Off to Africa. Maybe.

Niamey, Niger: Is this summer vacation 2010?

Eli Lilly offers 120 Teacher Creativity Grants each year.  This $8,000 grant is meant to provide an opportunity for Indiana’s teachers and administrators to design and carry out a six week project for personal renewal.  A smaller number of $25,000 grants are available for teachers or administrators who undertake larger projects.

Previous winners have studied at Oxford, immersed themselves in the study of Native American history and culture, and studied East African’s wildlife and its affect on the region’s art and culture.

Africa.

There it is.

I learned about these grants about 6 years ago. Though I have always wanted, maybe even needed, to go to Africa, I have never even filled out the grant application.

Oh, I’ve thought about it.  I’ve considered it.  I’ve talked about it.  I have never done it.

Part of me is afraid of international travel.  I barely get to partake of domestic travel, let alone get on an enormous plane and fly to an area where I do not speak the language and everything is strange to me.

I teach about the entire world.  Yet, I’ve only ever been to Canada.  Once.

I teach about Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, and South America without ever stepping foot on the soil.  I have former students who are far more traveled than I am.  They have been to Siberia, Hong Kong, South Africa, Great Britain, and France, and those are only thew few I know of.

My own knowledge comes from books and fascinating people, mostly Africans, whom I have had the pleasure of meeting and learning from, all while firmly planted in the states.  I know about the charcoal mafia in the Congo, how language is such a political issue in Nigeria, and the funeral practices of the Kisii in Kenya.

I have seen none of it for myself.

My son has an entire family in Africa whom he will never meet if we do not go to visit.  Ismael’s sister tried to come visit with her children and was repeatedly denied a visa at the US Embassy.  Of course the denial came after weeks of waiting, hundreds of dollars in fees paid, and many pages of paperwork from us.  For all this effort? A simple no, without explanation.  She was told that if her sister in law wanted to meet her, then she should come to Africa.

Her sister in law.  That’s me.

Though I really do want to meet her, it wasn’t enough to get me there. It was enough to make me extremely angry at our fractured immigration system.  I felt that as a natural born American citizen, I should be able to invite anyone I want to visit me in my home country.

However, when my mother in law visited a few months ago and returned to Africa with pictures of Adam, she emailed me: “Big chief is a star in Niamey,” and I felt a tug on my heart.

Even though Adam won’t remember the trip, Ismael’s family will remember meeting Adam.

Somehow, even though he is still so young, it finally feels like the right time to apply for this grant.

We will have to wait and see what the future holds.

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