Nashville

My mother-in-law recently turned 80. She’s a young 80 who, within the past couple of years, became a widow. It’s been hard but I think she’s adjusted relatively well. Things like that do, however, have a tendency to change one’s perspective. She seems to have a greater appreciation for doing things while health allows. As such, she’s keen on ticking things off her bucket list. Initially she was thinking about some sort of family cruise. Of course the pandemic put the kibosh on any idea of traveling in a confined space with hundreds of strangers. I’ve never been on a cruise but I have an idea of what it’s about. I have taken massive ferries which contained a swimming pool, casino and restaurants which are technically not cruises but provide a similar confined space with people you may or may not choose to hang out with. Either way, this is certainly not the time.

Plan B ended up being Opryland, located just outside Nashville. I’ve driven across the US a couple times but I don’t recall ever traveling through Nashville. So this was new territory for me. Our trip went due south, beginning in southern Indiana, through Louisville, across Kentucky and down into Tennessee. The farther east you get in the US, the easier it is to travel through multiple states in a half day.

My brother-in-law had been there before with his family and that’s where the idea generated. I think a lot of it had to do with the huge water park that is attached to it. Having spent most of my adult life outside the US, I still find myself getting blown away by the size of this sort of American attraction. Though I should say that other countries are now not only imitating these things but in some cases surpassing them. It’s all quite fascinating though it’s not the sort of thing that is a draw for me generally speaking.

Opryland is a bit like a gigantic cruise ship that doesn’t go anywhere. Rated as the 29^th largest hotel in the world (almost 2,900 rooms), the facility is actually an accumulation of disparate buildings that have been absorbed beneath a single superstructure, much like a football stadium roof. The enclosure allows the whole place to be climate controlled and teeming with tropical plants. Rather than being hot and muggy as this part of the country is, certainly this time of year, it was actually cool and the temperature remains constant year-round.

The facility contains several overpriced restaurants, gift shops, a couple of swimming pools, a spa/gym, etc. It contains a waterway which winds through the various buildings and hosts a cheesy little tour boat. It’s adjacent to, and in many ways dwarfs, the famous Grand Ole Opry which is wedged between Opryland and a large shopping mall. I suppose I never really imagined what the setting of the Opry would be like but if I had, it wouldn’t have been the smallish, nondescript theater overtaken by a massive sea of commercialism. Possibly naïve of me. 

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While the hotel obviously has lots of offer, I was more interested in Nashville itself, the heart of which was about 14 miles away according to Google. Out of reach for an early morning jog, we opted to devote an afternoon for lunch and a walk around the city.  It's not enough but I'll take what I can get. 

We started off with lunch at Puckett’s, a Tennessee institution which for me lived up to its billing. We had a variety of the area favorites, including fried catfish for me with a local beer. I don't think I could eat southern food often but it's great once in a while.

gotta love my daughter's expression

Afterwards we walked around the city. We were a relatively large group (12), so the walk was moderate in length and duration. Nonetheless, we were able to see quite a bit before returning to our hotel. It’s a city that deserves far more time but that will need to be for another trip, one that will hopefully include Memphis as well.

Downtown Presbyterian Church built in the mid-1800s

One thing we did get to visit was the state capitol. I like history and this state has a history I know little about. The grounds of the capitol are located on a high point and provide a decent view of the city. The capitol building itself is rather simple but nonetheless well done. One thing that stands out is the plethora of controversial statues in the Nashville area. I'm all for protecting history, including the aspects of history that aren't very flattering. I suppose it's the way these things are presented that matters. For example, statues of wretched humans should not be located in a place of honor. However, at the same time I don't suggest necessarily that we destroy art we don't agree with. The earlier blog post of the visit to the Minnesota state capitol is an example of preserving the art but framing it in such a way that we learn from the atrocities of the past.

Last May, in the aftermath of the George Floyd attack, several Tennessee statues were subjected to mobs that desecrated and/or removed them. Ideally you don't want mobs making decisions about how to manage public property. But with a very conservative state legislature, I guess these people (likely in the minority) figured that a good fit of rage was the swiftest way to achieve justice. One such target was the statue of Edward Carmack. After reading about the guy, it's rather stunning anyone thought he deserved a statue to begin with, let alone place it prominently in front of the capitol building. Carmack was a politician in the early 1900s who wrote editorials lambasting the writings of prominent Tennessee civil rights journalist Ida B. Wells. He never really accomplished anything and there was nothing really noteworthy about the guy except that he was fatally shot in 1908 by a political rival. Makes you wonder if the rival wasn't more fitting of commemoration.

