Why the Lutheran Diocese of Northern Tanzania should plan your safari

If you don't know any actual Lutherans or haven't read Garrison Keillor, allow me to make some broad generalizations about modern-day adherents to a tradition that traces its roots back to Martin "I started the whole Reformation" Luther. Despite their fiery rebel beginnings, Lutherans today are best known for their reliably serene approach to theology, their cool heads and practical mien perhaps related to their concentration in Scandinavia and the northern regions of the United States.

It shouldn't be a huge surprise, then, to find that they focused their mission work in East Africa in the northern part of Tanzania. One result is a characteristically mellow community in the town of Moshi that runs a hostel and conference center. And a high-quality, reasonably priced safari business in a region with a high demand for the same. Other denominations, perhaps the Methodists (definitely the evangelicals), might advertise their offerings enthusiastically. Lutherans, being more unassuming, bury it on their website and hope for the best.

Under a virtual bushel or not, when planning a safari in northern Tanzania, the Lutheran diocese is the first place you should go. And here's the top 10 to prove it...

10. The car works. These are the Landcruisers, you'll recall, with the pop top for better viewing and less nausea. Given the remoteness of most national parks and the rough roads that lead to them, a reliable car is a must.

9. The hostel, where you stay before beginning your journey, has a view of Mt. Kilimanjaro. You'd think that'd be a given in Moshi (the town at its base) but it's not.

8. More on the hostel: the rooms are low-key (of course) and reasonably priced (between $40-$55). They come with plentiful hot water, comfy beds and mosquito nets.

7. When booking your safari, you are provided with a professional spreadsheet that outlines every cost, line by line. This was not the case for other safaris I researched, which stick with more vague estimates and itineraries.

6. A little-known fact: most companies want money for a safari completely up front. This was true from the most budgety all the way up to the really luxurious trips. What this means is that you must wire a significant chunk of change to someone you have never met. I had no problem wiring money to Lutherans. I definitely would have thought twice if there were Baptists involved...

5. More on money/costs/Lutherans: During the trip, we stayed in a wide range of places, from a very basic camp/lodge to a fancy-schmancy safari lodge. They found the best place at the best price and booked us there. They didn't stick to one type of accommodation, and when they did go nicer, the cost quoted was always much less than the Internet price. Plain, ol' common sense.

4. They don't do big groups or stuff you into a car with a bunch of strangers. They arrange for journeys with your group only, though the cost is often less what you'd pay for bigger crowd.

3. These final three are going to be about our guide. A guide can make or break a trip. You are with this person all day every day of your journey. Our guide, Jessy, spoke fluent English, which you'd think might not be that necessary (safaris aren't especially chatty), but it made a huge difference. He told us all about the animals; we could ask questions and it was always clear where we were going and what we'd see there.

2. Jessy provided binoculars, which I had forgotten and it would have been a completely different and very, very frustrating trip if he hadn't had them. It's a little detail Lutherans remember that others might forget.

1. Jessy was very cool and a fount of knowledge: we talked wildlife, Tanzanian history and politics, American history and politics, current economics and much more. He was a great guy in addition to being a great guide, and that's a good thing when you are an introvert who has to spend 9-12 hours/day in a car with someone you don't know.

Those of you saving those pennies for your dream journey to East Africa, look no further than the Lutheran Diocese of Northern Tanzania. They may not toot their own horn, but, as an Anglican, I'm more than happy to do it for them.

Act III: journey to the endless plain

The word "safari" has lost a lot of its mystique, if it ever had any to begin with. To me, it conjures images of beefy guys in mismatched khaki wielding shotguns and disrespecting the natives. The Beach Boys went on a "surfin' safari." It is unclear where, although they wanted us all to join them. Car dealers and clothing companies sometimes attempt to sell a safari image, and usually it's bombastic (car dealers) or expensively precious. (Does anyone remember what Banana Republic stores used to look like?)

Despite the mess of modern advertising, safari comes from the Swahili word for journey, which (thankfully) still connotes travel and discovery, so I'm going to use that instead. In Tanzania, the journey to the national parks is definitely one of discovery, both inner and outer. It is a journey of looking, watching and seeing the most stunning wildlife and landscapes our planet has to offer, and then trying to figure out what to do with all that wonder in one place. Like all witnesses of profound natural beauty I felt humbled, privileged and changed by the experience. This is what a real journey is supposed to do.

