Bucket Lists are so much more than places to see and things to do.  They can teach us about the world we live in, our place within it, who we are, and where we come from.   Whatever nationality you’re descended from, visiting the country of your ancestors results in rich, emotional travel.   Genealogical tourism first exploded in the 1970’s, largely credited to the success of Alex Haley’s book (and subsequent television series) Roots.  With the evolution of online genealogy tools - designed to make databasing and research as simple as ever – it has now become one of the busiest traffic segments online.  Dedicated and enthusiastic volunteers become private investigators of their familial pasts, looking for unlikely connections, unusual stories, and answers to questions of their origins.  If you think social media is addictive, try looking into your own lineage.
 
Genealogists advise to start with what you know.  I know my grandfather was born in a small village in northern Lithuania called Kupiskis.   Before booking a flight to the Baltics, I hit up the All-Seeing Eye of Everything (aka Google) and found a wealth of knowledge.    Kupaskis, like all shtetls in Europe, has a tragic history.   Before World War II, forty-one percent of its population were Jews, all of who were rounded up and brutally murdered by local Nazi collaborators.   Over three thousand men, women and children were massacred, including members of my own family.   While many people travel to the countries of their heritage expecting to encounter long lost relatives, there is no chance of physically discovering a forgotten branch of my own family tree.  Despite this, I headed off to Lithuania, eager to see what else I might discover.

Vilnius is a lovely European capital, with big town squares, cobblestone, cheap beer, few tourists, and welcoming locals.   It’s a three-hour drive from the city to Kupiskis, which is no longer a shtetl, just a small industrial town.  Piloting an old rental van, the surrounding countryside explodes in the colours of fall.  Each passing kilometre is one more step into the past.     A bold sign on the outskirts signals I have arrived in the town. I feel like a grown turtle washing ashore on the very beach on which I was hatched.

In 2004, a group of fifty Kupiskis descendents from as far away as the US, UK, South Africa, Denmark and Australia visited this small town to dedicate a memorial to the Jewish families wiped out in the war.  They were greeted by the town mayor, and presented with a list of the names and ages of the victims compiled by a local midwife during the war – the only such list that exists in the country.   These names are now engraved on a memorial on a plaque on the old synagogue, which is now the town’s library, and my first stop.  I run my hand over the names on the memorial, stopping at several with the surname root of Ezroch. It is exhilarating to meet the names of these ancestors, and depressing to know what happened to them. I’ve found and lost new family members all at once.  

​Late afternoon Kupaskis is half asleep, the streets deserted. Red and gold leaves cover the roads. Some locals still get around in a horse and buggy.  There are a few clues of the town’s rich Jewish history; the old library, and a street named Sinagogo, still lined with century-old old wooden houses.  It is cold and damp, and I wonder how my great-grandparents adjusted to the hot, dry veldt when they immigrated to South Africa before the first World War.    I wonder what might have been if they didn’t.  With the help of a local guide named Regina Kopilevich, who specializes in genealogical tours, I visit several mass graves, some of them with memorials, some of them with vandalized plaques. Who would deface a mass grave?  The same kind of person responsible for its existence in the first place.
 
Jews and Gentiles had co-existed peacefully here since the 16th century.   Regina leads me to the ancient, wooden house of a 91 year-old local woman named Veronica.  Floating in and out of lucidity, she recalls babysitting Jewish children, even singing me a few Yiddish lullabies from the depth of her memory. Her house overlooks the Freethinkers Cemetery, a nearby site of one of the worst massacres.  Veronica witnessed the children in her care stripped, lined up, and murdered.  
“I still see their faces,” she says, “I cried and cried.” 
The room is freezing, as if all the joy in the world has been sucked right out of it. Veronica died a few months after my visit, taking those lullabies and horrors to her own grave.

