Boy, do I travel! Joel

I remember my parents telling me that I had been in a plane when I was too young to remember. Actually I remember a bit of it. Enough to know that it was a memory from inside a plane, though it is so faint and all I really remember was mom taking me up the aisle toward the restroom. In fact, the first time I was on a plane was when I was in college on a choir tour of the southwest states. I was quite scared, actually. But it was quite a marvel, that first flight.

I still like flying. I actually look forward to plane food. At least here in southern Africa they still spoil you with the royal treatment of free snacks, free drinks and even free South African wine for those who care to indulge. I think, however, that I am a bit spoiled now. I have flown a lot, actually, embarrassing a lot, especially this last year. I believe it was in June (2010) when I was marveling at how much I had traveled over the previous year and began to count the flights. It was the year that Nadia was born so I flew from Beira to Johannesburg and back (2 flights). That was the start. The following is a list of all the rest from June 2009-2010.

Johannesburg-Bloemfontein-Johannesburg for conservation agriculture training (2 flights)
Beira to Johannesburg for strategic meetings (2 flights)
Beira to Maputo for meetings with CCM (2 flights)
Beira-Johannesburg-Dakar-Washington-Philadelphia for home leave (3 flights)
Philadelphia-Chicago-Omaha to visit my parents (3 flights)
Wichita-Denver for MCC storytelling (1 flight)
Denver-Chicago for MCC storytelling (1 flight)
Chicago-Saskatchewan (1 flight)
Saskatchewan-Denver-Omaha, my parents again (2 flights)
Omaha-Chicago-Philadelphia, back to Jenny’s parents (2 flights)
Philadelphia-Washington-Dakar-Johannesburg-Beira, return to Mozambique (3 flights)
Chimoio-Maputo-Chimoio, to find house in Maputo (2 flights)

I flew 24 times, 5 different counties, and 12 different cities. That is a lot of airplane food (which I thoroughly enjoyed). And a majority of that was logged with my new daughter. Not to mention that I took another flight from Maputo-Tete in August plus all the vehicle travel that happened over our MCC speaking engagements and to and from team meetings in Mozambique and projects. No wonder I am a little exhausted this past year from all the travel.

But, you know, I still like it.