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I discovered the rude meaning of 69 when I was 18.  Before that it was just a number.  

My childhood was very protected, a time of innocence, and also very happy, for the most part.  I played imaginary games, climbed trees, read books, read everything I could really, perused the huge tomes of the Encyclopedia Brittanica sometimes, with that paper light as tissue, the books almost too heavy to carry far, so I would sit on the carpet next to the bookshelf and pore over them.  (My best friend and I once came across the special medical section with clear plastic pages, where you could see the circulatory system of the entire body, then turn that page to discover underneath the digestive system, the way muscles lie under the skin, and so on and so on until you reached the bottom images which were a naked man and woman, lying patiently under all these transparent pages, giving the body's outline to all the systems portrayed.  It was a fascinating discovery.)  I drew pictures constantly, loved my friends with a deep and passionate love, learned to swim in the salty sea-water of the Kalk Bay baths, rode my bicycle all over Pinelands, lay on my tummy on the carpet with my brother and listened to records, or our serial on the radio, and all this wondrous being in the world was based on the certain knowledge and safety of my family's great love.  

The 11 or 12-year old child today could be living on another planet from the one of my childhood.  Everything is technology-related.  Boys (and some girls, but still mostly boys) are besotted with games played on screens, often killing games, where you shoot people and there is much blood and gore, but if you "die" you can just start over again.  Girls (and some boys) are addicted to how many likes they get on Facebook, there is a culture of narcissism, with everyone taking constant "selfies" which are then posted online.  On websites like Tumblr people post and repost, so the same things are going around and around, and all the moments recorded are succumbing to all the minutes and hours and days of youngsters' lives, as they compulsively check their phones for updates and news.  And everywhere sex and pornography, and still the objectification of women.  Such a strange world. "O wonder!/ How many goodly creatures are there here!/  How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,/ That has such people in't!" Miranda in The Tempest  by William Shakespeare, Act V, scene i.

It feels as though my childhood was a lengthy continuum, with highs and lows of course, but generally quite placid, and filled with long periods of concentration with no distractions, like curling up in a "nest" on the couch and reading for hours on rainy wintry days, only stopping for meals, or when you finished the book.  And quiet walks in the rain, and curiosity and imagination always at play.  The child of today lives a very fragmented life, filled with perpetual new sensations and demands, a constant barrage of stimulation.  

I feel this as a period of extreme change, 2014 and beyond, and Luna and Ella's world will be even more different from this one today, this world where children have too much information, a technological environment where 11 year olds are already quite familiar with all the different meanings of 69, a fact which constantly shocks this old lady. 

And now I go back to the topic of travel.  Most of my life was spent not travelling.  I had my daughters early and was bound to them, and all my efforts were to love them and provide for them.  I was also a teacher, which is a job without much remuneration which can be spent on travel.  Later I had two more babies, and always dogs, and cats, and no real idea about money and how to keep it from slipping and sliding and rushing out of my bank account into the coffers of grocery shops, and school uniform stores, and mortgage companies, and vet surgeries. Camping in the mountains and holidays spent at a friend’s sea house were all the travelling we did. 

And then we took this gigantic leap across the ocean, travelling so far both literally and figuratively.  We landed in Massachusetts to a difficult and lonely life at first, a hard battle, an undertaking to settle and understand the unfamiliar culture, to prove ourselves, to find friends, to make a living. So it is only in our older age that travel has become possible.  There are no longer any children living at home, no dog to find a dog-sitter for, we can be free as birds on occasion, when Tim has leave, when I have school vacation.

Travel expands us, we become more open, we see our human race from a different perspective.   A journey to another land provides us with empathy, with knowledge, with different tastes, views, sights.  

When I went to Vietnam we went to the American War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City, which used to be called Saigon.  (It is called the Vietnam war here in America, and the American war in Vietnam.)  Most of the exhibits are photographic, horrifying pictures donated by war photographers, showing graphic images of the aftermath of the My Lai massacre, the effects of defoliants on babies, the huge swathes of jungle destroyed by the Americans spraying Agent Orange from aeroplanes.  I walked around one floor and then disintegrated on a bench outside, my eyes pouring, my heart an aching jelly of emotions.   

A huge self-education has ensued from that encounter, one which still haunts me, and stumps my rational brain, that we can manufacture such toxins and use them on forests, farmland, people, animals.  We can make laws which allow this to happen, and Monsanto, the company responsible for the manufacture of Agent Orange, can still continue to grow and monopolize and manipulate as it does today.  This company is the scariest of bio-pirates, and one of the greatest threats to biodiversity on the planet.

Before going to Vietnam I had a vague idea of the history, of Indochine, the war, the present country.  But actually being there meant that I met Vietnamese people, I saw how things worked, I lived with a host-family in the Mekong Delta, I ate strange dragonfish, rode a bicycle on the miles of narrow pathways through the jungles and canals, washed myself with a little hose instead of using toilet-paper, helped to build a road by hauling rocks and concrete and water in the extraordinary heat, was invited to a farm to enjoy the hospitality and hear the personal story of a woman who had been a spy during the war against the Americans.  It was hot and difficult and strange and extraordinary. 

Village elder in the Mekong delta

Restaurant in the jungle

The flight of the hibiscus

Monk in Buddhist temple who asked me to take his picture.

Little girl waiting on the scooter for her dad.

Entrepreneur

How many people can you fit on one scooter?

When I disembarked from the plane in Boston, I immediately wanted to take Tim and go back, so that we could experience it together, so that he could take his camera and his wonderful eye for detail and composition, and capture the phenomenon of that place.  I want to go back to see Hanoi, the thousand-year old city, I want to see Anghor Wat, the incredible ancient Hindu then Buddhist temple in Cambodia.  Travel creates a yearning for more travel.  It helps us become more fully human, to see beyond borders.