I know that I am not the only mother this week hurriedly ringing long-distance
and checking my e-mail to see if there's a message from a child on a gap
year.
When disaster strikes, as it did at the weekend for the poor parents of the
five gap-year girls killed at the Ecuadorean bus trip, your first instinct
is to gather those you love close to you, but if they are on the other side
of the world, mobile phone out of range, and off radar with no clear flight
plan, it's just not possible. Instead you read and reread the scant details
of someone else's worst imaginable tragedy and hold your breath with
unthinkable dread, knowing that there, but for the grace of a God you can't
believe in, well...as I said, it's an unthinkable dread.
But accidents happen wherever you go. My son, also travelling with a reputable
gap-year company, told me over and over again that there was statistically
more risk of him being hit by a car as he crossed the road here in London
than anything happening to him abroad. As we live in an area of London where
a kid was stabbed to death a few streets north, his sudden interest in
statistics didn't reassure me much.
He thinks he's streetwise because he takes the night bus home to West London,
but when he needed to visit the dentist to have his wisdom tooth looked at
before he left, he still wanted me to go with him.
And anyway, worry is what you do when your children leave home. You buy them a
rucksack and the best insurance policy you can find, you photocopy their
passport and, in the case of some parents I know, send them on a personal
safety course to equip them for the rigours of foreign travel, but what are
you going to do about stopping them getting on a bloody bus? Don't take
public transport. Anywhere, a Colombian friend advised. I remembered this as
I handed out wads of cash for the most expensive tour of Peru and Chile I
could find, but even though the tour company that I chose is small and
reputable and the buses supposedly safe, there is no guarantee that you can
take out against bad luck.
Neither can you hope to convince your kid that it's not a great idea to take
the rust-and-duct-tape magic bus for 20p that crosses three countries and
takes three weeks. That is exactly why they want to go abroad. To them, gap
year means “great adventures, parent-free”. To the parent it means a one-way
ticket to the land of denial where your currency is wilful blindness and a
determination not to enumerate the 200 scenarios of things that can go
terribly wrong.
I sent two of my kids to the American University in Lebanon for their gap
years. My daughter went travelling by public transport with another girl all
the way to the Iraqi border, while there was a war on, and then south to
Egypt and the Sudanese border. An engine fell off the plane as it landed at
Cairo airport. She didn't tell me any of this until she arrived home. My son
left Beirut the day after the car of Rafik Hariri, the former Lebanese Prime
Minister, was blown up, and only just avoided going back for the war during
his summer vacation because he didn't have enough money for the plane
ticket. Now it's my youngest son's turn. He's living in a shanty town in
Costa Rica imparting his expensively acquired public school football skills
to underwhelmed local schoolchildren and discovering that having taken the
first Ladbroke Grove team through the UEFA cup on Football Manager is not
the bonus that he thought it would be.
My elder son is at university (it is rumoured, since he keeps in touch by
telepathy) planning to go back to Lebanon to work for an environmental NGO
and my eldest daughter, now a postgraduate, is working on a remote island in
the middle of nowhere in the South Pacific where the history she is supposed
to teach, together with the Second World War, the Gulag, the Holocaust and
Hiroshima, has passed them by as smoothly as the once-a-week mail ship which
cruises up the coast unless you light a fire on the beach to ask it to stop.
The island has no television, electricity for only two hours a day, sporadic
telephone connection and one hour of unreliable dial-up internet. It all
sounds like an episode of Tenko.
The island has also run out of flour and candles, and there has been no post
for three weeks. She can't eat the canned meat on which most of the students
subsist and, though surrounded by pristine blue water, they cannot eat the
fish because of the risk of reef poisoning. Her diet, therefore, is rice,
rice, rice and just for a change, rice and taro, a waxy root vegetable that,
she says, tastes the way fog would taste if you could eat it.
I have a load of stickies on my laptop that I am supposed to be using to write
my next novel, but instead of plot and character development they are full
of itineraries and contact numbers. And when I log on in the morning, what
comes up on my browser? Two clocks.
One is seven hours behind on Costa Rica time. One is 11 hours ahead in
Vanuatan time.
