Robyn's Wanderings

Dedicating a house on the Brazil Mission 2007! Photos of the Zambia mission will be coming soon!

Only two weeks ago, a group of 45 helpful Bermudian residents left their island home, traveled for days and arrived in Zimbabwe. The trip, however, was no vacation.

As our wanderer, Adrienne Smatt, tells us the Bermuda Overseas Mission (BOM) group have been busy completing eight homes! Their tools? Hands and one set of scaffolding! But the build is not the hardest part. Let Adrienne tell you about some of the heartbreaking and warming that has happened in Zambia:

July 23^rd (build day 4.5)

It’s Saturday. Our plan for the day was to work a half day and then have lunch, shower and head to an orphanage.

On the way to the site we got lost in the maze of the community we are helping. Instead of taking an initial left, we took the second left. We were not met with our usual smiling, screaming and waving children. We were met with confused faces. This was our clue that we had gone awry.

Work has slowed to nearly a complete hault. We have gone to the tops of the windows and doors – well above our tallest teammates’ heads. Each site has one scaffold. I am thankful for a scaffold at all.

In past builds we have been met with 50 gallon drums and some bendy pieces of lumber stretched across the drum and some bricks piled up to match. Scaffolding, in comparison to that, is luxurious. Despite my thanks and praises we can only put two people on the scaffold at a time. I have 5 people on my team plus a foreman.

When those on the ground aren’t handing up bricks they are left to stand around and watch. This kills me. We’ve come to help and yet we have become bystanders. There has got to be a better way than one scaffold, two people bricking and 2 or 3 people standing around watching the slow progress! The team leaders (me included) need to have a meeting to brainstorm a better way.

A young helper during the Brazil BOM Mission in 2007.

When they are not building, BOM is: Today we went to St Anthony’s Children’s Village. Every orphanage we go to is just as heartbreaking as the last. At first I’m not sure what the children expected of the two big blue buses and unfamiliar faces. However, as soon as we got off one child ran straight up to one of our teenage teammembers, Isabel. The whole time we were there this child would not let Isable put her down.

I saw the transformations I had been waiting for in some of the youth of our group. They seemed to see no difference in these parentless, abandoned, possibly (probably) HIV/AIDS positive children to their own siblings and relatives. They treated the orphans as their own.

It was great to see.

With the orphanage, the people in this village are really trying to make a difference, and for 100+ kids, they do. Most, if not all of these kids were abandoned in the streets by their mothers and then found and brought to the village. One child had been brought to them, found who knows where, and died two hours later.

Again, heartbreaking.

We left clothes and shoes and supplies for this great place that gets little or no funding from the government – but somehow this feels insufficient. We drove away from the smiling and waving children, many of us with tears in our eyes and a feeling of inadequacy.

A child looking-on during the Brazil build in 2007.

Upon our return we were greeted by school children who came to dance for us. Through this whole trip I have been trying to find similarities to bridge the gap between here in Zambia and our little island. In these children I found it. The way they danced was strangely (and somewhat disturbingly) not disimilar to how we dance in the Bermuda club scene. As far as I was aware they were doing some traditional Zambian/African dances, but they had they been about 10 years older, wearing heels jeans and low cut tops the girls (and the boys wearing something equally appropriate) would have fit right in with the bumping and grinding type dancing we gravitate towards.

A normal day on a build for BOM in Brazil.

July 27^th (last full build day)

There is no rest for the weary.

We are more exhausted than ever and pushing ourselves to even further extremes. I went to bed at 9:30 last night and got up at my usual 6:30 this morning – this is the most I’ve slept this whole trop and I am the most tired today.

Current tasks at hand:

Tamping: this is far worse than shoveling could ever hope to be. The floors need to be prepped for the concrete which will be poured on top of the dirt. Because of this, we need to bach the floors into submission to not only level them but also compact the soil as much as possible. It is brutal.
Roofs: Beams need to go up and be strapped down in place. This is done by chiseling a hole through our gorgeous walls and poking wire through to tie down the beams. Once that is done, you can hammer down the corrugated roof. Only once that is completed can you think about pouring the floors.
Pouring the Floors: Thankfully we have located a cement mixer. This makes a potential day of hell a little less like Dante’s 9^th level of the Inferno. Having said that, it still sucks.

