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travel
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Breaking news at calgaryherald.com
Mom gives hope to travel-starved parents cluding a submarine, boats, buses and horses. Harper’s goal with the book is to give parents hope that it is possible to travel with kids and that it’s not all work and no play. “I felt (new) parents feel they can’t do anything fun again,” she said in an interview from her home in Elora, Ont. “People think it’s drudgery to travel with kids.” Sure, there were the moments, she writes, that she seriously considered taking up smoking again. But then there were also the memorable moments. Like the time the family was driving through Lesotho, an urban ghetto in South Africa, and her husband stopped the car and took the girls out to a soccer pitch to join in a game with other kids. It was priceless, Harper says. “You saw on (the children’s) faces that this had never happened before.” The family plans to do another, extended backpacking trip starting this December to Panama, Costa Rica and Nicaragua. Harper’s book is available on amazon. com, Google.ca and itunes. Check out her blog at www.travelinmama.blogspot.ca.
Lisa Monforton Calgary Herald
W
Courtesy, Nancy Harper
Nancy Harper with her husband Doog Farquhar and two daughters Annie and Molly on safari in Madikwe, near the Botswana border in South Africa. Harper has written a funny account of her family’s 80,000 kilometre trip in 2006, when her daughters were 7 and 8 years old.
hen you’re a parent in the throes of anything between toddler-dom and teen-dom, you probably wonder when you’re ever going to get to travel again — like you did BK (Before Kids). Mom Nancy Harper, who calls herself “a little bit obsessed” with travel, seized on the idea that she could still be a good mother (somewhere between June Cleaver and Courtney Love) and indulge herself in some wanderlust like she did in her university days. The freelance travel and marketing writer has written a lighthearted account about her 80,000-kilometre escapade with her husband and two kids in Travellin’ Mama: A Parents’ Guide to Ditching the Routine, Seeing the World and Taking the Kids Along for the Ride. Harper, daughters Molly, 8, Annie, 7 at the time and husband Doog Farquhar left their home in 2006 in Elora, Ont. for a year of travelling. They covered New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and southeast Asia by nearly every mode of transportation, in-
Guatemala: Family moved to tears by strangers’ help From I1 Not a hammer, nail or a level ever graced my hands. There was constant interaction with the home owner and his cousin Miguel, both of whom had to work on the site as sweat equity, as well as the two local masons who ran the show. Several of us had passable Spanish and the chatter was constant. As well as the goofing off with the area children who were endlessly fascinated by us. The 16 team members were split into two projects. Eight on Rodolfo’s home in a crossroads village on the Inter-American Highway, eight on another in a different village a few kilometres away. It seemed that the other team’s work moved on a a greater pace than ours. They completed their house, although it was further along from the start. Ours had neither roof nor poured floor by the end of the week. We, however, claimed to have had more fun. leading our team at Rodolfo’s We were a pan-Canadian team house. He called Habitat’s miswith members stretching from Bridgewater, N.S, to Maple Ridge, sion “a hand up not a handout so it’s not pure charity.” B.C. The youngest was still in He explained that high school in Nova the idea of Habitat beScotia, the oldest was a gan in 1976. 74-year-old retiree from “The very first build Oakville, Ont. It was Calgary that had the most of We help them was in Zaire, what is Congo, and any city with five of us improve their currently then they brought it including myself, my parthousing back to the U.S. The ner Reneta. Rodolfo and his famsituation very first country outside of ily, his wife and three and improve program the U.S. was here in children, had been living their lives and Guatemala after the in an extended family compound, with the five inprove the earthquake.” He said the projects of them were sharing one future for their allow families to do room. what they could not children. The kitchen was outside do on their own. without any discernible Stewart hardacre, “The model works electricity. The outpresident and CEO very similarly around door bathroom, his and of Habitat canada the world. Both in hers side by side, were Canada and here in little more than boards Guatemala the families have to slapped together with holes in be working, so they have an inthe ground. Reneta and the other come. And they have to repay the women on the team were thormortgage that is given to them for oughly unimpressed. A curious the house. But it is at zero interdiscarded old school TV screen est. We help them improve their lay on the rough pathway leadhousing situation,and improve ing from the bathrooms into the their lives and improve the future home. for their children. Worldwide More extended family lived there are over 1,000,00 people in in other squalorous homes scatHabitat homes.” tered across the surrounding The build lasted five days, hillside on land inherited from about seven hours a day with his parents. One of the criteria to qualify for the final portion of the last day dedicated to a closing ceremony. a Habitat home is that the recipiEmotion was in the air. Rodolfo ents must own their own land. broke down several times as did Stewart Hardacre, president much of our crew. It was clearly and CEO of Habitat Canada, was
Ted Rhodes, Calgary Herald
A Ted Rhodes self portrait along with life partner Reneta Rothwell on the site of a Habitat for Humanity project in the Guatemalan highland state of Solola. The crew of eight volunteers assisted in building a cinder block home for Rodolfo, left shown with one of his three children. one of the more memorable weeks in the lives of he and his family. Aside from getting a new home, they also had a group of foreigners, from places they could only imagine, bonding with them. The family had braided bracelets with our each of names embroidered for us as parting gifts. A very moving gesture from a family with little in the way of extra resources. The launch glided across the still waters ofLake Atitlan. Opulent houses dotted the rugged shoreline. One big difference from 1976 was the number of affluent Guatemalans in the area. Back then it was mainly adventurous backpack style tourism. Despite a murderous civil war in the 1980s and ‘90, the area seemed to be enjoying relative prosperity. The nearby town of Santiago was dramatically busier and more chaotic than in the 1970s. But the Mayan culture was still predominant. Virtually all the women wore colourful woven dresses called huipils and many of the men, even young ones, still wore distinctive embroidered shirts and colourful shorts. Even on our build site, Spanish was the second language for Rodolfo, his family and the masons. The still spoke Mayan Kaqchikel. I had hired the boat to go in search of my former holiday home. I scanned the shore looking for telltale signs, like the view of the volcano across the bay that was still etched in my memory
another a few metres higher after the earthquake caused a wall in the first to fall in. Looking closely, I think I could still discern where the wall had a large gap in it. I looked up at towering San Pedro volcano above. It hadn’t changed. It seemed somehow appropriate that it was only the house that was being reclaimed by nature 36 years on. The only thing that would have made it more of a full circle moment was another earthquake. Hmm, maybe not.
from 36 years earlier. We used to paddle in these waters, three gringos in a kayooka dugout canoe borrowed from a neighbouring Mayan family, to head into the Santiago market. About three kilometres out I spied it hidden in overgrown vegetation on the shore. It was the ruins of a house that we had rented in 1976. Hidden on the hillside were three more. All tumbled-down ruins of stone walls. We had moved from this one right on the water’s edge to
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