Tennessee state capitol with base of Carmack statue in the center of the photo

 

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The next day was more or less dedicated to the water park. To be honest, I have relatively little experience with such things. They existed when I was a kid but I don’t remember ever going to one and they were certainly not at the scale of what exists today. There’s no doubt that it was entertaining, particularly for the kids. It was a mix of indoor and outdoor attractions, many employing a combination of water, height and gravity making it inadvisable to have lunch in the hour or so prior to taking part.

You can’t swim with a Covid mask and I frequently wondered how an airborne virus does in these types of environments. The place was teeming with people of all ages in a red, heavily anti-vax state. Coming from a continent where about 1% of the population was vaccinated, the virus was constantly on the forefront of my mind, even though I was already fully vaccinated. I generally kept my distance from people, to the extent that I could.

One thing you get used to as a parent is making decisions that you probably wouldn’t make if you didn’t have kids. Opyland would fit into this category for me. For me, it's a bit like Dubai in the sense that it's a monstrous man-made attraction devoid of nature. But watching my girls embrace the whole experience made it all more than worthwhile.

Kiran attacking the wave

 

Southern Indiana

After a gap, I'm back to provide some recaps of the holidays.

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Upon arrival in Louisville the second week of July, we were greeted by family. That’s always a good thing but in a period of pandemic recovery, it’s particularly sweet. Nothing like a good plague to get you to increase your appreciation for things.

The vacation will likely need to be broken up into several posts given that so much is going on. The purpose of this blog is primarily to archive some key life events and it seems that a lot is condensed within these six weeks or so.

After the very nice visit in Minnesota, we arrived to rather pleasant weather in southern Indiana/northern Kentucky. It’s usually particularly hot and humid this time of year but it actually wasn’t bad. By the end of the visit, that would change and the brutal heat would appear, but for most of the time that we were there, it was rather pleasant.

The visit began a bit inauspiciously. Even at the airport my mother-in-law began to feel ill. She had pain in her lower stomach/abdomen area which began increasing over time. After a couple of trips to the doctor, they determined that she needed to be hospitalized. It turned out to be a blockage in her colon that was causing the intense pain. They were going to put her on drip antibiotics in the hopes of avoiding the need for surgery. As such, she would remain in hospital over the next several days.

For her, it was tragic to be whisked off to hospital soon after her family had arrived (my sister-in-law arrived from Nepal the same day we did). Indeed, it wasn’t the welcome she had anticipated. Nonetheless, I think we were all grateful that we were there when it happened. We were able to get her to the doctor and support her over the course of these days that would prove to be invaluable for her.

The other worry she had was that she had planned a family trip to Nashville for her 80^th birthday (where the person celebrating the birthday provides the gift). There was concern that she would be stuck in the hospital and/or need surgery. She said she wanted us to carry on without her if she was unable to join us.

In the end, such speculation was unwarranted. The antibiotics cleared things up and she was released after four nights as the doctor initially predicted. In fact it was a blessing that she returned to almost normal from the moment she left, aside from the low-fiber dietary restrictions. The vacation would continue as planned.

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One of the things that we arranged while we were still in Kenya was for the girls to have some gymnastics lessons. Over the past couple of years they have developed interest and skills but they just don’t have the facilities or coaching. Not to say they haven’t had any instruction. They’ve had a Kenyan coach visiting our compound in Nairobi who works with kids in our building. It’s provided them a good foundation but the structure and facilities that you find mostly in developed countries takes things to another level.  

The option that was available to us was a half-hour lesson, once per week for three weeks. It’s not as much as we wanted but it was the best we could do. There is obviously high demand for such things during the US summer.