Back in Vilnius, I spent hours researching life in Kupiskis, reading old reports, and the testimonials of survivors.  I Skyped my grandmother in Johannesburg and asked questions, feeling somewhat disappointed in myself that I had never asked her these questions before.   In turn, she was fascinated by what Lithuania looks like today, what has become of Kupiskis, a place that always haunted my late grandfather. Lithuania’s history did not settle. First the evils of Hitler, then Stalin, it became the first Eastern Bloc country to declare its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.   Although my own roots were dug up, I’m nevertheless drawn to country, its under-the-skin familiarity.  Three of my four grandparents were Lithuanian.  It must count for something.
 
Michael, a distant cousin in New York, is an amateur genealogist and proved a great resource prior to my visit.  He amassed over three thousand names on my family tree.    I asked him how others should begin their personal journey. “Talk to your parents and the oldest people you can find in your family.   Ask them very specific questions.   Names of places, birth dates, if they have any newspaper clippings,” he told me.   Every time an elder family member passes away, they take with them an important piece of the puzzle.
 
Genealogical travel brings the rewards of travel you’ll find anywhere: beautiful landscapes, interesting new cultures, people, food, and history.  Yet when you journey into the land of your heritage, it makes those rewards all the more relevant.   You don’t need plane tickets or hard earned savings to begin your quest either.  If you’ve ever wondered about where you come from, your Bucket List simply wants you to start asking questions.   ​​

Note: There are thousands of volunteer genealogical societies worldwide who can help you start your search.   Websites like Cyndis List and JewishGen contain many links to get you started, and there's all sorts of software to utilize.  Talk to the people you know before going to online archives, census records, obituaries, newspaper clippings, and other sources of information.   It is highly likely you’ll soon encounter a relative or enthusiast on the same path, eager to share and learn from you.    Remember, when publishing personal information on websites and databases to respect others privacy. 

It had to be the AK-47.   Sure, the M16 looked kinda slick, and who hasn't thought about firing off an old fashioned Tommy gun?   But the AK-47 is the weapon of the revolutionary, the tool of liberation, bloodshed, freedom, and all the misery that comes with it.     Plus, it only cost 100AED to fire off a magazine, whereas a rocket launcher would have set me back 800AED!    I put on the camouflage jacket and followed a young guy into a dark, narrow room.   A target was stapled about 30 feet away.    I put on my tight orange ear guards, took a seat at a table, too busy feeling the cold weapon in my hands to listen to the advice on how to shoot the damn thing.  Loaded, cocked, point, aim and fire.  
The Happy Shooting Range, located outside Phnom Penh, had a menu with pump action shot guns, hand grenades, RPG's, Coca-Cola and Fanta  (sorry, no pictures allowed).    Ten minutes away was the site of one of the worst massacres in modern history.   Cambodia, it appears, is heavy on the contrasts.
 
Torn between the forces of communist Vietnam and US-backed Thailand, Cambodia's modern history is literally a minefield.      At the heart of one the worst genocides in history lay Pol Pot, a ruthless dictator who built an army of brainwashed kids committed to returning the country to the Stone Age.   Genocide, famine, civil war – Cambodia in the 1970’s became synonymous with everything wrong with humanity.   Scarred by the past, it has come a long way.

Surrounded by twenty warriors clad in medieval uniforms, I felt as if I’d stumbled into a kung-fu movie.   Only this isn’t China, it’s Georgia (the other one).  I’m about to get a hands-on lesson in Europe’s only martial art, providing I can keep my arms from being wrenched out of their sockets, and my hands from being twisted right off my wrists.   I am wearing a heavy, scratchy 200-year old outfit, resurfaced along with other aspects of Georgian culture repressed under decades of Soviet rule.   The warriors move closer.   To learn how to punch a man, I must learn how to take a punch.   I crouch low, breathe deep, and steady myself for the blow.

