By PEPPER EDMISTON

Well, we made it out alive, but now I want to go back. Africa’I can’t get it out of my mind. I dream of Africa every night, except when I’m dreaming about redecorating our house. ”Last August, filled with high anxiety, I went to Africa with my sweetie Joe and our sons William and Charlie. We arrived in Johannesburg after flying for 24 hours straight. To handle such a flight you assume you are in hell, this is eternity and you must accept your fate. More than any other place on earth, though, Africa is worth the agony of no leg room whatsoever. ”During our five-week stay, we saw Cape Town (a must) and Durban (a must miss), but the highlight was Botswana, a large country where thousands of acres are preserved as national parks and animals outnumber humans by the millions. In Botswana we went ‘on safari,’ an expression that can describe staying in rooms with canopied beds covered in 400-thread count linen, so long as scary beasts are nearby. ”In Botswana, wildlife is not confined to the wild. On the streets of the town of Kasane, baboons strut through the place like people. The difference, though, is baboons are stark naked. If a male is excited, his huge private parts become bright blue; if a female is ready to romp, hers turn bright pink. Sex in this city is devoid of all subtlety and impossible to ignore. While I was shocked, other family members thought this was peachy. ”It was on the tranquil Chobe River that our adventure began. We journeyed for days in slim metal boats, stopping at lodges along the way. We rarely saw another soul, except for elephant, hippo, zebra, rhino, giraffe, impala, monkey, water buffalo and other animals. It all looked so benign, but when Will asked our guide how long he’d last if he dove into the river, the answer was ‘About two minutes.’ ”Then the guide asked Will, ‘Have you seen a crocodile eating yet? ”’No,’ said Will. ”’Then jump in the water.’ ”Friends were impressed we were ‘on safari’ so long. Don’t be. Here is the schedule for the half-dozen lodges where we were guests: Sleep in a feather bed. Wake up to a mellifluous voice whispering, ‘knock knock.’ Rouse yourself. Dress in your safari finery. Have a hearty breakfast of homemade porridge. Grab your binoculars and jump in the jeep or climb on the boat for a three-hour ride, complete with snacks. See kudu, cheetah and hyena. Return to an enormous luncheon. Nap. Wake up for a vast tea. Enjoy another ride. See wildebeest, wild dog and warthogs. Stop in the bush for wine and cheese served by candlelight. Rest in your suite with a soak in the tub. Dress up. Feast on a six-course banquet while conversing with fascinating international travelers. Repeat. ”We tried our best to follow the rules, but often failed. At a lodge in the Savute area, we forgot to lock our door and returned to find baboon paw prints everywhere. Yikes! They had gotten into my well-stocked medicine bag. I was in a panic until I realized the ‘boons weren’t so smart, stealing only vitamin C and zinc tabs, while leaving behind the better class of drugs. But that wasn’t the worst thing. We wondered why at all times we had been escorted to and from our room. We found out. After we left Savute, we heard that a bartender had been eaten by a lion just before our visit, right in that very lodge. And to think we were thrown by a few baboons. ”Africa has friendlier inhabitants, though, including every conceivable type of bird. My favorite was some kind of weaver, whose mate built her a nest which, if she found flawed, she would shred. He would build, she would shred, until hubby got it just right. There was also the ‘Jesus Bird,’ who walked on water and countless others whose names, in combination, would yield a lovely ‘chanting, lesser-crested, golden-rumped, gull-billed, wooly-necked, blue-eared, long-toed, thick-kneed, bearded, pigmy shoveler snipe.’ ”We learned about every animal we saw. Impalas are called the ‘McDonald’s of the bush,’ because ‘everybody eats them.’ When preparing to mate, giraffes slam each other against the flank ‘thus, ‘necking.’ Successful mating results in a female gestation period of 450 days, making me wonder why gals don’t trot for the border at the first friendly whack. Elephant mothers, however, get the gold medal: they are pregnant for 660 days, or 22 months. I’m glad this was new information for Joe, as my nine months of bitter complaining might have seemed self-indulgent. ”After the glory of the Chobe, we were forced to fly to the rest of our destinations: the Okavango Delta, then the Kalahari Desert. Light aircraft was required; so light, in fact, six people could fit only if you held in your stomach. Remember the dusty planes in ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’? The ones aliens had borrowed for decades, then returned to the desert? Those are the ones we flew in. ”But the good news was the bush pilots, wind-burned hunks from the British Empire, dazzling in their khakis. For a moment, they allowed me to feel Meryl Streepish. Flying over the plains of Africa behind a fearless pilot, I lingered in my reverie until a phrase thumped my eardrums. At first, I thought I heard, ‘My dear, praise the beauty of Botswana!’ No, not quite. It was, ‘Mom, pass the barf bag, NOW!’ In the Kalahari, we stayed in Deception Valley, which is hundreds of miles from anyplace else and is flat as a pancake. In Botswana, they say if you lie down and look ahead, you will see the next 14 days of your life in front of you. That’s how flat and isolated it is. In the Kalahari, I became so television deprived I dreamed an entire ‘Mannix’ episode. But Bushmen have lived in Deception Valley for ages and they seem satisfied. We spent a day with two of them who knew some English, but were unable to respond when Charlie asked, ‘How the hell did the leopard get its spots?’ The Bushmen posed their own question, also unanswerable. ‘Will Ahnold really be your gov’ner?’ ”We were always accompanied by a guide and, although usually in a jeep, we sometimes walked. More than once, an enthusiastic naturalist would bend down, pick up something and exclaim, ‘Oh! Fresh lion scat! Feel it, and take a whiff.’ We soon realized even the king of beasts’ droppings weren’t that exciting, though the lions themselves were. People sometimes faint the first time they hear a lion’s roar. I swooned. It is universally agreed that what the lion says when he roars is this: ‘Whose land is this? Whose land is this? This land is mine.’ You bet. ”One night there were so many lions roaring, I was afraid to stay in our cabin, despite the beckoning Egyptian bedsheets. The guys were going on a game-viewing drive, which sounded less frightening than being alone, as we probably wouldn’t see a thing. Wedged between Will, 6’2′, and my solid spouse in his pith helmet, Joseph ‘I AM BAWANA’ Edmiston, I figured I was safe. Plus, our guide had a gun. ”Just our luck, we ran into a pride of lions, 15 feet away, eating a freshly killed zebra. The guide had an enormous floodlight, so we could view the most horrible sight imaginable in bright technicolor, with surround sound. We sat there for an hour, speechless. The noise of the incessant gnawing and crunching was more terrifying than what we watched, but most frightening of all was the sound of roaring. ”The alpha lion, whose ladies were feasting, was lording it over another male, standing 25 feet away. Each time the king roared, the lesser one roared back. What were they saying? Was the big guy not sharing? Is that why the beta male was walking toward us? Joe jumped into the back seat to shelter Charlie, while 17-year-old Will climbed on my lap. Why? ‘What if the second banana is hungry?’ he asked. The fear on our faces must have made us unappetizing, because Beta changed his mind and sauntered back into the bush. I’m still in recovery. ”We learned so much in Africa. For instance, if you become poisoned, you must eat elephant dung, which contains a special ingredient that will cause you to vomit. Who knew a special ingredient was required? In Zulu Land, the word for tree is also the word for medicine. Our favorite tree was the Hanging Over Tree, whose bark you ingest in powdered form after a night of carousing. Did you know that if you discover crocodile teeth it means good luck? Why? Because there is no crocodile attached. ”We learned there are African masks to be worn for all occasions, including the ‘fault-finding’ mask, the ‘make fun of boys who dress like girls’ mask and the ‘create general and constant anxiety’ mask. We learned if you are good to nature, nature will be good to you and that the world did not start with us and will not end with us. And, mostly, we learned we want to go back to Africa. Right now. (Pepper Edmiston has been a regular contributor to the Palisadian-Post for many years. Her husband, Joe, is executive director of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy.)