Once you start, you can’t stop – and this is no Pringles jingle job. Wheelbarrows of cement are unruly and heavy.  Funny story though, the masons here don’t like the consistency of the cement that the mixer produces. We’ve been waiting for days for this cement mixer to arrive so we can do the floors, and now the masons want to revert back to their ways. Which is fine… but it consists of mixing the cement on the floor of each room. Yea, I said it, mixing the cement on the FLOOR of EACH ROOM.

Tomorrow is dedication day.

My prediction is a lot of red and teary eyes, sniffles and hugs. It is always hard to leave but somehow we all do and go back to our usual lives. All the houses will have roofs on them tomorrow and 3 of the 8 will have floors completed. This is a tremendous accomplishment. It is amazing to say that we will have left 8 families with a roof over their heads – more than they had before we arrived.

There will be another update with more specific details about who broke down and cried and exactly how the families reacted to their new homes. For now, at 9pm, I want to go to sleep. I have tamping to do in the morning.

Need a new apartment? Have no fear, Barbados' service is beyond helpful!

“To awaken quite alone in a strange town is one of the pleasantest sensations in the world.” – Freya Stark

I wish I could say I awoke in Barbados fresh and ready to tackle a month-long course I was attending, but then I would have had to have slept.

Why was I so tired? Well there were a few reasons: Two days in the Miami airport after my first flight to Barbados was cancelled (check-out last week’s Rock Fever column on my website www.robynswanderings.com for your travel rights). The second flight to Barbados delayed by two hours. A Barbados immigration line which stretched for an hour and then I was grilled on my landlord and the phone number. Then I arrived at the apartment I had rented for a month at one a.m.

The picture: one tired Bermudian ready for rest.

Unfortunately, the rum bar across the street and oil smell from the power plant next door, painted my picture of Barbados black. I was not a happy camper.

Now in case you haven’t followed this column, I will fill you in. The reason I am in Barbados is that I had been offered a chance to attend a Gender and Development studies course at the Cave Hill Campus of the University of the West Indies in Barbados. Not for my travel column, but because I also serve in the part-time role of Director of Amnesty International Bermuda.

Because I was going for a month I had to find somewhere to stay and, though I usually do not do this, I used a real estate agent to help me find a decent location. She failed.

At 2 a.m., unable to sleep in my oil permeated locale, I emailed the agent stating my dismay.

You can imagine my groggy shock when at 8 a.m. (6 hours after I emailed) and on a Saturday morning I received a phone call: “Hi Robyn, I am sorry to hear you do not like the location. Let’s find you a place where you will be happy.”

By 11 a.m. I was in a different home which did not smell like oil and without a loud rum bar anywhere to be found (I don’t mind a rum bar, I just don’t want to live next to one!) Amazing.

Beautiful Barbados! Even better? Everyone is so helpful!

Ok Robyn, what’s your point? My point of the Rock Fever column this week is why Barbados is a tourist destination and why I would visit again: service. I couldn’t believe my real estate agent, Tara, was ready to spend all Saturday morning helping me find a new place even when she had three kids at home. Not only that but since I had not eaten since lunch the day before she treated me to some very late breakfast. Honestly, if you are looking for someone to help you with a long-term stay in Barbados you need to visit Seaside Realty: www.seasiderealtybarbados.com.

And the service did not stop there. Barbados is a big country. A few facts? It is 21 miles long and 14 miles wide with a population of about 280,000 people. It was colonized by the British in 1627. Tobacco production was the man staple of the economy until it shifted to sugar under the colonial system. Indentured servants and slaves were the brought to the island to work the plantations until slavery was abolished in 1834. In 1966, Barbados gained their independence from the United Kingdom and tourism is the pillar of their economy. The capital is Bridgetown and you can call someone from here either Barbadian or the colloquial term: Bajan.

With a geographic area that encompasses 166 sp. miles and 60 miles of coastline  it’s not the United States of America, but it is also not Bermuda. Walking places is just not going to happen. After a week in Barbados I realized I really needed my own car. Tara was there again helping me find a car rental company. Coconut Cars immediately replied to my emails, called when they had not heard back from me immediately and then picked me up to bring me to their offices so I could fill-out the paper work. When I asked if I could leave the car at the airport when I leave, the receptionist apologized and said they would be closed on the day I leave.

Traffic in Barbados: no help from the rental company will fix this!

Four days later? The phone rang: “Hello Ms. Skinner?”

“Yes”

“If you still want to drop the car off at the airport, that’s not a problem. Park it in the lot with the key locked inside and we will pick it up a couple of days later.”

