Tuesday, January 2, 2007

Packing-phobia Part I: The Math

Like most people I know, I dread packing -- especially for a long trip. For this longest-trip-I've-ever-taken-with-my-kids, I've been mentally packing for weeks, so that I can avoid a last-minute panic. It feels like everyone I know has told me to "make a list" -- except my kids, who refuse to make a list -- so that it won't be difficult to pack. But what am I supposed to include on my packing list? The obvious: pants, jeans, capris, skirts (for country visits and for city socializing), shorts, bathing suit, t-shirts, long-sleeves, etc., etc. I just need to actually do it. I like to make a big pile of everything I think I want to take and then see how it fits in the suitcase. I've been victim of packing too lightly for a trip and hating the amount of recycling the same black pants and t-shirt, and I've also over-compensated with an embarrassment of too-much-stuff on other trips.

This packing exercise is particularly tough, as we're spending a few days in England, which www.weather.co.uk says will be in the 40's and raining every day we're there. We'll be with family and friends, and will want to look "smart," as we won't be anonymous tourists. Then, once we arrive in the Gambia, the same British site shows high's deliciously around 88 degrees and lows at night around 63F. So, my primary packing is for summer weather. However, the Gambia is a predominantly Muslim country with a high incidence of malaria and any savvy traveler won't be wearing shorts all the time like a Carribbean vacation. On top of this, I'd like to take practical, versatile items that I rarely wear anymore, so I could give them to someone else when I leave.

This packing equation is complicated by airline baggage limits. Continental (our flight from Newark to UK) allows two bags each at a maximum of 50 lbs per bag. But "The Gambia Experience," our British tourist charter flight from Bristol to Banjul, allows 30 kg (about 66 lbs) per person - total.

Another complicator is that I have piles and piles of non-clothing items that need to be packed. For example, I offered to carry 50 copies of a junior youth (middle school) literacy and virtues teaching workbook called Breezes of Confirmation, prepared by the William Mmutle Masetlha Foundation in Zambia but printed in Florida (!). I'm taking a specific type of blankets as gifts for the four staff at my sister-in-law's home; three large Costco-sized bags of store-brand Starbucks coffee beans; two Costco-sized bags of chocolate chips; 1-months' supply of toiletries for the 4 of us (Alex can bring more when he visits); books for 4; and more...

Why not ship these items before we leave, you reasonably ask?? Well, this is part of the equation of going to Africa. Nothing is really that easy. Infrastructure is weak, the volume of commerce is low, corruption can come into play if a package looks valuable, and so shipping is expensive and you're lucky to get the package in a few weeks, IF it arrives. This is an example of how poor economies with little foreign investment remain that way, with difficult situations reinforcing themselves ... but I stray from my focus on packing my suitcase. This is what happens when I mentally pack.

More useful than a basic list, for me, as a former student of economics, this all comes together in an equation: corruption + struggling economic development + new airline security restrictions + people doing good work needing to get supplies to the right people + gifts + damp in the UK + tropical in the Gambia = what I pack in my suitcase in pounds, converted to kilograms.

And I still haven't put anything in my suitcase...

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