John Higham - 360 Degrees Longitude: One Family’s Journey Around the World

360 Degrees Longitude

Copyright 2009 by John Higham

Originally published by Alyson Publications

Print book ISBN: 978-1-935212-86-7

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-935212-99-7

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To the wonderful people of Lushoto, Tanzania.
May I someday be able to return the favor.

T ravel can change a person, and it can change the world. Thats a bold statement, and I believe it.

As we look beyond our borders, it is easy to see how different people are, over there. It is a lot harder to see how similar they are. Im convinced that you have go and spend time over there to accomplish that. It can be hard to do, which is why I wrote this book: to take you to distant lands and meet the people who live over there to show that, at the end of the day, humankind in all its wonderful weirdness is the same all over the planet.

A large part of this story is contained within the pages of this book, but there is more than what you are holding in your hands. Whenever you see the Google Earth logo there is more waiting for you online. The Google Earth companion layer that is available online contains the Directors Cut of anecdotes, photos, video, and stories that couldnt be presented on mere paper. Google Earth is free and is probably the coolest piece of software developed by humankind. The extra features add a dimension to the manuscript that will connect you to the places around the globe in a way previously impossible. There is a quick tutorial in the appendix that explains what you need to know to use these features.

The .

Y oure awake, I can tell. What are you thinking about?

It was my wife, September. I really didnt want to be talking about this, as we had already discussed everything there was to discuss. Same thing as you.

Ive been looking forward to this trip for over ten years, she said. Now that were just weeks away from leaving, Im afraid.

Its just nerves. Once were on the road, well get into a rhythm, and itll be fine.

Then why are you awake?

I cant turn my brain off. You know. EBS. EBS is shorthand for Energizer Bunny Syndromemy brain just keeps going and going. As an engineer, I am duty-bound to reduce everything to three-letter acronyms. September just accepts it.

As it applies in this case, EBS meant going over and over scenarios about what could go wrong during our 52 weeks abroad. I had a pit in the bottom of my stomach.

www.360degreeslongitude.com/concept3d/360degreeslongitude.kmz

How is it that Obi-Wan Kenobi made us toss and turn at night? Use Google Earth and the 360 Degrees Longitude layer to find out.

Urban legend has it that rocket scientists are smart, but I can be pretty clueless. It was that cluelessness that led to my meeting September. After finishing graduate school I accepted a job offer in the San Francisco Bay Area from a commercial aerospace company. I moved far from my small-town roots and shared an apartment with a couple of other guys who were also relatively new in town. We set about the difficult task of meeting girls who would actually still talk to us after they found out we were engineers. Despite our geekiness we were able to build up a decent network of acquaintances, and so one day when I locked myself out of my apartment (see clueless above), I wasnt completely without options.

As my roommates wouldnt be home until late that evening, I searched my brain for phone numbers. I had gone out a couple of times with a girl named Biz, so I called her with hopes of spending some quality time with her, or at least helping myself to her bread and peanut butter.

Biz wasnt home. This was a solid decade before the blessed arrival of the personal digital assistant (aka electronic brain). For reasons I cant recall nearly two decades later, the only other phone number I remembered was for Bizs friend, September. But remembering those seven digits may be one of the most brilliant things I have ever done.

September not only provided bread and peanut butter; she had jelly, too. Plus, she was a smart blonde with a knockout figure and had a cool mountain bike. She must have seen some quality in me to counterbalance my cluelessness, because we soon became inseparable.

On the face of it, September and I were an unlikely match. Though I had a few nerdy interests, I owned one of those high-powered Japanese bullet-bikes that your mother warned you about. I wore racing leathers during my daily commute. At night I listened to Pink Floyd on speakers that were as tall as I was. September couldnt have picked Roger Waters from Johnny Carson in a lineup, and she played violin in a local symphony.

September hooked me with the gorgeous and smart thing, and after several trips to the symphony I grudgingly learned to distinguish a melody in a minor key (bad guy music) from a melody in a major one. She learned to appreciate tearing up mountain roads on the back of a motorcycle, and I pretended not to fall asleep during films with subtitles.

Before earning my graduate degree, I had spent a lot of time wandering the western United States on my motorcycle, while September had been doing a significant amount of wandering of her own. Shortly before we met she spent a month backpacking around West Africa. Why Africa? I asked.

She shrugged her shoulders, Dunno. Sounded fun.

September had also spent six months on the island of Tonga during her senior year of college, doing anthropology fieldwork. I loved my experience in Tonga, she explained to me. I came home a changed person. The airlines lost my luggage, and I arrived with just a notebook, a camera, and the clothes on my back. Five months went by before I saw my luggage and in that time I learned that all I needed to be happy was something to eat, something to wear, and somewhere to sleep. But it wasnt all as romantic as it sounds. Not long before I came home island fever had set in, and I gradually came to realize that what I really wanted to do with my life was to go home and get a job in high-tech. Thats how I got into computer software.

I was in love. Here was a woman who was five years younger than me, and, despite the fact that she had a degree in anthropology, one of those soft disciplines that engineers love to diss, she was making more money than I was. I asked her to marry me.

We had been married two years when a career opportunity presented itself. My company was looking for someone with my exact qualifications to go to Japan for twelve months. I had 24 hours to make a decision, and we would have to leave for Japan in three weeks.

I called September at work. How would you like to move to Japan in three weeks? I asked. Her reaction was strong and without hesitation. OKAY! Sounds like fun! And although it wasnt actually per plan, it was in Japan that September and I started our family.