Seriously? She remembered my request and went beyond what I ever expected. I would definitely use them again: www.coconutcars.com/

Another staple for month-long living is of course food. Luckily there is a grocery store near my apartment, the Super Centre. What will be shocking for anyone going to Barbados is the lack of fresh produce and the prices! Yes, it is as expensive or more so than Bermuda. This is not a place to try and backpack. In any case, once I stocked-up with groceries I went to the check-out. As luck would have it the cashier was changing and I had already loaded all of my groceries onto the conveyor belt so….any thought of fleeing left my mind.

“Sorry, we will just be a minute as we are changing over.”

“Ok.”

“Hi, I will be right with you. I apologize, she had to leave.”

I couldn’t believe the acknowledgment I was receiving in the check-out line! How nice to be pleasantly told that they would be right with you? It may sound silly in a travel column, but I think it matters when you travel. You want to feel welcome. The best part was in Barbados I continued to encounter this type of service in “local” and “tourist” designated areas of the island.

And the friendliness extended beyond just paid positions to helpful strangers!

Tourists in rental cars are as easy to spot in Barbados as ours are on motorbikes. One night me and a friend were trying to get home in the pitch black (there are very few street lights in Barbados) when the flood-rain enveloped the island. The road we knew would take us home became flooded and was closed. Totally confused, the man in the car next to us rolled down his window: “Are you going to town?”

“Yes.”

“Follow me. I will show you the way.”

“Oh, thank you!”

Try and figure out the map of Barbados in the dark? With the help of a local, yes!

We couldn’t believe it. I’ll be honest and say I was nervous as we wound down tiny roads that a little tourist car could easily be disposed of, but we really had no choice. We were completely lost. Luckily our saviour tour guide set us on the right track and we found our way home!  Without his generous help we may have been driving in circles until we slept in the car.

Which brings me to the end of this week’s column. If nothing else is gleaned from this column I hope it is the recognition that yes, you can travel and have bad experiences. The difference to whether you hold onto them or if you will return is how the people who encounter the tourist help remedy the situation. Nothing is perfect, but an apology and an energy to help will turn that around. So now that I am on the right track in Barbados it’s time to explore this time of year here: Crop Over of course! What is it? Well stay tuned for next week.

Santorini offers black sand beaches, blue waters, and Connect Four

It’s Sunday and our wanderer, Nicola Arnold has been caught-up in….games! Of course travel is not always fun, but it is always filled with games.

From the haggling for the best price to the divide tourists in groups and conquer them with sales and even more typical games to keep you from being bored like scrabble! Here Nicola tells us all about her travels and games:

What is your defense to ward off boredom and tiredness during long flights/road trips/delays… and just to have fun whilst travelling?!

Try packing a deck of cards… it works wonders whether you are backpacking Asia, on a train in Europe or road trippin’ in the USA. Despite possible language barriers if you play with new travel buddies, you may learn new games or tricks along the way. [Of course you could occupy yourself with a puzzle book, an iPod or a Nintendo game - and you have every right to do so - but it may be more social and friendly to team up with others in combating idle time!]

On my travels in June, we brought along Travel Scrabble for a bit of enjoyment. Travel games are great since they tend to be magnetic and the little pieces don’t fly all over the place. Even when energy was low, we attempted to come up with half-coherent words. Sometimes, though, you just have to chalk it up to luck… and a bit of strategic board placement!

[However, I must admit that while my sister and I duked it out in Travel Scrabble, another member of our group (who shall remain unnamed), was playing Angry Birds on a smartphone. Sometimes you just have to let sleeping dogs lie... or in this case, let Angry Birds fly!]

Concentration levels were high in the search for clever words

And you know what is better than travel games? GIANT VERSIONS OF GAMES! You never know when you might stumble upon, say, a life-sized chess board at a park in Switzerland, or a 4-foot Connect Four game on a beach in Greece. Don’t believe me? I can bear witness to both! Who says they are just for children? We are all young at heart.

Don't mess with the Saturday chess players in Geneva

However, if life-size games elude you on your journies, be prepared to whip out some paper & pens for some good, old-fashioned, never-ending games of tic-tac-toe, dots & squares, hangman, or pictionary… whatever floats your boat! For even more simple ideas, start up a guessing game such as eye spy or twenty questions to entertain yourselves.

So in the words of Michael Jordan, “Just play. Have fun. Enjoy the game.”

Building a house on one of BOM's former missions to Brazil in 2007

Our wanderer, Adirenne Smatt and the Bermuda Overseas Mission group she is working with have finally left Bermuda and landed in Zambia.