A story was brewing in Janet Brodie’s mind long before she decided to enter this year’s Palisadian-Post Travel Tales writing contest. It all started when Janet, 55, and her husband, Bruce, 56, learned that their two grown sons would not be coming home for Christmas in December 2002, which would’ve been the first Christmas the family spent apart. Jedediah and his girlfriend, Olga, were living in Thailand, conducting biology/ecology research in national parks, and Nathaniel and his girlfriend, Kelly, had been traveling in northern Thailand and Laos for two months. Instead of staying home in the Palisades, Janet and Bruce suggested another option: spending the holidays with the ‘kids’ in Southeast Asia. ‘We didn’t know if they would want us [at first], but they loved the idea,’ says Janet, a history professor at Claremont Graduate University. Thankfully, she took notes during their three-week trip through Thailand, Laos and Cambodia, thinking she would want to write an article and subit it to the Los Angeles Times travel section. After returning home, however, still in the post-September 11 climate, Janet found that the Times was featuring stories ‘close to home’ more than about far-off places. Luckily for the Post, she decided to submit her story for this year’s Travel Tales contest’and won! The editorial staff thoroughly enjoyed her unusual perspective of a parent ‘seeing the world through fresh eyes”the eyes of her backpacker sons who ‘have roamed the wilds of the world, happiest living as nomads,’ as she describes them in her story. Janet’s tongue-in-cheek tone charmed us and her careful details wet our pallets. At the beginning of the story, she tells us that she and Bruce, a clinical psychologist who works with adolescents, were willing to compromise some of their usual travel comforts and experience the more adventurous backpacker life their sons prefer to lead. This not only included rock climbing and driving a motorbike but also negotiating when it came to lodging and transportation. For example, the Brodies stayed in ‘guest houses,’ which Janet compares to pocket hotels with 10-12 rooms but no provision for food. They cost about $12 -$15 a night, making them more ‘upscale’ than the $2-$5 youth hostels the boys prefer when not with their parents. ‘The guest houses were modest but charming,’ says Janet, who had never been to Southeast Asia before this trip. ‘We found them immaculately clean with spotless tile floors because guests leave their shoes on the front porch.’ The Brodie Bunch spent Christmas Day at a climbing beach in southern Thailand and New Year’s in Laos, which turned out to be Janet’s favorite country on their trip. ‘I expected Angkor Wat [Cambodia] to be most striking but it was really Laos,’ she says. ‘Laos is a country that hasn’t changed in years’it’s like being in the 19th century.’ She was especially struck by the Laotian city of Luang Prabang, a UNESCO world heritage site where the ancient architecture has been preserved. Here, Janet saw women working on looms in their houses, families eating on the floor, people tending gardens and a line of saffron-robed monks walking in the mist. In her story, she describes a memorable afternoon when the kids led them to a Laotian market where a woman made their soup’with raw meat, vegetables and boiling broth’right in front of them. ‘The fact that [the kids] could show us so much really brought us together as a family,’ Janet says. ‘We’ve taken a lot of family trips but never had an experience like this.’ When Nathaniel, now 24, and Jedediah, now 28, were growing up, the Brodies did a lot of car camping in the States, including hiking and camping in Yosemite. They also camped through southern France when the boys were just 11 and 15 years old. Even in the Palisades, their Paseo Miramar home opens out onto the Santa Monica Mountains, right near one of the hiking trails. Janet also attributes her sons’ shared love of nature and the outdoors to their experiences as Boy Scouts in Troop 85. ‘I know that [Troop 85] was a big influence on the boys’they did major backpacking in the Sierras.’ Five years ago, Jedediah and Nathaniel spent three months backpacking through South America together. And just three years ago, they backpacked in South Africa where they worked so they could save money and travel. ‘They are well-bonded,’ says Janet. Asked what she and Bruce taught the kids during their Southeast Asia trip, Janet says, ‘[Without us there] they probably wouldn’t have spent as much time thinking about the history, like the French colonial past, going to museums and looking at the architecture.’ Janet, on the other hand, learned that when she revisits Southeast Asia, she would choose to travel by bus and tuk-tuk (a cross between a motorcycle and a rickshaw), and stay in guest houses. After the family vacation, Nathaniel and Kelly went on to Myanmar and India. Currently, they are headed to Alaska, where they will be working for the National Park Service to earn money before going into the Peace Corps in September. Jedediah, who is now engaged to Olga, is working on his doctorate in biology at the University of Montana. Janet, a North Dakota native, grew up in Oakland and has lived in the Palisades with her husband since 1981 in the house Bruce’s parents built in 1954. Janet commutes to Claremont about once a week, where she teaches U.S. history, specializing in environmental and women’s history. When we called Janet with the good news, she exclaimed, ‘You’re kidding! I’ve never won anything in my life!’ Her prize includes a two-night stay at the Inn at Playa del Rey, a bed-and-breakfast which is the sister property to the Channel Road Inn in Santa Monica Canyon.

