Travel Security: Digital Prey

My brick phone in Caucasus Georgia, June 2012.

After leaving Ferguson at the end of October, I've got an international trip planned. Ooo, yeah.

Since my last sojourn out of the country (well, other than walking over to Juarez from El Paso), an ugly law enforcement practice that's spread across our national body like a case of poison ivy: Border officials demanding to see communications and other data in travelers' phones and laptops without good cause. Putting travelers in untenable positions if they protest the exposure of their devices' contents to border officials.

Am I likely to be singled out for such attention? Probably not. But I object to abuses of power on principle.

So on my trip, I'll take with me:

• An old phone that is stripped of everything personal except the barest essentials I might need for travel; and
• Little Red, my sweet, childlike laptop with a toddler's memory. 

There's another advantage to the above decision. Although my complexion, dress, and accent might not trip the typecasting alarms of border officials, my gender, age, and solo traveling status might juice up the salivary glands of tourist hunters on the other side.

Hopefully, a penetrating gaze that suggests I can kick your ass, despite appearances to the contrary, will ward off attempts to cull me from the herd. But in case that fails, well,  I might get my phone or Little Red ripped off, and that would suck.

But they are my expendable Star Trek extras, and my lead actors will be safe at home.

My brick phone in Caucasus Georgia, June 2012.

A useful article about digital security: The traveler's guide to keeping electronic devices secure during international travel, published in Travel and Transport, February 2017

Rootless: On Doing Holidays Solo

Gutter sun, Oil Center, Lafayette, Louisiana

Most major holidays I'm not solo, but there are times, such as this Christmas, I have been.


Since my happiness is my responsibility and not the job of others, it's incumbent upon me to create a satisfying holiday. ... Hmm, that holds true when I'm solo and when I'm with family and old friends.

The now-memories of Christmas Eve 2013 are luminous. They didn't come to me; I went out and got them.


In 2010, I wrote Holidays for the Rootless, reposted below: 

Some reflections here:
Holiday Homesickness, from nunomad.com
Expat Celebrations: Tips For Spending Holidays Overseas, by Anne Merritt, from matadornetwork.com
Family Holiday Traditions and Living Abroad, by Betsy Burlingame, from expatexchange.com


The ideas are for people who are abroad, but they hold true for anyone, really, regardless of where they are.

Long Journeys: The River .... and a Sidebar on Journeywomen

Love Your Big Muddy

I love that this river adventurer is a woman, she's of a certain age, and she's a fellow Missourian. She lives 30 miles from my hometown.

Her precís (I've added the links):

My name is Janet Moreland. I am a Missouri River paddler from Columbia, MO, most often found at or near Cooper's Landing. I recently graduated from college with a degree in Education, and am now certified to teach middle school social studies and/or science. Currently, I am in the midst of a 3700-mile Source-to-Sea solo kayak expedition from the Missouri River source at Brower's Spring, Montana, to the Gulf of Mexico. I left Columbia on April 14, 2013, and anticipate a November completion. My mission includes elements of education, environmental stewardship, and empowering youth, women, and men to confidently pursue their dreams.

Here is a podcast interview with Ms. Moreland at The Pursuit Zone.


Fear

In her post here, Ms. Moreland talks about times recently when she felt fear. It was good to see how she felt it and what she did about it. [The bold and underlining are mine.] 

On a treacherous lake crossing that she'd received numerous warnings about, she wrote in her journal: “I need to stop wondering if I’m making the right decision and just trust my judgment. I can SO do this!”

At one campsite where she worried about mountain lions, she reported: " .... That very night, after I was zipped up in my tent, some animal made a loud noise right around dusk just outside my tent. Holy mackerel! It was a honk, cough, yell, growl, screech, or something, I don’t know what.  “Stay calm,” I told myself. “What do you need to do to survive?”  I took the safety off of my bear spray, got my buck knife out, grabbed my machete, and put my whistle around my neck.  I was hoping it was not a mountain lion. ..... "

During a nasty electrical storm: " .... I couldn’t help but think I had just inserted into the ground a lighting rod, which seemed to be the high point on shore, and right outside my shelter.  Oh well, there was nothing more I could do.  I had to wait out the storm, and I did it squatting with only my feet touching ground and my hand on my SPOT “SOS” button.  I thought if lightning struck me, my reflex would press the button....." 

How Ms. Moreland's handled her fear reminded me of two other women who undertook long journeys:

This hilarious telling of Molly Langmuir's four-day solo hike in the Tetons, where she was terrified of encountering a bear. My favorite bit:

On a scale of one to 10, how much fun did you have?
I'm actually not sure I had any fun. The trip was challenging, which I always like, and now that I'm through it, something I'm glad I did, but I basically spent the entire time in a state of sheer terror, so there wasn't much room for fun. I guess a one?