Fifty hours of flights, lost luggage, cankles and finally……touchdown. But there is no rest for these hardy souls who are there to help build homes! How do they survive? Let’s hear from Adrienne who, unfortunately, was unable to send photos this week so we have had to use photos from previous missions:

I was right to dread the “travel” part of this trip.

Bermuda to JFK was fine – we spent the day in NYC either shopping (not my choice) or going to see Harry Potter. Out flight from Dubai from JFK  was to leave at 11 pm but we got there for  7 pm. Apparently the expected rush hour and Friday traffic was not as horrendous as anticipated. I really hate that airport though. We ended up camping out at the gate. Our plane was absolutely ginormous – it was more accurately described as a rocket which looked like it could take us to the moon. It seated about 600 people. Nearby, there were about 3 other gates – doing the math, that makes for about 1800 people lingering around a space that barely looked equipped to handle one planes-worth of passengers, let along 3 or 4. The flight was long but basically pleasant. (Alex and I did take Gravol and passed out for the majority of the 12 hour ride.)

At some point I know we arrived in Dubai.

Hell begins there: Passport control sent us Bermudians on an endless runaround in some sort of false hope that we would get through and be able to get to the hotel and sleep for a few measly hours. We spent about an hour running around attemping to find the right person (often being sent back from whence we came) to stamp our passports and let us through.

Evidently, our hotel did not know that 45 people from Bermuda were about to bombard them. For whatever reason, at 10 pm in the evening our rooms were not ready. We were offered a sad excuse for dinner and then I promptly ran up to my room to get in as many hours (3) of sleep as I could.

The Bermuda Overseas Mission in Brazil in 2007

At the crack of dawn we went back to the airport and got on our 8 hour flight to Johannesburg. Food on the flight was once again mediocre. From Jo-Burg  we had to get on a Zambezi Airlines flight to Ndola, Zambia. The flight was fine. Upon arrival, as suspected, we were there before our luggage. Thankfully everyone had read the prior blog and packed a change of clothes. When we got our luggage the next  day we were only missing one bag. I was impressed.

The 43 of us that had arrived that day (2 others were to meet us at the hotel) were shoved into 3 buses and shuttled to the hotel. I think we were all a little giddy from the thought of not being on a plane for at least 2 weeks. We got our key and Alex and I ran upstairs to our room to assess the damage. I had refused to look myself in the mirror while we were traveling. When I finally did, I wished I hadn’t.  I took off the pants I had been wearing for about 50 or so hours and looked at my feet…. Wait… are those swollen sausage things at the end of my legs really my feet? And OH MY GOD MY ANKLES! WHERE DID THEY GO?! My engorged calf now met these sausage things with no definition. I HAD CANKLES.

A BOM Helper in Brazil!

July 20^th (Work Day 2)

Tasks at hand:

Mortar Mixing: This is not done in a rotating cement mixer… This is done by hand… make that by back-breaking hand. The local foremen make it look SO easy – picking up hige shovel-fulls of sand and then wet mortar, and when we do it our arms give out and our backs threaten to snap in two.
Moving Bricks: Rather self explanatory. Bricks/blocks (whatever terminology you like) are made of cured mud, essentially. We aren’t talking cinder blocks here. No high-tech, hurricane resistant houses.
Laying Bricks: We’ve gotten quite good at this. The houses are approximately 5 meters by 5 meters and on our first day my team got all four outer walls up 6 layers (or courses, again depending on your choice of terminology ) Having been on 5 prior builds, 4 of which were block builds (the 5^th being wooden in Romania) I was and am seriously impressed with my team – the sum of which are all Habitat Virgins except me.

Problems on site? No, not really. I think everyone has managed to find something they can do and are doing it to the best of their ability. The only problem we may have encountered is a bit of over-enthusiuasm from both sides. We have teams wanting to go past our 4:30 pack up time (which is great!) and then we have locals secretly mixing cement so their team has to stay to use it.

But getting home? I believe some people now have a new definition of “dirty”. When we come back to our home away from home and shower, the water that runs off of us is brown. Eww.

In summation: I think we are all enjoying ourselves despite the secret cement mixing and everyone’s everythings hurting.

Talk to you all in a week.



Don't get stuck on the tarmac!

“The journey not the arrival matters.” – T. S. Eliot

FLIGHT 651 to Bridgetown, Barbados: CANCELLED

“What! How is that possible?”

