I’m Not Going to Zambia

I could write a lot posts entitled “I’m not going to [fill in the blank]” but this one has bigger significance. You see, my partners in good, Beth Whitman, Michelle Duffy, and Debbie Dubrow ARE going to Zambia. They’re going to do a ribbon cutting at one of the libraries our fundraiser — no, your fundraiser — built with the proceeds of our 2011 Passports with Purpose initiative.

This is freaky cool and I’m insanely excited about, even though I’m not going. (I’ll get to that.) Expedia, the online travel site, is sponsoring the trip — they’re making it possible for three of our crew to go all the way to Zambia, to see the library, to cut that ribbon, and to come back with real stories and their pictures of our work — no, YOUR work, made real.

I’m a fan of witnessing, and no, not in some kind of spiritual way. I mean the act of standing in a place and seeing, really seeing. It’s what made me want to participate in Passports with Purpose in the first place; this idea that I could translate the things that I had been privileged to see by virtue of my ability to travel into good work. And it’s not just the heartbreak, though good lord, I’ll say it again, Cambodia just wrecked me. It’s the work that we can do to make the world better; seeing that is important too, and knowing that you’ve been part of making something amazing, something life-changing, and oh, guess what, it’s not about you, is it?

Debbie, Beth, and Michelle are off to go see, and to bring that inspiration back with them, to help us understand the real life implications of the work we’ve all done together. And yeah, I’m not going. But before I tell you why, which is really very mundane, know that I am totally okay with this because I trust, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that they will tell the story of what they’ve seen with their hearts fully in it.

Now, as to my not going… it’s pretty hard to get four busy people on the same schedule. We sliced and diced a bunch of different ways, including proposing two trips — I’d go with Michelle to one site, Beth and Debbie to the other. I had commitments that I could have shifted but didn’t feel great walking away from. It was hard to find a plan that didn’t involve one of us canceling or skipping out on something important in one way or another. We erred on the side of the most people getting to go.

I also weighed out the “work lost” equation. As a freelancer, I make these trade offs all the time. Last year’s finances, oh, I just finished my taxes and my income… I had years in college when I made more money. 2011 was great, but I didn’t earn much. I opted to skip out on this one and to be an absolute impossible princess around next year’s site visit. Because there will be another year’s site visit, and it’s going to be amazing. You’re going to make sure of that.

In the meantime, there’s something you can do right now. Send a postcard to us — Debbie, Beth, and Michelle are going to take a photo album with pictures from the people who helped fund the site they’re visiting. All the details on what, exactly, to do are here. We’d love to show your faces to the kids that have a library that you helped build –whether you blogged about the effort, provided a prize, sponsored us, or gave a donation. I like thinking about this. Imagine how it must shift your view of the world when, surrounded by books you never dreamed you’d have access to, you see that all these people in all these places did this for you, a complete stranger, a kid a world away.

We just did some time with a video crew, the interviewed us about Passports with Purpose. “How does your success make you feel?” they asked. I’m embarassed because as a writer, I should be able to answer this with some eloquence. All I can come up with is this: “It’s magic. Just magic.” I don’t need to go to Zambia to feel that.