The girls had been to this facility before. We were quite amazed the first time we saw it given that we’d never been exposed to this sort of thing before. It’s likely that Americans take this sort of thing for granted but we were duly impressed. In the past the girls would go at open times there they sort of used it as a massive indoor play area. But now they are beginning to age out of such things. We are no longer choosing restaurants primarily because they have something to do for kids. In the evolution of parenting, this is sort of a watershed moment. The positive for us is that good food can now take priority.

The lesson went well and the coach was great. It was probably a bit humbling given that there were kids working with other coaches who had many more years of training. It happens to everyone at some point – you feel you’re pretty good at something only to realize that the perception of your skills was skewed due to your limited scope of comparison. But I think the thrill of getting this opportunity to be in a real gym with a real coach outweighed any of the down sides to the experience.

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Another activity that we don't normally do with my wife's family is watch sports on TV. We have been known to watch sports live. Over the years we've seen Louisville basketball, youth basketball, minor league baseball, etc. But TV viewing has been limited, at least compared to most American families. This year, however, we were in town as Wimbledon and the Euro Cup were winding up and as the Olympic Games were kicking off. With no TV in the living room, we set up a projector which provided a large screen and a surprising amount of enthusiasm from a family that generally doesn't do this sort of thing. 

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Cool visit to Marengo cave

Finally, Traveling Again

As June was coming to an end, it meant two things. One was that the school term was about over. The other was that we would be going on holiday for the first time in a year and a half. I’m generally enthusiastic about going on leave but this time I was a bit more excited than normal. Other than a day here and there, I haven’t really taken any leave during that time period. I think most people have a sense when it’s time to take a break and I’ve been feeling like I’m past due.

Travel is obviously more complicated than it used to be. Other than getting our vaccinations and booking the tickets, we were able to schedule a “home delivery” Covid test. We would have the results in less than 12 hours. Pretty efficient and even less expensive than the tests I was getting at another clinic with ten times the hassle.

We all received our negative results (though the thought did cross my mind that one of us could end up being positive while being asymptomatic). We were considering the options if in the odd chance we had a positive result which in the end was unnecessary.

As departure day arrived, the girls were naturally quite giddy. They like traveling and this was a treat since it has been a while. We planned ample time to get to the airport due to massive road construction in Nairobi. The airport was certainly less busy than pre-Covid times but it was still a bustle with travelers. We suspected that there were many like us taking advantage of being vaccinated, school breaks and some new-ish travel freedom.

Though there are a number of new hoops to jump through to get fully through the gauntlet and to the gate, I suppose it could have been worse. After years of taking travel for granted, I guess it makes me more tolerant of the hassles.

There was a real as well as mental exhale as I settled into my seat on the plane. I was so happy to get to that point after about three canceled flights to the US. It’s likely that I won’t take travel for granted again.

Amsterdam airport, a familiar place

The girls need no instruction regarding what to do during travel. They’ve grown up with this lifestyle and jumped right back into it. Given that it was nearing midnight, I was debating sleeping and catching up on some movies. In the end I did neither. A full-length movie seemed too daunting for my attention span so I had “dinner”, powered through a few documentaries in between a few failed attempts to sleep.

The flight from Amsterdam to Minneapolis was slightly better in that it was a little over half full. The row behind us was empty so I staked my claim on them and proceeded to stretch out and drift off to sleep. It makes a huge difference to get at least some sleep during thirty hours of travel, particularly when those hours begin late in the day. There are times when I’ve powered through the entire experience without any sleep. It’s brutal and it makes one understand how sleep deprivation is an effective form of torture.

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St. Paul

We arrived in Minneapolis in the afternoon of the next day (with eight hours added on due to time difference). I think all of us had had some sleep so we more alert than we normally are when we arrive. We would all be able to power through until our new time zone would allow us to go to bed. There’s always the issue of the late sunsets in the northern US summer (East Africa has little variation as to when the sun sets year round) but thankfully we were able to sufficiently darken the bedrooms at our friend Kathy’s house.

We saw Cathy on our last trip to the US a year and a half prior. It was winter, obviously, and we spent our time in the frigid temperatures enjoying the deep snow. While we expected hot and humid temperatures, we were in fact welcomed by perfect weather, even cool at times. As usual, we had a mix of new adventures and old. There is so much to enjoy in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. I sound like a representative from their tourist bureau but there really is. None of it is the kind of thing that blows you away like a high alpine trek or tropical beaches. It’s just a lot of varied and pleasurable activities, particularly if you’re at least a moderately active person.