But it was possible and anyone who thinks I should have put quotations around the first line of this column would be wrong. The significant update to my flight from Miami to Barbados was never announced. Instead, my random glance at the screen behind the departure gate was the only clue that my flight to Barbados was going to be….well it just wasn’t going to be taking off.

Why am I going to Barbados, you ask? Ok a little background: I was accepted on a month-long intensive training course under the second hat I wear (columnist is the first) as director of Amnesty International Bermuda. The course happens to be on the Cave Hill Campus of the University of the West Indies in Barbados. It’s a tough life.

In order to arrive in Barbados, however, was tough. I left Bermuda at 8.20 a.m. arrived in Miami at 10.30 a.m. The next flight, unfortunately, to Barbados was not until 5.30 p.m.!

I decided to waste the seven hour layover doing work in the airport. My feeling of accomplishment (I had finished my to-do checklist) slowly turned to annoyance when my flight was delayed by 15 minutes. Then another 15 minutes.

And then finally the CANCELLED arrived at my departure gate.

Annoyance turned to pure frustration when I was told it was due to weather and yet watched flights taking off and landing outside the airport windows. Barbados’ weather was also fine, according to a fellow rebooking, line-waiter.

As I shifted weight from one foot to the next, I swore I was not going to leave this be. I had heard of the Passenger Bill of Rights, but I was never sure what it meant for me. I determined I was going to find out and I was going to make sure American Airlines followed it to a “T”.

Of course as I began my research I found what happened to me was a fraction of what has happened to some passengers in the past. Example? In August 2009 a regional jet flown by ExpressJet for Continental Express sat on the tarmac in Rochester, Minnesota after being diverted overnight with 47 passengers! At least I got to a hotel.

In December 2009, following the ExpressJet situation, a Passenger Rights Bill was passed by the United States Congress.

According to the 2009 Bill of Rights a plane arriving or departing from the United States, which sits for more than two hours at the gate or on the tarmac is required to provide food and water. If it waits for more than three hours then passengers should be given a chance to disembark. Those airlines that fail to do this will face penalties of $27, 500 per passenger. A costly delay no doubt.

That's what you want to see from the air!

More delays in December 2010 thanks to major snowstorms on the East coast of America, led to enhanced protections for passengers.

These protections were passed in April this year. What do these include?

Good question:

1. Extends the tarmac delay to include international airlines landing in and departing from the United States as well as the domestic flights: After two hours on the tarmac, the airlines must ensure the passengers are watered and fed! (fines imposed last year for domestic flights also apply) And after four hours the passengers will be allowed to deplane.
2. A refund for all lost, checked bags. I.e. that additional charge, which can range from $25 to $50 that some airlines may charge you when you check in. That only covers lost bags, but at least you get it back!
3. No Hidden Fees: passengers should be able to see at the point of purchasing all fees required in your ticket. Airlines will also have to allow reservations be held at quoted prices for 24 hours after booking! Let the indecision begin.
4. Bumping Compensation: Passengers will now because able to get between $650 and $1,300 if they are involuntarily bumped from their flight.
5. Notification of Flight Changes: airlines must inform passengers of delays and bumps either at the gate via cell phone or online.

If you are interested in more information check out: http://www.dot.gov/affairs/2011/dot5111.html

Of course we cannot say all airlines were behaving badly before these bills, however, there is nothing wrong with ensuring the rights of the little guys (i.e. their needed passengers) have more protection!

I, however, still think there is a lot of room for improvement with these rules: i.e. they did not cover my latest cancellation. There needs to be some transparency from the airlines as to why they do cancel their flights and some proof offered to their clients that the little rain shower really does ensure they cannot fly.

In fact that was some of the criticism of these new rules: they could lead to cancellations rather than possible delays. So perhaps a bill of proof can be added into the next bill of rights? What do you think? What would you like to see included in the next bill?

An as you think about that, I’ll let you know how I dealt with my unexpected delay. After waiting in a rebooking line that featured everyone in the United States (ok slight exaggeration, but you get it), I decided to try and contact expedia.com to reschedule.

Make sure you want to travel again to see things like this!

I never usually use flight-booking services, but this time it proved to be worth it. Expedia.com eventually offered $50 towards a hotel for the night and booked me on a flight the next day.

I was lucky. I met a couple who waited in the American Airlines line for hours to rebook and were only able to reserve standby seats…three days later!