Our journey started in Moshi the day we met Jessy, our intrepid guide and pilot of the pop-top Landcruiser, which is what people take into national parks these days, rather than a string of porters and a rifle case. The pop-top Landcruiser, usually painted tan or green, is the perfect perch for modern photographers to digitally shoot the animals grazing or stalking in their path. The ability to stand up as the car bumps down rough dirt roads also makes these journeys much more pleasant for those of us prone to near-debilitating carsickness. I was worried that I'd spent six days awed but queasy. Instead, I spent six days with a dirty face and a huge grin (with the dust-coated teeth to go with it), hanging out the pop-top, hair blowing in the breeze.

We began at Lake Manyara, a smallish park bound by an alkaline lake on one side and the sheer cliffs of the Great Rift Valley escarpment on the other. We ended at Tarangire with its towering baobabs, migratory herds of wildebeests and zebras and year-round herds of elephants. In between we visited the perfect bowl of Ngorongoro Crater and the endless plain of the Serengeti.

I'm now left with the task of bringing each of these parks to life, which is impossible. Every day of the journey was a world of its own, and each park offered something unique. We wouldn't have left anything off of the itinerary. It would have changed the whole shape and rhythm of the trip. But when I think of what to share, I think mostly of moments, and most of the moments that come to mind took place in Ngorongoro Crater and the Serengeti.

Jessy, our very professional guide, likes Ngorongoro Crater best of all the parks he frequents, and so did K. The crater itself is a 20-km caldera, all that's left of a huge and ancient volcano. Inside the bowl are lakes, streams and well-watered grazing land, which draws an array of animals over the steep, green edges and down onto the crater floor. On the day we visited, there was thick fog along the rim that cut visibility until we started our descent. Then, slowly and through slanted rays of early morning sunlight, the floor opened up below us. We saw herds of wildebeests, buffalo and zebras grazing on the open plain. Hyenas and warthogs shuffled nearby. Almost every pool had a cluster of the gray backs of hippos. I couldn't stop looking at the towering crater walls that seemed to seal us in with the animals, meadows, swampy marsh and clusters of trees.

Ngorongoro Crater was lush and tropical green, fed by the permanent water sources on the crater floor and the daily mist from the heights (even in the dry season when we visited). But just a few miles away is the deep gold of the savanna plain. From Ngorongoro, it's two hours down a very dusty gravel road to the gates of Serengeti National Park, but the endless plain starts well before.

As you may have guessed, thanks to my many references, Serengeti comes from the Maasai word for endless plain. There is no better description. In the Serengeti, there is only the plain and the sky, interrupted by scattering of granite outcrops and even fewer hills. During the dry season, the landscape ranges from palest yellow to deep golden brown with bursts of dusty green around rapidly dwindling waterholes. The Serengeti swallows those, too, and makes the savanna inhospitable to the millions of wildebeests, whose migration defines the park's borders and brought the place to worldwide stardom in The Serengeti Shall Not Die, nature advocacy and wild animal photography at its documentary best.

Jessy said that the Serengeti is green and lush in the rainy season, blanketed with grazing herds and rife with the predators who go with them. Although I'm sure it's beautiful, I fell in love with the dry savanna, the far-reaching lines of sight, the acacia trees stark and beautiful, the big cats lolling in the sun, the gazelles flitting across the road, the smaller groups of elephants and buffalo's daily search for water--Serengeti's off hours when we could drive all day and hardly see any cars. My eyes sucked up the plain; they couldn't get enough. I felt small and swallowed, but also a strange sense of at-homeness, as if I were in a place that belonged to no one, but was big enough to welcome everyone.

We spent two days driving in the Serengeti, stopping for leopards (saw three) or cheetahs (6, including one in the middle of a meal), but the stars of the dry savanna are the lions. We were watching a herd of elephants (which always include babies. You have not seen cute until you've seen a baby elephant) when I turned around and noticed some tawny lumps basking in the late afternoon sun. It turned out to be a group of seven lionesses and one cub, who didn't want to sleep and spent some time walking amongst the lazing adults looking for something to do. Although a few cars came and went, we stayed, with the elephants on one side and the lions dozing on the other. At sunset, the elephants crossed over the road to the lions' side and headed directly into the setting sun. But not before the biggest bull elephant strode towards the nappers, with a deep warning bellow. The big cats sat up, stretched, and moved away to a safer distance. Although bull elephants rarely bother with lions and vice versa, the herd was taking no chances with babies in the group. The red sun set into the savanna, silhouetting the lions and the elephants. Just another evening on the endless plain.