The girls often take part in some sort of cooking activity with Kathy. In winter it’s Christmas cookies. This time, taking advantage of a couple of hyperactive cherry trees, they took part in the preparation of a cobbler. We had some cherry trees when I was growing up. Rather than baking and doing something constructive, I remember some friends and I getting into some trouble after launching some cherries at passing cars from the roof of our garage. I’m often thankful I’m not parenting myself as a child. My kids seem far more mature than I was at the same age.

During my last trip to Mogadishu prior to leaving on holiday, I met with my HR coordinator. He had told me that he had family in Minnesota and that it would be great if I could meet up with them. I generally like to have rather firm lines between my work and private lives but he seemed insistent that this was important to him. He had an ulterior motive in that he wanted me to pick up some books from them given that books are not easy to obtain in Somalia. Wanting to support his reading habit, I accepted to meet his sister, brother-in-law and mother for a coffee in downtown St. Paul. It turned out to be an enjoyable hour talking about their adapting to life in the US and my experiences in Somalia. The brother-in-law had been in the US much longer and he was rather comfortable in English. The sister less so. The mother, having arrived more recently, almost not at all. The Somali community in Minnesota is well known and well established. I imagine that his mother can get by okay but it still must be tough to adjust to her life in the States. It’s certainly much safer and more predictable. But Somali culture is deep and rich and I understand why many of the diaspora have returned to the homeland, in spite of the fact that life is so much more challenging. It’s something that most Americans would not understand well given that their roots tend to be shallower. It’s a long history of language, culture, food, geography, poetry, etc. It’s not necessarily better, just different. Some believe that those who are less attached to a distinct culture have an easier time immersing themselves in other cultures. I honestly don’t know if that’s true but it could very well be. 

 

Another surprisingly interesting activity was a visit to the state capitol in St. Paul. I’m generally a fan of historical buildings so it might be less surprising that I would enjoy this one but even for those who are somewhat indifferent to such things, it’s still rather impressive. Construction on the building began in 1896 and it was restored between 2013 and 2017. It’s a mix of architectural styles, which can be off-putting, but for some reason it seems to work. 

One thing that was interesting was a room housing a couple of controversial paintings. As the renovations were ongoing, some of the artwork came under question – particularly some paintings depicting native Americans in historically incorrect collegial gatherings. Some even depict native Americans looking on admiring at their settler counterparts as their land is being taken away from them.

the cathedral from the capitol

It poses an interesting question as to what to do with this art. The fact that they are false depictions of history doesn’t necessarily they don’t have any historical value. The question is what to do with them. It seems to overlap with the debate regarding the controversial statues/monuments. Without wading into those waters, I would simply say that in this case I appreciate the fact that they were simply not relegated to the basement never to be seen again. They were, however, removed from the main halls and displayed in a meeting room alongside quotes of various individuals framing the controversy. In a way, it provides an opportunity to highlight the mistreatment of the native population in way that would be missed if they were warehoused.

 

Chinese pavilion in Phalen Park

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The other highlight of the visit was an evening at a relatively small outdoor concert on the shores of a lake in Minneapolis. Generally when we are in the Twin Cities area, we spend most of our time on the St. Paul side and this gave us a chance to explore the other side. If you’re from there you probably sense more of a difference between the two. But as a casual observer, it seems pretty similar. But the area surrounding the lakes seems to be particularly rich.

We arrived well after the band had begun playing. A large crowd had gathered, some listening attentively and/or dancing, others seemingly just out to enjoy the experience of being out on a Friday evening. The weather was cool for this time of year but not uncomfortable. I have to admit, however, that it was surreal to be in a crowd. It had been a couple years since I’d been around so many people, almost none of them were masked (though I suspect that a high percentage were vaccinated given the feel of the crowd). To be honest, I’m not a big concert guy. It’s fun sometimes but I probably enjoy such things less than most. But given what has transpired over the past year and a half or so, I found myself embracing this hop back into something that resembled normality.

After three nights, our time in the Twin Cities was done. We bid farewell to Kathy and soon we were off to Louisville. Stop number two.