Say what you will about the value of guidebooks, but I’d never have found Köycegiz if I’d had one with me in Turkey.   To be fair, this small Aegean town peppered against a large, warm, freshwater lake does get a mention in most Turkish guides - usually a throwaway paragraph with words like “sleepy” and “quiet” and “nice for lunch”.    It’s just one of several signposts you’ll pass en-route from the infamous ruins at Ephesus to the Mediterranean beach resorts around Fethiye.  But stop inside, look around, and you’ll find it as sweet as the sugar in Turkish tea,  as chilled as a penguin guzzling down some flash-frozen baba ghanouj.
 
I got the hot tip about Köycegiz from a New Zealander named Alison who ran a guesthouse in Selcuk. She had married herself a Turk, settled in for a life of olives and fruit orchids, and was only too happy to share the secret of the lake with me.   Since I had no real urgency to be anywhere else, I asked the Selcuk-Fethiye  bus driver to let me out on the highway outside the town. A couple of other travellers looked on with mild curiosity, and who could blame them?  Why is this guy getting off in the middle of nowhere?   Alison suggested I hit a local hostel and after walking through the quiet, sleepy, nice-for-lunch town, I was pleased to find the Tango welcoming and comfortable.   Large mattresses were covered in rugs and pillows, interspersed with hammocks, a bar and a DJ booth.  There were just a straggling of backpackers, but the owner Sahin assured me things would pick up when the Fez Bus pulled in.   The Fez is a hop-on hop-off backpacker bus with the deserved reputation of being a moving party.  In anticipation, Sahin had organized a booze cruise on the lake for that evening.   Enjoying the calm before the storm, I walked down to the lakefront and was blasted by a fresh breeze, the gentle lapping of water, the view of towering mountains in the distance.      The lake, also called Köycegiz, connects with the Mediterranean through a channel called the Dalyan Delta, and cruising through large bulrushes to the sea is a popular activity for Turkish tourists.   I see a couple guys playing tavla, which we know as backgammon, and gradually readjusted to the pace of a fishing village where not much happens and people prefer it that way.  Here is the real Turkey away from the bustle of the tourist circle, and with it of course, real Turkish hospitality.   People smile, invite you for tea, quiz your origins, all with a genuine sincerity and warmth.   Sometimes they’ll try sell you a rug too.

Well equipped with a headache the following morning, I awake to find the Tango Inn empty, the Fez Bus departed, and another delightful Turkish sunny day.  Hopping aboard a wooden boat crammed with local tourists on their way to the beach, I am the only foreigner and relish the enthusiastic hospitality.  I am ploughed with homemade food and polite questions by new found friends.  Along the canals, we pass imposing 2000-year-old Lyceum rock tombs carved into the cliffs above us.  History is never far away in Turkey.   After stopping off for a refreshing dip in the lake, we arrive at a long sandy beach, and the crystal blue Mediterranean.   I end up playing Frisbee with a some brothers from the boat, eating local delicacies, enjoying my spontaneous off the beaten path adventure.   The boats slowly makes its way back to Köycegiz at sunset, humid wind in my fingertips, the notes of a tanbur floating out the speakers up front.   These are the moments in life when you stop, look around, and believe that somehow, everything, for everybody, is going to work out just fine.    ​

On April 27th 2014, South Africa celebrated its 20th Anniversary of democracy.   It's difficult to explain just how momentous April 27, 1994 actually was.  What an achievement of justice, peace and reconciliation.    I searched through some very old journals and found the below. It's the voice of a young student recalling, somewhat whimsically, what was going on at the time.   Seemed like a good time to share.  