That night, another group of lions roared right under the window of the hotel room. It was a deep, shattering sound, like someone wrenching apart two sheets of rusty metal. Against all logic, I shivered in my bed with a deep, primal terror. It's embarrassing to admit. Everyone I've told this to has helpfully pointed out that I was inside (and on the second floor of) a sturdy building. It didn't matter. I trembled and turned cold and didn't fall asleep until it stopped.

I didn't want to leave, and if I ever go back, I will spend six (or more) days just in the Serengeti. The place is a gift, as all national parks are. Sure, it brings in welcome jobs and tourists, but it is also a gift to all of humanity from the people of Tanzania, especially the Maasai, who found a way to live there first and whose culture forbids the killing or eating of wild animals. Thus making them among the original conservationists. Today, the park is full of conservationists, as a large sign in the visitors center makes clear. It takes way more than a village to keep the Serengeti flourishing, and there are many hands at work, most of them local, all of them committed to preserving this gift for all of us.

Act II: African snapshots

As many of you know (and my friend MW would tease that you'd only have to know me about 10 minutes), I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Cameroon from 1996-1998. It was an incredible experience and (among many other things) instilled in me a deep love of teaching, a basic knowledge of French, an aversion to owning much of anything and the ability to travel many hours smooshed into a cramped space.

I bring this up because the last time I was in Africa (before Tanzania), I was a pretty savvy character. I could take public transportation, bargain with the best, avoid giving offense, evaluate the true cost of most services, evade cons and foil pickpockets.

When planning this trip, I knew things would be different. For one, I was going to another country on the other side of the continent 11 years later. Progress would have been made. Africa is not a monolith, nor should it be treated as such. I knew I couldn't rely on my previous knowledge, but maybe something would come in handy after all these years.

What ended up happening was that I understood what was going on as it unfolded but was often powerless to maneuver in a favorable direction. In short, I was a tourist. A well traveled tourist maybe, but a tourist nonetheless.

Case in point: K and I got off the Zanzibar ferry in Dar es Salaam and were immediately approached by a taximan who offered to take us to the main bus station, a vortex of activity called Ubungo at the northern edge of town. He charged what seemed like a steep price, but I didn't know enough about taxi fares to bargain him down. I told him we wanted to go to Dar Express, a company named in the guidebook as reliable and quick for the 350-km journey up to Moshi and Mt. Kilimanjaro. The taximan assured me that he knew where it was and we set off.

We traveled at a brisk clip through the streets of downtown Dar. Whenever traffic stopped, young men flitted through the lanes of cars selling a wide variety of goods, from dish towels to cologne to peanuts to classroom maps of the country. It was a phenomenon I knew well. In Cameroon (as in Tanzania, it seemed), you could get just about anything--but the place you procured it wasn't going to look anything like Target.

We got to the bus station and pulled up to a kiosk that was most certainly not Dar Express. When I questioned the taximan, he huffed and puffed, insisting that Sai-baba Express was precisely what I'd asked for. At this point, I had a choice. I could demand, loudly, to be taken to Dar Express, which may or may not have been effective, or I could capitulate, pay him (knowing he'd also be getting a cut from this place) and go with the flow. We went with the flow and boarded a bus that would not have made any Western guidebook (but that actually wasn't all that bad, considering everyone had a whole seat to themselves, there was no livestock in sight and no one was sitting on stools in the aisles).

Blissful ignorance may have been more convenient, but as we bounced almost to the ceiling after every pothole, I was glad I hadn't lost my entire frame of reference.

Because the truth is, there were many similiarities between Cameroon of the late 90s and the Tanzania I visited this summer. Too many in a world that experienced unprecedented economic growth (in some places) during those very same 90s. I could have taken countless photographs in Moshi and along the road from Dar es Salaam, and they would have been indistinguishable from pics I have from Cameroon, to say nothing of the full sensory experience of walking down the street. In fact, some things I saw in Moshi, I only had French words for, having last seen them in Bafoussam or Yaounde.

