The label “-30-” is one of journalism’s oldest, as reporters used to write that number at the end of an article to signify to their editors that the story was finished.
I don’t recall ever using it since I started reporting for The News-Banner in the late 1990s, but I recall learning about it in a college journalism history course and seeing it on some old copy that I came across in our archives here at the paper.
It’s an appropriate way to end today’s column for me — not because it’s my last one, though. Instead, I’ll be absent from this space for a few weeks.
My wife and I are headed to Africa on Sunday.
A week from today, we’ll be taking a tour of downtown Kigali, Rwanda, with a local guide to learn about the history as well as projects going on to support the community, specifically women and education.
Rwanda is the first stop on our three-week journey. After a week there, we will fly to South Africa to spend an additional two weeks.
It will be my first time to Africa, but my wife Jen has been there several times.
She was in South Africa during the summer of 2006 with a small group of her friends who traveled to the city of Worcester for a mission trip. Two years later, she was back in Africa to spend a semester in Uganda and Rwanda as part of a study abroad program in collaboration with Food for the Hungry.
A year later, she was back in South Africa to volunteer during the summer of 2009 in the city of Welkom. Then, after graduating from college, she taught overseas in both Venezuela and South Africa before returning home to be an elementary school teacher.
To say I’m excited to learn more about both Rwanda and South Africa is an understatement. Jen is even more excited to return and show me the places and people that mean a great deal to her as she works on a project.
We’ll be renting a car for the two weeks that we are in Cape Town, South Africa, where they drive on the left-hand side of the road. Jen had a car while she lived there and assured me she’s a great left-hand-side-of-the-road driver. I’ll learn from her but will probably be more in the passenger seat on this trip.
Driving on the opposite side of the road is one of a myriad of new experiences in store for me during the next three weeks. We’ll visit local artisans and markets. We’ll visit the Kigali Genocide Memorial to learn about the 1994 genocide and how Rwanda has continued to remember their past while moving forward through reconciliation. We’ll climb Mount Kigali and also do a full-day safari in the eastern part of Rwanda.
We’ll also reconnect with some of Jen’s friends who she has not seen for several years.
From there, we’re off to Cape Town, South Africa. We’ll hike, take cooking classes, visit markets, go on a second safari and more.
Jen will digitally document her journey, Zoom with her students back in Indiana a couple of times, and return with a plethora of experiences to share with her young learners in the years to come.
And I’ll look forward to filling this space for several weeks with anecdotes and experiences from our African sojourn.
For the next few weeks, however, it will be -30- for me as I try to fill my reporter’s notebook with plenty of stories to share with you later this summer.
jdpeeper2@hotmail.com