And the book, Wild, by Cheryl Strayed. She told herself that she did not fear mountain lions, bears, or rattlesnakes. That this was necessary for her to be able to embark on the hike. If she'd allowed herself to consider fear, then she couldn't have gone.


But here's the sidebar on journeywomen

There's a lot of debate in the news right now about banning the niqab in some places or not banning, and about imperialist countries imposing their cultural shoulds on other cultures, that a culture will stick up for itself, thank you very much, and so on.

The other day, when I went to the Alamogordo Balloon Invitational by myself, without asking the permission of a brother or father or uncle or husband or son, having driven to the event by myself, in a car that I alone own, and walked around the event unescorted, I appreciated - yet again - how lucky I am that I have the choice to do all of the things I just listed.

When I think about Ms. Moreland, or Ms. Strayed, or Ms. Longmuir's journeys, it is with appreciation that these women have the choice to do such things.

"Such things" including the fundamental human right to use our intelligence and talents to their fullest, without religious, cultural, or other restriction imposed on us because we are women.

This right is called self-determination: the determination of one's own fate or course of action without compulsion; free will.

So while the debate goes on, I'd like this basic tenet not to be lost.


When I'm feeling exasperated about the latest indignity done to women somewhere - control dressed up in the guise of culture - I like to play this video.

Some might consider it a metaphorical middle finger. 

Rootless Lit: Eighty Days

I was put on to this book by Maria Popova of Brain Pickings, via her post, How To Pack Like Nellie Bly, Pioneering Journalist.


The book is Eighty Days: Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland's History-Making Race Around the World.

Credit: Barnes and Noble

The book is an account of two American women's race in 1889, to "girdle the earth" - one going east and the other west - with three objectives: 1) travel around the world in less than the "80 days" in Jules Verne's famous book about a man's round-the-world adventure; 2) do it faster than the other woman; and 3) sell newspapers for the World and Cosmopolitan.

In addition to the plot of the journey, Matthew Goodman puts the story in the context of the day, touching on topics such as: 

• discrimination against women
• racism
• ethnocentrism
• how the American railroad affected culture and enterprise
• "stunt" journalism
• working and living conditions of laborers in the U.S. and elsewhere

In re: discrimination, racism, and working/living conditions it is, at turns, inspiring and disheartening to compare the past with the present. 

Technologically, it's nothing short of amazing to consider how far the world has progressed in transportation, medicine, and communication in the span of 125 years. 


On women

I read Eighty Days just after re-reading Isaac Asimov's Foundation series. I don't remember the point at which I realized Mr. Asimov made virtually no reference to women, but it slowly came to me that in his future universe - notwithstanding all of the scientific advances over the thousands of years into the future he wrote about - it was a universe in which, with rare exception, only men figured in current events. And even in the unusual case where a girl or woman played an important role, Mr. Asimov assigned her with the usual, circumscribed boundaries for women: the use of her beauty or feminine charms to achieve her aims. Why couldn't an intelligent author like Mr. Asimov factor in the possibility that thousands of years hence, women might join the mainstream of history?

It was in this frustrated frame of mind that I read Eighty Days, not to be surprised by the many discriminations against women during the 1880s the author shares, but to consider how, in so many parts of the world today (including the U.S.) women are still denied self-determination. Said abilities to make one's own choices about getting married, getting divorced, becoming pregnant, giving birth, getting an education, how to dress, where one can walk, if one can drive, to whom one can speak, places one can enter, where to work, how to create, all restricted under the guise of religion, protection, "respect for women," or culture - thereby rationalizing the bars on the windows.



On time

Until I read Eighty Days, I had no idea that it was the railroad companies that established a standardized time in the U.S. Fascinating.


The originals

One of the disappointments I had in Eighty Days was the dearth of direct quotes from Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland's books. You can find the originals here:  

• Nellie Bly: Around the World in Seventy-Two Days - audio - here or here.
• Nellie Bly: Around the World in Seventy-Two Days - online text - here
• Elizabeth Bisland: In Seven Stages: A Flying Trip Around the World - online text - here
• Elizabeth Bisland: In Seven Stages: A Flying Trip Around the World - downloadable to ebook

  
Of the two women, it seems that Ms. Bisland was more gracious and more positive in perspective than Ms. Bly, even though the latter was the far greater celebrity of the time. For example, where Ms. Bly saw cause for complaint, Ms. Bisland saw beauty and excitement.


For me, Eighty Days served as a reference for comparison between the world as it was only 125 years ago and how it is today, and for that, I appreciate Mr. Goodman's work.

I do still shake my head at Nellie Bly's decision to buy a macaque monkey in the middle of her journey, wondering "what was she thinking"?! And it's one of the loose ends Mr. Goodman leaves for the readers - what eventually happened to the mean creature, forced to go around the world in a small cage?