My next step? I wrote to American Airlines through their website customer service page and very plainly stated what had happened. Their response came in two days: 3,000 miles towards my frequent flyer account. Ok, it’s not amazing, but the apology made me feel better and just the acknowledgement that their inconsiderate gate agent was a problem meant all the world.

Two days late (my new flight was then delayed by two and a half hours), I arrived in Barbados and ready for……..well I had no idea what was waiting for me so visit: www.robynswanderings.com for updates and until next week, Ciao!

I have been in Barbados for two weeks surveying the landscape between my apartment rental and the college and ….that’s about it.

Sad, I know.

Traveling for a course or business, however, is so different from traveling for traveling sake! Trying to understand a new country and then new material is just plain exhausting (but that’s a column for another day)!

Luckily, this weekend that just passed I had a friend come to visit me and it finally expelled me from my work shell and we started to venture into Barbados.

Our first stop? Well I just had to try the legendary flying fish! Yes, in Bermuda, where I am from, these fish are often spotted dodging the fishing boats or on the end of lines as….bait! I don’t know if anyone actually eats them!

It was a Friday night so the only spot to eat fish is Oistins Fish Market.

Of course they close the fish market at night and instead stall after stall tries to smoke the other out of existence. These BBQ’s are piled with layers of tuna steaks, King Fish steaks, Lobsters, snapper, and….NO flying fish!

I couldn’t find it anywhere. Ok, to be fair I couldn’t wait to search more than three places because I was starving, but I thought it would ubiquitous. Grr……

I had to “settle” for a pound of fresh Tuna, some grilled potatoes and a salad for $10! Yes, $10! And the fish was amazing.

Grilling for my dinner

And just for your entertainment, there are vendors lining the beach where Oistins sits selling all sorts of bowls made from fish scales, necklaces, straw bags, and just about any kind of trinket you want to take home with Barbados scrolled across it.

At one end of the market ball room dancing manages to keep ….well the older set occupied, while a stage shaking in the middle offers the latest calypso and reggae songs. Of course you might have to dodge 100 pound, twelve-year-old boys, but it wasn’t a bad way to work off dinner.

So I didn’t find my flying fish, but have no fear! I am here another two weeks and I will find that leaping ocean dweller.

In Edinburgh, my sister Katie and I saw the cafe where HP was "born"!

Can’t figure out the riddle? Me neither. Good thing we have our wanderer, Nicola this week to walk us through the wonderful and mysterious world of……

Well you’ll have to read to find out:

Riddle me this: HP7 DH PT2 (2D)…?

If you are able to decipher the code, I can bet anything you are going to the movies this weekend (or desperately wish that you could!). The code? It is the abbreviated title for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (in 2D for me, but released in 3D).

I did not have any intention of watching it on opening weekend. However, I woke up on Friday morning and made a rather spontaneous decision to try my luck at the cinema with HP. I knew there were various showings, and in fact… since I chose a 2D film, my theatre had a mere 30 people inside. SCORE!! Once absorbed in the epic battle of good and evil, it felt like I was in a private screening. There was nobody sitting next to, in front of or behind me. If I may say so, I was spellbound.

"I solemnly swear I am up to no good!"

Now… how exactly does Harry Potter and his magical world relate to travel?

Easy! Have books, will travel. A captivating read is an escape route from life, as you forget to count page numbers, lose yourself in the details and then start to panic as the last few pages appear. As any fan of HP can tell you, these stories allow you to journey to a dream world of magic, full of new places (Hogwarts), new foods (chocolate frogs, Butterbeer) and new sports (Quidditch). Before the films started to trickle out, the books allowed readers to enter this new world in their imagination, complete with extraordinary experiences and an eclectic new group of friends.

Readers and/or viewers are transported to places where the characters come alive, the spells whizz by your head and you are left dreaming of castles, elves – and perhaps nightmares of Azkaban (Think Alcatraz, but 100x worse).

The best part? You can accomplish this journey all from the comfort of your own couch, hammock, or even beach towel. I must admit – I finished up the final volume of HP on a beach in Bermuda!

The magic is not over yet, though. Want some real life travel for the sake of Harry Potter? Two possible summer holidays may include trips to:

- Orlando, FL: Mischief may be managed with a visit to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter

- London, UK: Perhaps you desire to go through the wall to Platform 9 ¾ at King’s Cross Station … Hogwarts-bound! And while you are in England, you may also wish to journey farther north to see HP sights in Bath, Oxford, and even Scotland!