The long, wraparound skirts of colorful fabric that women wore in Tanzania, I call pagne. The guys that call out of the windows of minivans, trying to collect customers are chargeurs. I don't know any other name for them. I saw strapping young men pulling stacked carts through the streets, beanpole young girls trailing a line of younger siblings. There were the policemen on the side of the road stopping cars and searching for bribes, the mud brick houses, the countless children in spotless school uniforms carrying books and small water containers, the silouette of women with large loads of wood balanced on their heads, the overloaded buses cruising for passengers, festooned with optimistic slogans (God is Love! Bismillah Allah! Jesus is coming! Air Obama!). There were the groups of idle men gathered around a broken down car, the neat pyramids of tomatoes or mangoes available for sale on a groundcover of burlap or plastic, music blaring from the bus station, shoes lined up for sale on the street, a dizzying array of clearly donated clothing hanging from market stalls. Corn on the cob roasted on open charcoal grills, bananas hung in bunches from front-yard trees, orange flowers crowned leafy trees, horns honked in alarm or just for attention, people stopped on the street, watching (and commenting) as a woman with a placid baby tied to her back holds forth with larger-than-life gestures and ready laughter. And the sharp odor of burning garbage and red laterite dust hung over it all. (See the bus stop pic at the beginning of this post, which contains many of the visuals described in this paragraph.)

All of these images were startlingly familiar--I had seen them all before, one decade and thousands of miles due west in another African country whose GDP was far too low for the resources within its borders, whose people lacked electricity, running water and access to medicine to cure treatable diseases--but who nonetheless conducted their daily lives with ceaseless energy and, often, optimism; people who were impossible to pity or stereotype.

That is not to say Tanzania and Cameroon are the same place. There are countless differences in language, culture, history, politics and any other category you'd like to name. Anyone reading this understands that Africa is an incredibly diverse and varied place, right? And I certainly saw plenty of uniquely Tanzanian 2009 sights (much more on that in the next post): people talking in cell phones on Sai-baba. The number of private cars on the Moshi roads (as opposed to public minivans and taxis). The food offered in restaurants with its Indian flare and the absence (alas) of hot pimant, spicy beans and bubbling orange vats of palm oil. But during our five days in Moshi waiting for the next act of the trip to begin, I couldn't get these snapshots out of my mind. I wonder what it would take before 10 years represents more than supreficial change.

Act I: Zanzibar

I've wanted to go to Zanzibar since discovering such a place exists, three dramatic syllables of unfathomable exoticness.Then I found out that Zanzibar (unlike, say, Synecdoche, NY) can back up its intriguing name with an old Stone Town (now a World Heritage site), endless stretches of white sand beaches, the sharp scent of spice trees swaying in the breeze and the ultramarine warmth of the Indian Ocean. Since it's only a 5.5 hour flight from Abu Dhabi, this summer was the perfect time for a trip that already felt more like a pilgrimage than a vacation. I had no idea when K and I left Abu Dhabi in late July how profound that feeling would become as the weeks went by.

Because of my longstanding fascination with the island, the Tanzanian mainland initially took a backseat to the visit to Zanzibar. As in: let's go to Zanzibar and, of course, since we're in the area, we'd better see Mt Kilimanjaro and the famous wildlife parks, too. What ended up happening was that the experience of visiting Ngorongoro Crater and the Serengeti so blew away anything I had ever thought was true about the word "safari" that Zanzibar receded into the background (stay tuned for more on the zen of wildlife viewing...). What it really means, however, is that Tanzania contains a whole world's worth of natural beauty, compelling history and breathtaking sights. It's not as if Zanzibar is eclipsed, but it's one of several amazing places, when in any other country it'd be the only show in town.

