The Parents' Visit

My parents arrived October 9th. I hadn’t seen my folks since I left home in March 2005 and I was so excited about their arrival, I worried about passing out at the airport from sheer excitement. I also worried that somehow they might end up in Thailand or Germany instead of Malawi. Although both my parents lived for years in South America this was their first trip outside the US (besides Mexico) since 1972. Luckily, they arrived intact although exhausted with all of their luggage on the expected date. I didn’t pass out but it was wonderful to see them and the visit improved from there. I can say that for the past 14 years I have recognized that my parents are remarkable people but even so they managed to impress me.

For those of you who don’t know my family, here’s the abbreviated history of my parents. Before they were married my mother worked as a nurse in the Altiplano of Bolivia for six years helping to set up and run a clinic. During the same time period my dad lived and worked in the favelas outside Recife, Brazil. When they talk about their time in South America their eyes sparkle and they turn contemplative. In the late 1960s they both believed they would spend their lives there, but circumstances brought them back to the US – to Detroit, even though my mom is from east Texas – and their lives changed completely. My mom became a pediatric nurse practitioner, my dad became a social worker, they found jobs, they met, married, had me, later adopted my brother, moved to Texas, my dad gave up social work for real-estate, my mother worked in the newborn nursery and raised us, then retired about 10 years ago, my dad still works in real-estate.

In many ways moving across the world actually deepened my relationship with my parents. They know my struggles intimately as their own and find more frequent occasions to share bits of wisdom, especially that gained from reflection on their time abroad almost 40 years ago. In my family, I am not an original but I’m okay with that. As we drove the 30 minutes from the airport to my house, past scenes of boys herding cattle, untended roaming goats, and women carrying bundles on their heads, my dad said, “This feels very comfortable.” For him this was a return.

My dad kept his own journal quite religiously throughout their three weeks here and I’ve asked him to post a sampling of his impressions; he has not yet committed to that but says he will post pictures at some point. I think we did as much as physically possible without totally exhausting everyone. We went to Bottom. We went to the lake. We went on safari in Zambia and saw lions with a kill, a leopard, countless elephants, giraffes, zebra, and even a python. We went to Mr Nankuntho’s village, where he did indeed kill the promised goat (and Clement skinned it). We went to Mua Mission, a hundred-year-old Catholic mission; the Canadian priest who has run the mission for the last 40 years was initiated into the Chewa tribe and, with the permission of the chiefs, has created a museum filled with cultural information about three of the largest ethnic groups in Malawi, notably elevating the local culture rather than desecrating it. We went to Zomba Mountain and finished with a visit to Clement’s home village in Mangochi (home village meaning the village of his father’s father not the place he grew up) to meet his extended family. My parents ate nsmia, drank tobwa, drank water from bore holes, used latrines, kissed babies, learned the basic greetings in Chichewa, received gifts of dried fish, mangos, and a live chicken, and ended each day smiling. Not a moment of culture shock and not a moment of illness.

For me, I loved seeing what has become mudane with all the light and color their eyes gave to it, and I realized again - but a bit more profoundly - that I am surrounded by an amazing community of friends. The only downside of the visit came with passing thoughts about how many miles separate me from my family, the rarity of our visits, and the inevitable aging of my parents. (During their visit my dad turned 71 and my mom turned 75; if I could force them to commit to another 30 years on this planet I certainly would.) They left on October 26th with smiles and hundreds of photos and a few carvings and countless memories; they said the visit was transformative. Last week my dad called and asked if they could return on the weekend. I wish they would.