Butterbeer cupcakes - tried and tested by my pal Christine and myself

Harry Potter is a phenomenal franchise. For books reaching 700 pages, and films 3 hours in length, the excitement of the storylines led children to read, led adults to engage in story time with their kids, and let creative juices flow… like magic!

So enjoy your last dose of HP at the movies, or perhaps pick up one of the books this summer for a “bit of light reading” (Hermione-style!).

A scorpion on her shorts in Mexico, 2009. the scorpion is actually quite small, maybe an inch long.

Veterans vs. new travelers? Who is more ready? Who is more nervous? Who will come out on top? Who knows?

Well for one our weekly wanderer Adrienne Smatt would know! She’s been on the volunteer trips with Bermuda Overseas Missions and building homes all over the world six times!

Tomorrow she leaves again on the next mission and what is she thinking? Well……..

We’ve had our last meeting, and for the most part, I think we’re all packed. We leave tomorrow at the crack of dawn – role call at the airport is for 6am. Man am I NOT looking forward to that. But what I really want to talk about are the sentiments floating around the group at this point in time.

For me, the veteran, I’m anxious to get going. I’ve been put in charge of keeping track of about 10 travelers, and in charge of a build site. This is a great honor and responsibility. Having said that I’m at the point where I just want to get there. I’ve done this sort of traveling before, in every sense of it. I’ve traveled with a bunch of other people and I’ve sat on a plane for 17 hours at once to travel to Johannesburg in South Africa. Thankfully, this time we won’t have a 17 hour flight, but even still, the travel part of this trip is looming over my head. It’s my least favorite part of the experience.

She's ready to build another house!

For a Habitat/BOM virgin, I don’t think they are really worrying about the travel part. So that’s what I’d like to talk about in this installment of Out of Bermuda – Into Africa.

But I have a problem…

It’s hard for me to remember what was going on in my head yesterday let alone 6 years ago when I set off on my first trip with BOM. And for that reason, I’ve turned to a couple of my friends who I convinced in recent past and present to come on this charitable adventure with me.

In 2008 we went to Guatemala and I took my friend and roommate at the time, Steph, with me. Her memory is a little shoddy, but I’ve asked her to recall anything she can remember from before the trip anyway.

She was worrying about the giant Guatemalan spiders (of her imagination). She assumed she was going to be staying somewhere akin to Machu Picchu and with the people being so small, she wondered if they had given some of their height to the insects. Knowing her, I suspect they were about 10 feet tall in her head. As a person with low blood pressure and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, she worried about the heat. How hot was it really going to be? And how faint would she be getting due to it?

Stephanie Zuzzolo (again) after taking out her cornrows in guatemala in 2008

She feared the mosquitoes. As an American she was unaccustomed to the high level of “deet” Bermudians can purchase easily, and with that in hand she felt armed and dangerous. Not to mention she felt quite safe given that our anti-Malaria tablets were called “Chloroquine”.

And lastly, I hate to say this, but as a girl of Sicilian descent she was most highly concerned about how she would deal with the inevitable voluminous growth… of her hair. Sidenote: Fortunately for her, she met fellow BOMers who were able to cornrow her hair to perfection so she did not have to deal with it. Awesome.

This year I’ve convinced a friend from my most recent home, Halifax, to come with me. Alex was raised in a small town called Aylesford in Nova Scotia, Africa is definitely a far cry from what she’s used to. With that in mind, as she’s sitting right next to me, I’ve asked her what she’s thinking right…. *now*.

She’s concerned about water. And it’s a legitimate concern. We’ve had our typhoid shots but there are warnings everywhere to stay away from salads and fresh fruits ‘n’ veggies and ice cubes and water we have not seen come from a sealed bottle.

Three yellow ducks in Guatemala

What do we do when we don’t know the language of the people? This is a worry of hers. Also legitimate. No one wants to get there and not be able to communicate with the people we aim to help. No one wants to end up, in the process of attempting to communicate, making a fool of themselves.

She hates flying. Preferred method of travel would definitely be teleportation. Given that isn’t quite possible yet a 12 hour flight is going to be the longest she’s ever been on – and she doesn’t fly well. She’s planning on as much Gravol as is safe to knock herself out and hopefully waking up arriving at our end point magically. Unfortunately I suspect this isn’t going to happen quite like that, so there will be updates next week with how well we all dealt with the transition.

All of that said, the three of us were and are excited to go on our first trip. We know an incredible and possibly life-changing experience lies ahead and we’re pretty pumped to go.

Sayonara, Bermuda and “Mulibwanji!”, Zambia.