And it's quite a show. A maritime crossroads a mere 90 km off the coast, Africans, Europeans, Indians, Persians and Arabs have all vied for control of its lush soil, relatively malaria-free beaches and safe harbors. Oman held sway during Zanzibar's heyday from thousands of nautical miles away, and the Arab influence is most visible in elaborately carved doors in old Stone Town, which reminded me of Muscat and the old forts of Nizwa more than anything I saw on the African mainland. Stone Town itself is a little like Venice, in that the real stars of the show are winding, narrow passageways and the kind of decorative decay that can only exist on a historic seacoast. Unlike Venice, however, Stone Town doesn't have access to the kind of funding needed to shore up the crumbling facades, and UNESCO regulations make conservation too expensive for most building owners. So, the place is safe from development but not from the elements. That doesn't mean it's a ghost town. Tourists and locals crowd its narrow streets, the locals to buzz around on motorbikes and shop at the many markets; the tourists to gawk at the Anglican Cathedral (built on the site of the old slave market), visit the museums, wander the alleyways and visit the childhood home of Freddie Mercury, lead singer of Queen and Zanzibar native.

My first emotion upon seeing the Zanzibar of my dreams was one of profound relief. After an early morning flight from the UAE via Qatar, we landed in Dar es Salaam and made for the harbor, hoping to make the last ferry of the day. We caught the ferry without a problem, but the experience of rough late-afternoon seas after a full day of travel was unmitigated hell for someone who avoids boats in the best of circumstances. By the time the lights of Stone Town came into view, it was full dark, and I was hoping I wouldn't lose my lunch all over the nice Zanzibarian man kindly pointing out landmarks as we chugged into the harbor.


Everything was made better after we got to our guest house, a laid-back haven on Paje Beach, which is wrongly pooh-pooh'ed by Lonely Planet as strictly average because one can't swim all the time. Whatever. The beach itself is an ever-changing strip of white sand that is almost completely consumed at high tide (ideal for swimming), and dotted with seaweed and tidepools at low tide (ideal for exploring). The guest house, run by South African woman with magenta hair and her constantly barefoot grown son, could not have been a better choice, in that there was ample time to do nothing but walk on the beach, read, eat and walk on the beach some more, collecting shells or peeking at starfish and hermit crabs in the tidepools.


We managed to tear ourselves away from the water one day to take a spice tour from the chipper Mr. Spice, owner of a demonstration planation of the many tropical wonders that grow on Zanzibar. We sampled breadfruit, jackfruit, rambutan and custard apple (misshapened and spiky on the outside, creamy and tart on the inside). At one point Mr. Spice's go-to guy hitched himself up a palm tree, singing at the top of his lungs and dropped down enough heavy fresh coconuts for us all to share. I sampled coconut juice for the first time, clear, sweet and filling. After visiting cocoa, coffee, nutmeg and pepper trees, not to mention vanilla bean vines and various spice plants, we settled down to a lunch prepared with most of the above.

We started our trip in Zanzibar, with the warmth of the beach and the scent of spices. When we sadly boarded the ferry back to Dar (with another tight connection to a bus up to Moshi, the town at the base of Kilimanjaro) we didn't know the trip to Tanzania would be a journey in three distinct acts. The relaxed tropical opening scenes were ending, and the rest of the adventure was about to begin...

Auntie in Ireland

My music-loving, sporty, rosy cheeked, dimpled and charming nephew, Adam, is not just a bunch of Irish stereotypes rolled into one adorable package. But on a recent trip to Belfast to visit my sister Sarah, bro-in-law Mike and their aforementioned Leprechaun-sized cutie, I realized that Ireland and Irish culture is now a significant part of my immediate family's heritage. It is the home of my sister, and the native land of my nephew, his future siblings and their father. Of course, I've known this for years now (Sarah and Mike have been married since 2003), but it hit me during this trip in a way it hasn't before.

Alas, there is no Blarney in my ethnic make up (it being entirely English, Scottish and Dutch), which has always bothered me. No one ever says, Kiss me, I'm English! (That'd make those stiff upper lips quiver...) In fact, I remember lying outright in middle school, figuring that there must be some renegade branch of the family tree that crossed the Irish Sea (it's not that far, after all), but there is no evidence to back up this claim.

