HOW TO TAKE A TEENAGER TO AFRICA, PART TWO

From Los Angeles, the flights to Africa  (3 of them in total) take very close to 24 hours.  When your teenager asks you how long it will take to get to Africa, you say: “Hey, do you want pizza tonight?”  If an hour or so later, they actually remember to ask again… you say, “I spoke to your math teacher today.”  and so on.  Don’t worry,  there is no way in hell any of them will ever, ever pick up anything that resembles an atlas and look at the actual distance.  Distract them.  Keep it to yourself.  The closest you should ever get to divulging the actual length of time is when you suggest they download about 14 to 17  full length feature films on their ipod for the trip there and back.

Only when the first plane has completely lifted off the ground and they bring up the subject again, can you laugh lightly and say, “Oh, I imagine it will take the day!”  At the end of the second flight (which should leave you in London or Amsterdam) they will be mad.  It’s disorienting for them.  They have not gotten a text in about fifteen hours, and no one has referred to them as ‘Dude.’  No amount of candy or P.C. magazines will bring them around.  Prepare for it.  Remain tirelessly cheerful.  Piss them off even more.  They’ll stop talking to you and give up.  Go to sleep.  You’re going to need your strength.

If your destination is Eastern Africa, the last leg of the trip will normally take you to Nairobi.  It’s there that you meet the rest of the people in your tour group, all of whom still have on their party manners.  No way to tell who anyone actually is yet.  The 18 or so of us in the group took a puddle jumper to Tarangire, jumped into our assigned jeeps with the other families, and began our first safari.

My son had been silent for  hours.  His final statement in Amsterdam, (“Tulips are fucked”) had been our last serious communication.  Now suddenly, here in the jeep, he was looking around.  He was making clever observations.  He was SMILING.  I was beside myself with joy.  I knew I’d made the right decision bringing him here.  I knew once we got to Africa he would come around.

I started to introduce myself to the family we were teaming up with, and as I did so, followed my son’s radiant smile across the jeep to… a fifteen year old, scantily clad, goddess.   She had smashed  herself against the back wall of the vehicle and was holding her bejeweled fingers up over her face.  She shook her beautifully coiffed head of hair back and forth, because what she had seen was too impossible for her to comprehend.  It was a bug.  ”My God it’s moving!” she shrieked, and then clearly outraged that this could be happening in the middle of Africa,  ”AND THERE’S ANOTHER ONE!!!!”

My son was intoxicated.

TO BE CONTINUED…