Holidays away from Safety

In recent weeks I have conducted an interesting experiment that was never intended to be one.

Next Tuesday we head off to Peru for three weeks. An invitation to a wedding in Lima has proved a good justification for a trip exploring some the world's great sights - fingers crossed. This has been booked for months now, and I've been looking forward to it all that time. Peru is a country that I've always found fascinating.

As the time approaches, I have been telling various people that the trip is on - obviously my employers, as they like to know why I won't be at work, but also my brethren visitors and my family. I may not have much contact these days, but I'd like them to know why it won't work in that time if they decide contact is what they want. To my surprise, the nearly universal reaction from brethren of any kind is worry. I had expected a mix of disapproval and envy, to the extent that I'd pondered it at all.

Thinking about it, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. The brethren attitude to life is based on "approved" and "non-approved" activities, things and places. A person who confines themselves to the approved can assume protection from on high (leaving aside the possibility of unpleasant events that occur to teach life lessons for one's own good and the edification of others). A non-approved visit to a non-approved place is asking for trouble, on those grounds. People are worried that my plane will disappear without trace, for a start, or that some unspecified disaster will happen while I'm out of the usual area of brethren life. This, in brethren logic, is exponentially more likely in this case even than if I was taking an unsanctioned trip to a country where brethren live. At least they could assume some heavenly interest in such a country, which would overspill onto me.

Actually, I'm kind of touched. Everybody who has learned of the trip has worried, which means at least that they do care. If that dreaded catastrophe does occur, they will mourn. And they are keen that I make a note of various telephone numbers in case of emergency, including some in Argentina, which is the nearest country with a brethren population. What that means for my status in brethren terms is unclear, but I am not a total outcast, it seems.

In reality, there are some dangers, of course. Our Peruvian friends and the guidebooks all agree that theft is a real problem, even if violence is not any more likely than at home. That is something that concerns me, as I like to document my travels in pictures, and my camera is not cheap. Awareness is the first step, though, so I am reckoning to make it back complete with photographic equipment. And of course, some pictures of stunning scenery and incredible experiences. I concluded it would be wiser to leave my laptop behind, as much because of weight as anything, but apparently Peru is very wired, so I can catch up at intervals. Outside of that, I have a journal, which has been good enough for millions of writers and sketchers before me.

There has also been a silver lining to the worry clouds: my family seem suddenly concerned that they may never see me again, and I have my first invitation back.