Passports? Check. Pages?.......oops.

“There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign.” – Robert Louis Stevenson

Fill out this form. Fill out that form. Wait in line. Visit duty free. Wait in another line. Fingers on the screen, smile and then……

The passport review. Whenever I arrive at the US Immigration desk in Bermuda’s L.F. Wade International Airport (or really any immigration desk) I stress.

You should be stressed too. Why? No, not because you might have forgotten your passport or your passport is out of date.

There is something more subtle in your passport that could lead to a very disappointing trip – the pages.

Yes, I know you plan for your trips: plane ticket? check. Housing? Run arounds on website pages to find hotels and finally….check. Packing? Ugh…check. Duty free? Check. Passport? Check. Passport date? Check. Passport pages? Uh…shoot.

I’m serious. How many of you actually look to see how many empty passport pages you have left? Me? I check in the immigration line.  Luckily for me, I didn’t need a visa to go to Atlanta (for last week’s column) and the one free page I have left in my passport (one-year abroad will rack-up the page-size visas!) stood the test of the frowning agent. He wasn’t impressed though when he had to find somewhere for the stamp.

So here is the Rock Fever tip one of the week: check your passport for pages. Why is this important? Well, because some countries will not let you in if you don’t have between 2 and four free pages left. They need space for their visas and if you don’t provide them with it…..well you won’t be going. Examples? India, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and Indonesia require full pages for their visas and Egypt requires half a page!

Don't let your travel clutter let you forget about your passport!

Of course tip two this week has to be: check with your destination country’s embassy to see how many pages they require in your passport. You DO NOT want to be left at the airport after all of your vacation planning.

Tip three is incredibly important for those of us who hold a British passport: you CAN NOT add pages to your passport. Yep, if you run-out of space well, you are stuck having to renew your passport.

That could be a problem if you need it done quickly. Tip Four: Bermudians and those residing in Bermuda must send their passports to Washington, D.C. for their renewal and it could take up to four weeks.

Even worse? Tip Five is right now they are so swamped with work that the Washington office could take up to 10 weeks to process a passport! Yes, I wrote that: 10 WEEKS!!! Don’t believe me? Check out the Foreign Commonwealth website for more information: http://ukinusa.fco.gov.uk/en/help-for-british-nationals/passports/how-to-apply/bermuda1

However, my tip six for those who are either Bermudians with British passports or others with a British Passport in Bermuda: if you happen to renew your passport within nine months of its expiry, the passport will be valid for ten years plus the nine months.  And if you travel frequently then you can apply for a 48 page passport (regular passports are 32 pages). Of course the number of pages is reflected in the fees which are US$211+postage for a regular-sized adult passport or US$255+postage for super-sized adult passports. Child applicants are only able to apply for a 32 page passport for US$134+postage.

Of course the Americans get it easier in the passport renewal line. Tip seven is if you have an American passport it’s easy to add pages to your passport. Of course the fee is $82 and there is a form to fill-out, but at least you don’t have to go through the process of renewing it. However, if you want to renew your passport? The fee is $110 for an adult passport. For more information visit: http://hamilton.usconsulate.gov/

Want to go away? Make sure your documents are ready too!

Of course tip eight (which still applied to American citizens in Bermuda) is that adding pages can be done on the island. The US Consulate’s website actually states if American citizens residing in Bermuda send their passport abroad to add pages or renew it will be returned!  Even better? It only takes one week to add pages! Renew a passport? That can take between two to three weeks so….plan ahead.

Which leads to Bermuda’s own passport service, which must be applied through the Immigration Department and requires an $84 fee, two passport pictures and an application for a new passport. If you run out of pages? Well, when I enquired I was told you cannot add pages, but you can bring your passport that has not expired, a $34 fee, an application and two passport photos to acquire a passport with the same expiration date as your previous one, but brand new pages!

And tip ten is I am only one columnist and I can only find out so much. Obviously I tried to touch on the most used passports in Bermuda, but as we know we continue to attract a variety of nationalities to the island. Unfortunately I cannot research every country and their passport-page policy! So my final recommendation is check with your own embassy about their pages policy and also look at your travel habits. If you travel frequently to places that require visas then make sure you go for the bigger passport!

Luckily for next week’s column, I still had not check my passport pages, but I got into Barbados anyway! Yep, next week we are off to Barbados with me on a month-long course and all that comes with visiting a Caribbean country. Visit www.robynswanderings.com for my views before next week!