I can pinpoint my son's town on Google Earth and can zoom into my daughter's
village, two up from one of the most active volcanoes in the world and see
the island, right there in the Ring-of-Fire, so called because of the
prevalence of seismic activity. Closer, I can see the buildings of the tiny
school encircled with curly trees like those in a child's drawing. It makes
her seem slightly less far away. Safer somehow. Well, as long as I don't
concentrate too long on the volcano.
I confess, I even track their flights. Oh yes, I have turned into Cyber
Stalker Mum. However, this weekend my son is at the beach and I allowed
myself be lulled by his own casualness. I didn't ask which town, which
beach, or even which coast.
I didn't get the name of the hostel that he was staying at and the phone in
the house where he is living rings and rings unanswered. It suddenly occurs
to me that I literally have no idea where on earth he is.
But that's part of the whole process. It's not just the children who are
experiencing independence. It's also us, the parents, and we are often the
ones who struggle with it. As a mother, you let your children go, but have
to accept that it is you who is really being cut adrift. You are the one
with the gap in your life.
On days like this for me, it's as if I'm Norway without a boat, and the Gap is
the North Sea. And there's a Force 9 Gale blowing off the water. And still
no phone call.
HOW TO PLAN A SUCCESSFUL YEAR ABROAD
A gap year is one of the best ways to see the world, and up to 200,000 people
in the UK do so each year. But it is very important to plan properly, take
the right gear and be aware of safety hazards while you're out there. Here's
our guide to planning ahead.
Where and what
You could go anywhere, do anything. A placement teaching children English in
Costa Rica or building a school in Ghana? Learning to dive in Australia or
sightseeing around South East Asia? But so much choice can be daunting. The
websites gapyear.com, yearoutgroup.org and realgap.co.uk have hundreds of
ideas and gapyearjobs.co.uk and latitude.org.uk have directories of gap-year
jobs abroad. Talk to friends who have been or go to the website forums,
where you discuss all kinds of issues.
Who with
Think carefully about who to go with. It's probably safer to travel with a
buddy, but can you stand his irritating habits? And can he stand yours? Make
sure you have discussed your agendas before setting off and establish some
ground rules.
Money
Work out how much it will cost altogether in advance. Factor in the ticket(s)
overland travel, accommodation, insurance, food, entertainment and any
courses/projects. Look at the exchange rates to work out how far your money
will stretch, get small change when you're out there and make sure you don't
get ripped off. Not enough in the bank? Maybe you need to work for longer
before you set off. Or you could get a job while you are out there, eg,
fruit-picking or teaching. Many gap-year websites have free budget planners
to help you to make a budget and then stick to it.
Gear
First things first: the backpack. You may not need all the snazzy extras but
it's normally worth investing in one with an adjustable back system and
solid back supports for comfort. Some others things to consider are a travel
towel, universal sink plug, electrical adaptor, DEET mosquito repellent,
medical kit, swiss army knife, torch, padlock and a travel alarm.
Safety
The Foreign office website fco.goc.uk/travel offers advice on the safety of
individual countries. Their special gap-year site gogapyear.com also has
advice on alcohol and drugs, different visas, staying healthy and insurance.
Make sure that you have adequate insurance as if you have an accident abroad
without it, you could be faced with very high charges. Make sure you know
the health risks and get all your injections and tablets well in advance.
Always check the safety of local transport and areas as much as you can, and
learn key safety words such as “help” in the local language. Make regular
contact with people back home and explain your plans before you go away.
Gapyear.com has advice on how to allay worried parents' fears before you go.
Useful websites:
gapyear.com;
yearoutgroup.org; gapyearjobs.co.uk; gogapyear.com; statravel.co.uk;
gapaid.org; fco.gov.uk/travel
Gap year statistics
India, Peru and Tanzania are the most popular places for gap year placements.
Each year 230,000 18 to 24-year-olds take a gap year worldwide, spending an
average of £3,000-4,000 each.
Each year 200,000 people aged between 55 and 65 take a gap year worldwide,
spending an average of £5,000 each
The global gap year market is expected to grow to around £11 billion by 2010.
Twenty-five per cent of travellers go abroad without adequate travel insurance.
A £10 million government-backed scheme was recently announced to offer 18 to
25-year-olds from less advantaged backgrounds the opportunity to undertake
placements living and working in developing countries (Go to myplatform2.com
for more information.)
Workers in the public sector are most likely to be allowed sabbaticals.