Now, however, I'm Auntie Ray to a true Irish lad who will grow up in the land of green hedges and white sheep, gray rainclouds and old stone. (Ireland, of course, is also home to grocery stores, gas stations, schools, stadiums, concert halls and movie theaters, most of which are super modern as oppose to ye olde.) He will say "boot" instead of "trunk" and "bin" instead of "garbage can" and "ice lolly" when he means popsicle. His American cousins (future children of my siblings) will marvel at his accent, as he will, no doubt, remark upon theirs. When we go to Ireland it will not be to tour old castles and buy bulky wool sweaters, but to visit family, as I did last week. We will take walks around neighborhoods and visit public parks and rec centers. We will run errands, see movies and download coupons to local restaurants. We may even eventually witness school plays and sporting events. Ireland will feel as homey as anywhere else family lives and Sarah's kids will be our guides, laughing at our Americanisms and teaching us about their lives, now a part of our shared family culture.

And this culture may include the following very cool things about Ireland I grew to appreciate this trip:

1) Cool public pools. We visited a rec center in a nearby town with not one but four high-quality and elaborate water slides. Of course, it was all inside since even in July Ireland is not the tropics. But the slides wound all around the building, blue and green tubes that spun, twirled and plummeted. All this and a pirate ship for the little ones.

2) High-quality universal health care. My sister pays nothing to take my nephew to the doctor and nothing for his prescriptions. This eliminates the often-agonizing internal debate parents in the States must have. (Is s/he really that sick? Is it worth taking him in?) It's not a choice we should ask people to make when their children are involved. It cost Sarah exactly nothing to have a baby, and it costs @ 40 Euro for her to visit her doctor (this acts as a co-pay and includes any procedures she may need as a result of the visit). She never has to wait in ridiculous lines and considers her care of the highest quality. What's not to love? (And, yes, let's all keep pushing for universal health care in the States!)

3) Hedges in general and hedge mazes in particular. Drive a mile (or less!) out of any Irish city and you will soon be motoring past a grass-green countryside stitched with dark-green hedges. Ridiculously picturesque. A deep knowledge of hedge cultivation also leads to hedge mazes! We visited one near Sarah's. It was so cool! If I ever win the lottery, I am so building my own hedge maze.

4) Round towers. I love these things. Built to protect people and valuables of a village or monastery against marauding Vikings (of which there were many in the 800-900s). Now, ancient signposts of the Dark Ages, still standing secure amid the rolling hills. I didn't see any this visit, but I have to put in a plug here.

5) Real fries (ie: chips). Fries that are thick and well cut. Fries that clearly were once potatoes and might even have the skin still on them. Fries fried to golden perfection.

6) St. Georges Market, Belfast. A farmers market held in a Victorian market hall (cause things in Ireland can't be held outside. Pretty much ever). Organic everything, a European Union's worth of food, cute, non-kitchy crafts, live music, homemade chocolate, local cheeses. All under one roof.

I'm still getting used to many things in Ireland (the narrow roads, the near-constant gray, the wee-ness of almost everything), but this visit has put me well on my way to being a member of a fully bi-cultural family as Adam's favorite auntie!

(If you want me, I'll be under the table avoiding the barrage of protests from Adam's four other aunties...)

The Kindle report

Will you read it curled in bed? Will you crave a page instead?
Will you miss the booky smell? Will a screen do just as well?

With a tip of the hat to Dr. Seuss, these are all questions I've received from curious bibliophiles since purchasing the Amazon Kindle. As most of you know, the Kindle is much like an iPod for books. You download what you want from Amazon, then can read the books on a specially designed screen. The device weighs less than a pound and stores up to 1,500 texts (be they books, magazines, newspapers, etc.).

My decision to purchase a Kindle was not taken lightly, and it has changed the way I think about books. But not in a bad way. While I was making up my mind, I worried the Kindle was a souless device that takes the bookiness out of books. It is silent (no more rustling pages), odorless and plastic. What in the name of heaven will they think of next?



You may agree. Books are more than the sum of their parts, so how can reading one on a screen be the same as reading a page as Guttenberg intended?

Let me assure you that it is. You're halfway there if you already think of books as more than objects.

Even before we get philosophical, I should add that a Kindle has a lot of features that successfully mimic books. Most importantly, the screen is not back-lit. Unlike your computer screen, you can't read a Kindle in the dark. This diminshes completely the threat of headaches and swimming eyes that we all experience after too many hours in front of our trusty laptops. The words in a Kindle edition book are sharply defined, the screen is many-pixeled and the font is easy on the eyes. I have had no problem reading my Kindle far into the night, as I would with any traditional book.