By JANET BRODIE

When my husband and I realized that our 20-something sons, Jedediah and Nathaniel, would not be with us at Christmas, the only solution was to join their exploration of Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. They are backpackers who have roamed the wilds of the world, happiest living as nomads; we, although hikers and car campers, are middle-aged Palisadians who like our comforts. As in any family with firm opinions, there was much to negotiate. ”From the beginning, each generation had its not-so-hidden agenda. We parents wanted to provide the four ‘kids’ (our sons and their girlfriends) with some luxury in the middle of their months of backpacking. (Both sons pride themselves on traveling cheaply; for months they had averaged about $12 a day.) The kids’ agenda was to re-introduce some adventure into our lives and to give us a taste of the ‘real’ world. Throughout the trip these two conflicting agendas engendered a quiet, good-natured rivalry. ”We parents had our small triumphs. We did not have to spend the entire three weeks in the jungle searching for tigers, but managed to include towns, art and history in our adventures. We stayed in hotels costing $12 a night rather than $2 youth hostels. It did not ruin our moral fiber. But in all truth, the victory in this friendly rivalry went to the young. What we saw, tasted and experienced in the company of the adventurous foursome gave us the most extraordinary trip of our lives. Seeing the world through fresh eyes, we learned from them. ”It started at a sheer limestone cliff at Rai Leh beach in southern Thailand (a mecca for rock climbers). One by one, the four strapped on climbing gear and muscled their way up from finger-hold to toe-hold, belayed from below. I fear heights, especially when my sons are on them. But, to everyone’s amazement, we parents agreed that it looked like fun. The kids made rappelling down a 300-foot cliff look like ballet. ”Not only were my fears of heights mitigated, but, of all things, I found myself riding a motorbike. When we realized that the only way to get to a particularly remote national park was for all of us to rent motorbikes, that’s what we all did. With a few quick lessons about brakes and curves, the Brodie Bunch provided much hilarity for the local Thais as we drove’five in single file, all oversized on our small bikes’through the countryside (me, quietly humming Christmas carols to calm my nerves). We passed sights I would never have noticed otherwise, including mats of natural rubber drying in the sun and ponds of pink lotuses. ”For longer trips we hired tuk-tuks (a cross between a motorcycle and a rickshaw). One such trip became the highlight of the entire three weeks for me. Leaving the hotel near Angkor Wat, Cambodia, before dawn, we rode 40 minutes by tuk-tuk to catch a boat downriver to Phnom Penh. The road, impossibly rutted, forced the driver to a pace so slow that in the dawning light we saw clearly into the homes of the Khmer villagers and into the boats of families in the floating village. I saw villagers light charcoal braziers for the morning meal, an old woman kneeling on a mat in front of a single burning candle, young women sweeping front yards with homemade palm-frond brooms. Roosters crowed, dogs rolled in the dirt, naked children watched the sunrise from doorways. We could have been in a time warp as a village stirred awake in an earlier century. As a historian, nothing could have touched me more deeply. ”Our final (and happy) recognition that the kids had much to teach us came after a five-hour bus ride (shared with locals and their chickens and rowdy Australians passing around bottles of beer) through Laos and some of the most beautiful and primitive country we have ever seen. We drove through mountainous jungle with bamboo villages appearing every two or three kilometers. The huts were made the same way they had been for centuries (except for the few television antennas sprouting above the thatched roofs). Finally we emerged in Vang Viang, a town in a valley so dazzling that it reminded us of Yosemite, except that the cliffs were limestone instead of granite, and covered with jungle instead of pine forest. ”We arrived in mid-afternoon and we were starving. In this, as in so much else, the