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South Africa was always behind The United States in terms of fashion and culture by about 25 years.  I know this because 25 years after Whites Only signs disappeared from the southern US landscape, so they slowly and finally removed themselves from our cities -  like an embarrassed party guest caught stealing the prize liquor in the cabinet.   Elevators, shops, busses, cinemas and even schools slowly dabbled with multiculturalism, tentatively dipping their toes in to see if they would freeze.   And then the demonized ANC was legalized.  And then the man the government told us to fear most, Nelson Mandela, was released like a hero returning from purgatory.   The wall was coming down, but many worked hard to ensure it would come down piece-by-peace, and not in one massive explosion that would take the country with it.    Like East Germans, black South Africans ventured into areas previously forbidden, knowing that they no longer needed a pass or permission to share the air and space of their country with the rest of us.  We were all scared, and all excited, because this was right, and moral, and just. 

Yet these things usually go down with civil war, bloodshed and violence, especially in Africa.      And then came Election Day. The first universally democratic vote ever in the history of South Africa.   The last white bastion stronghold, the colonial heart of history, was about to get a bypass.    Of the three main political parties, you kinda knew Black South Africans wouldn’t go for the National Party (under the slogan that should have read “48 years of Apartheid.  Whoops, sorry.  Vote NP!”).   The Conservative Party was made up of neo-nazi crackpot Afrikaners, lacking an enduring mascot, so, em, no go there.   Finally, we have the African National Congress, led by Nelson Mandela, who has fought against injustice with dignity and humanity, who has never backed down, who has inspired the world.   As you can tell, it was going to be a close race.   

And so Election Day was announced, along with the formation of a UN Monitoring Committee, to make sure it was free and fair and the National Party would not return to power on their apology platform. To be fair, age-old tensions between the primarily Xhosa ANC and the militant Zulu Inkatha Freedom Party had resulted in more than a few massacres in regions where massacres had gone on for centuries.   Intimidation was expected.  Many in the masses could neither read nor write.  

At the time of Election Day, I was in my second year at Rhodes University in Grahamstown.   At the time, the small college town on the Eastern Cape had a population of 80 000, 75% of which were unemployed.   5000 of which were mostly privileged white kids getting wasted on cheap beer, cheaper pot, and total independence from anything representing authority.   They called this "an education."  On April 27, a Saturday, I was driving with my friend Grant to his parent’s retirement house, 45 minutes away in the beautiful coastal village of Kenton-on-Sea.    We both shared the feeling that were our vote to actually count, we would probably register and do it.   But since a glowing unicorn mounted by a giant furry Cyclops wouldn’t stop Mandela from assuming rightful control of the country, there was little point to join the line and share the experience of voting.   Besides, we had voted before.   Just recently, Grant had voted for me as our [frat-house] Entertainment Coordinator, and I had rewarded him with a few beers.  Line-ups have never been my thing.  Years later I'd bribe a guard in Moscow's Red Square to skip a six hour line to see the glowing corpse of Lenin.  

I casually mention the word “line”.  Another word would be "queue."   Both these words do a grave injustice to the millions of black people who stood upright for hours (and in some cases days) in order to be counted.   They snaked from one end of town to the other, curving and turning as far the eye could see.  Sprinkled like white chocolate chips were pale faces.  As we walked down the main street, it was only then that we saw the importance, the victory, the remarkable road the country had driven down.    There was no violence.  There was just hope and victory.  A long, long, line of hope and victory.    

We drove past several towns and settlements, stopping along the way to observe the quality of human shape, the amazing patience of the masses.   Blue UN Voting Station signs were placed outside halls and schools, and slowly the lines fed into the machine like sausages.   The scene was similar across the country, and the world media loved it.  Several friends had volunteered to be coordinators, which was quite brave at the time, because there was still rumours that Election Day would see a white right-wing backlash, resulting in violence around the country.  There was some violence.  Xhosa/Zulu blood feuds are difficult to stamp out.    
As we made our way to the east, we did come across one town that seemed free of people.   The nearest township had its own voting station, and this one was almost exclusively for the white inhabitants, numbering about 23.   Now that it was convenient -  because politics is best when convenient - we decided to vote after all.  I voted for Nelson Mandela, and I’m proud that I did. It was a remarkable day, when Africa rediscovered its pride, and its chosen people.