Moreover, Kindles operated in the good, ol' USA have a direct, wireless link to the Kindle store on Amazon, making downloading books frightfully quick and easy. I mean 'frightfully' in the literal sense. It is scary how easy it is to spend money on books. (Kindle editions cost @ $10 a pop.) This has always been an issue for me, but I was previously limited by transportation, bookstore opening hours, book availability and other now-obsolete book-buying concerns.

But back to the big ideas: if you love books as objects then the Kindle is not for you. On a Kindle, all books look like a sleek, white plastic-and-metal device with a Mac-influenced aesthetic and a cute, round-buttoned keyboard. If you delight in filling your bookshelves with distinctive colors, varying widths and eye-catching bindings, then stop reading now.

However, if a book is what transports you to an alternate universe or state of being wherein the text acts as a guide and bridge, then there might be something to this Kindle thing. If, like me, you love books, but don't quite know what to do with them after you've finished; if your bookshelves are full to overflowing; if you don't have infinite space to expand your library or if you travel a lot, read quickly and/or move more than once every 10 years then you might want to acknowledge that, no, in fact, you don't really love books as objects. You love books as text, as story, as knowledge, as imagination. In short, you love reading.

And you can read perfectly well on a Kindle.

Owning a Kindle has given me greater insight into what I loved so much about books in the first place and what I can continue to love, all the while removing stacks of stuff from my life and saving time, money and paper, not to mention the lugging, moving and shipping I will not have to do. It's one of the best purchases I've ever made, and an excellent use of technology we use every day. I highly recommend it to all you readers out there.

I will read it curled in bed! It was never about the page instead!
I do not miss the booky smell! In fact, a screen does just as well!

Reach out and...

I'm sure there is a term for what happens when a once-universal ability falls into disuse as a result of a technological advance. It's a term we could apply to not being able to start effective fires without a match or sew whole outfits or walk barefoot for very long. All of these skills came in handy a generation or so ago (and remain so in many places today). Yet stop 50 people on the street and chances are, none of them has ever laid hands on a flint or a sewing machine.

We can apply this same term to the ability to meet up with someone when one or both parties is lacking a cell phone. My memory assures me that I (along with most of you) once possessed this skill as recently as 7-8 years ago. I can recall connecting with folks for lunch, meeting people at airports (really!), making and changing plans all without the use of a mobile device--and with very little attendant anxiety.

Yet this summer, I haven't had a cell phone. Mine works on the other side of the world, and I didn't get around to renting one. What this means is that my smart, well-educated and brilliantly reliable friends and family can't reach me while I'm on my way to meet them. It seems like a little thing, but we have had to re-train ourselves to be comfortable with this. In some ways, it's easier for me. After all, I know I'm getting there, even if they don't. In other ways, I've genuinely felt bad for forcing my loved ones back into the days when we just made plans and followed them, without a phone call to say that we're leaving, or have been minutely delayed or have almost arrived.

It's made me consider the true benefit of cell phones, which are legion. I'm not trying to be a cranky Luddite here. But I will make a claim that we overuse them because it really has not been a disaster to arrange to meet with someone one day and connect with them the next. Have we, as a society, become less trusting that things will proceed as planned? Are we simply glad to be able to reach out on the lonely road en route to socializing? Are we less concerned about being on time because we can always call and explain away our lateness rather than risk stranding someone for a few extra minutes? Or are we thankful for the opportunity to be considerate?

It took my mom and I about 10 minutes of conversation (face to face) to figure out how we were going to meet up after I went out to dinner with a friend and she attended her weekly art class. We were both so out of practice, but we eventually realized that if we both did our darnedest to get to the meeting point at the assigned time, then we'd probably be OK. The worse that could happen would be that one of us would have to wait for a few minutes. But maybe that would be a "worst thing" to many people. Maybe this all has less to do with cell phones than with technology in general and its ceaseless drive to save us time, including two minutes when you could be doing __________ instead of waiting around.

Summer challenge: arrange to meet someone in 24 hours or more from now. Do not use a wireless mobile device to communicate with them about this meeting at any point after you make your plans (unless you must cancel). Have the next time you interact with them be face to face at your meeting point. Report any problems here.