"One Thing That Scares You Per Day Keeps Apathy at Bay"

Rattlesnake, Rattlesnake Museum, Albuquerque, New Mexico

One thing that scares you per day keeps apathy at bay, said one of my thoughtful readers in response to this post.

It's funny about fear. What doesn't scare me, scares you. And vice versa.

For awhile, I did Something Meaningful every year on or about my birthday. It had to be something that pushed me out of my comfort zone.  One year, I considered three choices: 1) go dancing, 2) engage in a gestalt therapy session, or 3) jump out of a plane. All three caused fear, and I chose the one that was the least scary. You guessed it. I jumped out of a plane.

I want to get around to the point that fear, after you complete the act that causes fear, is often funny. My skydiving story is very funny.

I laughed til my sides hurt on reading Bill Bryson's account of a possible bear (or two!) outside his tent, in A Walk In The Woods.

I was gasping for breath laughing at Molly Langmuir's story of her four-day hike in the Tetons, during which she was terrified of mountain lion or bear encounters every moment.  An excerpt:

On a scale of one to 10, how much fun did you have?
I'm actually not sure I had any fun. The trip was challenging, which I always like, and now that I'm through it, something I'm glad I did, but I basically spent the entire time in a state of sheer terror, so there wasn't much room for fun. I guess a one?

What was your main terror?
The bears. From my summer in Jackson I knew people out there take the bear situation very seriously — most years at least one person is attacked, if not in the Tetons, in Yellowstone — and to prepare I read the “Be Bear Aware” chapter of my trail guide about ten times (it is filled with this kind of thing: “a large percentage of hikers mauled by bears were hiking alone”) and dutifully bought bear spray. I still managed to keep my fear in check until I got to the park ranger station to sign up for campsites. The ranger who gave the canister you're supposed to keep all your food in and leave 100 yards away from your tent at night explained that even if you drink an Emercen-C in your Nalgene you should put it in your canister, and that was actually what put me over the edge. Because if bears can smell an Emercen-C in a closed Nalgene, they were clearly a sort of advanced supercreature that could definitely sniff out the crumbs I’d likely drop on myself at some point. Plus, for all I remembered the last time I had used my sleeping bag I had been binging on beef jerky right next to a barbecue smoker. Also I didn’t know how far 100 yards was.

Cheryl Strayed said in her recent book, Wild, the story of her 1990s hike on the Pacific Crest Trail, that she told herself that she did not fear mountain lions, bears, or rattlesnakes. That this was necessary for her to be able to embark on the hike. If she'd allowed herself to consider fear, then she couldn't have gone.

I'm currently trapped between the Strayed and Langmuir approaches --> telling myself there is nothing to fear on one hand, and on the other, continuing to walk with fear, when I go on a New Mexico trail. Where we have mountain lions and bears. I've not broken the fear barrier as I would like. I laugh at myself about my fear, although this doesn't make it less palpable when I'm in the moment, on the trail. 

Sign at Antelope Wells border crossing, New Mexico

Rattlesnake artwork, Chiricahua Desert Museum, Rodeo, NM

A funny thing about my predicament is that I'm not scared of rattlesnakes, but that's just about all anyone talks about here as far as scary things go. Indeed, in two out of three NM/MX border crossings, the first sign you may see is a Watch Out for Rattlesnakes sign.

On Solo Dining

Lalibela, Ethiopia

I know there was a time long, long ago that I felt trepidation about dining out solo, but it's been so long I don't recall the negative feeling.

Once I began solo dining, always with a book or newspaper at hand, I loved eating in restaurants alone. For an introvert like me, it's perfect - I get to enjoy perfect solitude while in the ambient company of people, amidst the noises of activity and social conversation, but not of it.

Trabzon Restaurant, Istanbul

But I didn't get how someone could dine alone without anything to read. (Or texting or listening to music or using any external diversions whatsoever.) When I saw such a person, usually a man, I'd wonder what he was thinking while he was eating. It wasn't a matter of him just looking at his plate and shoveling the food in. No, the typical solo-diner-without-something-to-read often sat quietly while eating, looking out into space.  

I just didn't get the attraction of this.

Tlaxcala, Mexico

Until. I think I noticed it in Georgia, maybe as early as Ethiopia. I'd go to a restaurant and have a book with me, and then realize I wasn't reading it. I was just .... being there. Just eating. Just drinking. Just looking out into the distance. And it was OK. Sometimes when I caught myself, I'd pick up the book, and then let it go again. ... just eating, just drinking ...

And now, if someone were to ask me, what are you thinking about when you dine alone and you're not engaged in a book or newspaper or music or texting or whatever, the answer would have to be: I don't know, nothing really. 

Keshalo, Georgia