kids took the lead, walking past restaurant after restaurant until somehow instinctively they located the central market. We entered the covered section where the light was shaded and the heat and humidity intensified. Finally, in the heart of heat and darkness, we found the food vendors. We picked one at random, sat down on rickety chairs around a makeshift table next to a cauldron of some type of simmering broth and a slab of raw meat, away from which a woman brushed away flies. She placed slices of the raw meat in bowls, added chopped green vegetables and the boiling broth and served us. Our kids were right: it was the best food we ate. (Janet Farrell Brodie, a history professor at Claremont Graduate University, and her husband Bruce, a clinical psychologist who works with adolescents, have lived in Pacific Palisades since 1981 in the house Bruce’s parents built in 1954, where he was raised. Their sons attended Marquez, Paul Revere and Palisades High. Jedediah is currently a doctoral student in biology at the University of Montana, spending four months a year on research in the Thai jungle. Nathaniel will enter the Peace Corps in September.)

A Compelling Drama Sews the Fabric of Life

‘Strumming my pain with his fingers,’ a lyric from Roberta Flack’s 1973 hit song, describes so well the life challenges the women in ‘Quilters’ recount to the audience in the course of the musical now playing at the Morgan Wixson through April 4. Written by Molly Newman and Barbara Damashek, the Tony-Award winning ‘Quilters’ tells the story through music, dance, song, words and quilting, of the pioneer women who immigrated to and settled this country. Using the metaphor of a quilting bee, the play assembles a quilt, each piece a chapter in these women’s lives. Each square speaks to the hard times and life-threatening episodes, relived by serendipitous humor. The story opens on a stage featuring a tableaux of pioneer activities that make up life on the prairie. The matriarch of the family, Sarah (Harriet Losin) declares the quilt she’s working on will be her last, a family album of sorts that holds moving snapshots of her and her family’s experiences. The play is structured as one would piece together a quilt; each square represents a different story which is brought to life through song and dance. Vignettes range from weathering the harsh elements, such as tornadoes and drought, to the perils of bearing children. ‘Our ninth died of cholera,’ one character says, listing her offspring along with other prairie wives. ‘The 10th and 11th were the twins.’ Jody (Lauren Perry) wants to end her pregnancy because of the undue economic hardship on the family, but her doctor refuses to help. A well-meaning friend sends her an herbal solution to the problem which ends up being torture. No doubt life was tough for these sturdy pioneers. But, the play is relieved by the sweet voices of the performers and a fair share of humor. In one sequence, a mother tells her daughter in a fabric shop that they can get only a bit of the bright red calico she likes. ‘You know your father,’ she says. But her father, a Baptist minister reveals his devil-may-care side and buys them the entire bolt. Then there is little sister Dana (Megan Burns) who splashes a bit of vinegar on her older sister’s sweet Sunbonnet Sue quilts, which show sunny characters in wholesome variations of a watering can pose. Dana’s own version would have had Sue bitten by a snake, struck by lightning and stabbed through the heart. Director Anne Gesling has put together a strong cast of women, who through a variety of roles (men’s parts, too), tell the moving story from the snapshots of 19th-century lives. Of particular note are Sarah Jay, a senior at Hamilton Academy of Music, who plays Janie, and Hamilton junior Lauren Perry, who plays Jody. Each of these young women possess beautifully trained voices and accomplished acting skills. The onstage music (Dana McElwain on piano, Anne Gesling on flute/percussion and Mike Brick on banjo) infuses the stories with a sparseness to match the strong-willed women of the era. ”Quilters continues through Sunday, April 4, with performances Fridays and Saturdays at 8, Sundays at 2 p.m. Tickets are $20 for adults, $15 for seniors and $12 for students. Contact: 828-7519.