I Want to Take My Son to Africa

There are a LOT of places I want to see.

My travel wish list is not exactly short. 😂

But if you asked me to choose one trip that I most want to take, it wouldn’t be about beaches, resorts, or checking another country off a list.

I want to take my son to Africa.

And I want to experience it with him.

I want us to stand in places we’ve only read about.

I want to take him to South Africa and stand outside the cell where Nelson Mandela spent so many years imprisoned. I want us to talk about what it means for someone to lose their freedom without surrendering their purpose.

I want us to experience the beauty, food, music, people, history, and cultures that can’t possibly be understood through a textbook or documentary.

And I want him to connect with a part of the world that is also connected to us.

Years ago, DNA testing revealed Nigerian ancestry in my family.

There is something powerful to me about knowing that somewhere across that enormous continent are pieces of our story that existed long before either of us did.

I don’t expect a trip to magically answer questions about identity or ancestry.

Actually, I hope it creates more questions.

I want Rhys to wonder.

I want him to learn.

I want him to experience history as something more than names, dates, and chapters in a book.

And selfishly, I want those memories with him.

He is getting older.

College isn’t some abstract thing we’ll think about “someday” anymore. Someday is getting uncomfortably close.

I know there will come a time when traveling with Mom may not be at the top of his list. 😂

So when I imagine this trip, I imagine more than the places we’ll visit.

I imagine the conversations.

The meals.

The things we’ll laugh about.

The moments when one of us sees something and instinctively looks for the other.

The stories we’ll tell years later that begin with, “Remember when we were in…?”

Maybe that’s what I love most about travel.

You leave home expecting to discover someplace new.

And sometimes, somewhere along the way, you discover a little more about where you came from.

Africa, we’re coming.

I don’t know exactly when yet.

But we’re coming.

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