As some may know I am leaving for Africa on Saturday. Its a two week trip, though chances are high I could die at any moment. Anyway I’ve decided to do something of a chronicle of the whole thing as really, how many chances do you get to go to Africa? This series will be known as “So this is Africa” for two reasons: 1) I think it sounds funny and appropriately awkward and 2) I did an IMDB search for “Africa” for inspiration and this was the best I could come up with.
Currently I am in the almost ready to think about packing stage of packing. I’ve gotten my shots (though haven’t gotten my malaria pills. oops) and thats about it. In considering my packing my biggest thought/desire is that I do not want to bring a lot of stuff over. I always, always over pack but not this trip, no sir. I’m bringing one backpack and one medium-sized bag and thats it.
The biggest problem with this dedication to packing light is not clothes selection but reading material. I like to read books. On a trip like this I imagine, in between avoiding death by hippo, there is going to be plenty of reading time. On the soul-numbing 15 hour flight over there in particular I’m going to want things to read. But books take up a lot of space and are heavy and once you are done with them they are just dead weight to be carried around. Thats no good, I cant bring 20 books with me over there and then drag them all over the place.
Inspired by my friend The Mexcian I think I’ve come up with a decent solution: printing out articles. I’ve long bookmarked various articles and things that I’ve been meaning to read but for one reason or another just haven’t, this trip could be the perfect way to clear out some of that backlog. Here are some pro’s and con’s of this strategy:
Pro:
- When I finish reading I can discard the printouts, saving me from having to carry them all over the place.
- I can catch up on my way too large articles backlog
- Articles can be nice to read because they are like little short stories, you dont need to put in a huge time commitment.
- If I am in dire need of kindling in the wilderness I will have lots of things that are easy to burn.
Con:
- At the beginning of the trip I’ll be carrying quite a lot of paper
- This is obviously very bad for Earth. I’m going to be printing out a lot of paper and then just throwing it away. I’ll recycle when I can but even still. Bad karma, at the least.
- I’m not sure what the printing limits are here at work but I imagine I’m fairly close to them.
I have two and 1/2 office days before departure and I’m printing off an average of 4 articles a day. Throw in a couple choice books and I could be good to go. Stay tuned for the next “So this is Africa”.
Any chance you’ll be able to add pics to my “Out of Africa” facebook album? God I hope so.