, the vehicle she never thought she’d own but is required to schlep her 3 kids under 5yo.  The last time you saw her - almost a decade ago - she was be-bopping around Manhattan footloose and fancy free, answering to no one.  Times they are a-changing.  It’s been a decade since you saw each other last but with a hug it suddenly it’s as if no time at all has passed...until you start talking about the challenges of raising 3 kids as two working parents and the cultural intricacies of health care in rural Africa - clearly some things have changed.  She too spoils you rotten along with her husband and precious kiddos with whom you are referred to as “Auntie Heidi who lives in Africa.”  It’s one of the bonuses of this single missionary life - the freedom to travel, the flexibility to spend time with people you love and their people and to be the “Auntie Heidi” who gets to show pictures of cool African animals and have hilarious conversations about how it’s true that some people in the world do in fact go to the bathroom in a hole in the ground :)  There were beach boardwalk carnival rides with babies in the Ergo, there was a throw back to college eating falafel together and enjoying salt water taffy fresh from the ancient taffy puller on the boardwalk, there were walks amongst the amazing California redwoods, lunches eaten on “Windy Hill” overlooking the SF bay on one side and the Pacific ocean on the other and watching the grass undulate like the bodies of water you can only see shadows of in the distance, and brief tours of a Children’s Hospital where you are reminded again of the vast resources available to people in this country, but the simultaneous reminder of the fact that there are really sick people everywhere.

A lovely afternoon and dinner with another couple college friends married to each other and still able to drive Honda Accords because their progeny are only 2.  You laugh about funny cultural idiosyncrasies on both sides of the ocean between announcements from extremely cute 4 year old boys about how the Darth Vader lego guy is tragically missing his pants, you eat AMAZING churasco burritos and notice that it seems to be the general Californian consensus that everything is better with avocado...and you agree.  The time flies by far too fast and suddenly you find yourself back on the Coast Starlight in the San Jose station, this time checked into your sleeper car bound for Seattle.

With the luxury of a “sleeping space,” I began the 24 hours of track travel north with a hot shower and relaxed into my own sleeper cubby... “room” would be a stretch, bed with windows and a door is more like it, but it was perfect for me.  I slept well despite the  stewardess’ apology the next morning for the noisy neighbors in my car.  I woke up, opened the curtains, and wow!  I caught the last bit of stunning Oregon coast followed by mountains and lakes and small towns the rest of the day.  Moving between the dining car and the “viewing car” (with sofa chairs that swivel and windows that extend up and include portions of the “ceiling” of the car making for a wonderful place to watch the world go).

8:30pm or so, still light out, we roll into Seattle. I walk into the swanky newly remodeled station and am greeted by another college friend - like no time has passed...but again, clearly time has passed...we walk to the Queen Anne park looking out over the bay/sound and as the sun sets we talk about my mom’s illness and the aging of all of our parents...we talk about work, about friends, about being single when most all of our peers are married, about guys (and/or the lack thereof), about the past and the future.  It was a fabulous few days of good food (Taiwanese soup dumplings, pear & cardamom muffins, pizza and salads with beets and faro), good drink, ice cream, good company and good conversation.  We both found ourselves flying out of Sea/Tac on the same day, bound for DC (me) and a vacation in Ireland/Scotland (her) and we hope one of these days to both find ourselves arriving in the same airport on the same day as well :)  Here’s to hoping.

DC brought new/old friends, more good food and drink and conversation about the past and the future, family and friends, personalities, the Enneagram, the world, work and play, with trips to Mount Vernon (a first for me) and the new MLK Jr memorial on the Mall.  Then it was Monday 13 May.  Time to get on another plane...or 4.  This time leaving the country...DC Dulles - Amsterdam - Kigali (Rwanda) - Entebbe (Uganda) - Cairo (Egypt) - Casablanca (Morocco) and then I’d finally get to leave the airport.  Our company has a company-wide conference every 3 years and this year, to accommodate Europe teams wanting warmer weather and Africa teams wanting cooler weather, the location was in Spain on the Costa del Luz.  Fine, okay, pull my arm, but after this NO MORE travel to the mediterranean...there’s never anything interesting to do!!! (wink wink, nudge nudge, funny funny, joke joke).  Needless to say, singles on teams in East Africa took the opportunity to get some fun travel in before the conference and spent some quality time together in Morocco and then ferried across the Straight of Gibraltar to Sevilla, Spain for a few days before the conference...laying down our lives, one gorgeous/fascinating part of the world at a time!  And you think missionaries never have any fun ;)

Not sure the term “hobo” ever applied to people traveling on airplanes, but you get the point.  Now that I’m back home in Mundri (clearly some time has passed since I started writing this post) looking back on the travel of the last 2 months, I’m awed by God’s kind and tender gifts to me...I’m pretty sure that of ALL the people on the globe, God has crossed my path with the coolest, most interesting, most precious, most generous, most quirky, most funny, most gracious ones...disagree?  email me and we can fight about it over cyberspace...pretty sure I’ll win though :)