Nick
Our first two weeks in Pemba was one of the hardest times we’ve had on our journey so far. We arrived fairly exhausted after our overland trip from Cape Town & we were met at the airport bus stop by the base leaders Katie & Jacinto, who took us to our new house. We hadn’t known where we were going to be based until we arrived. There are two bases in Pemba – one is the main base where all the children live & all the departments work – and the other is staff accommodation and is about 15 minutes walk along the beach. This smaller base is where our new house was – and although it wasn’t big, I think we were overjoyed that it was more than one room after being used to hotels for so long.
We agreed that we’d settle in for a week or two before deciding exactly what we were going to be doing at Iris. We had come to do micro-credit – helping people set up and run businesses through small loans – but Katie had asked us to consider helping with one of the areas that was particularly understaffed. Hardly anyone speaks a word of English, so our first task was to start language learning – Cate decided to focus on Makua (the main local African language) & I decided on Portuguese (spoken across the country). Every day we walked in the baking heat & humidity along to the other base to have our lunch in the dining hall and we’d sit and chat to people and learn the simplest phrases. At 5pm it would be dark & after supper we’d sit in our dimly lit house and play a game of Bananagrams, still hungry after the day’s food. We realised that without money, we were cut off from so many of the things that could make our lives easier. Going to a restaurant, buying extra food, having a car to drive around. We tried twice to go to the beach to relax and both times gave up and went home as we were denied any personal space.
Cate
And so our initial two weeks were long and testing. Our days were hot and shapeless, our bodies hungry, our house not feeling yet ours, our nights quiet and empty. Our bank balance hovered around the zero mark, before a couple of unexpected living costs dipped us into the red. For nine months we had been surviving entirely by praying to God to provide for our needs – and it had been a beautiful adventure of always having enough! We prayed, but we sank a little deeper into debt and began to ask questions. Were we still only to pray? And is it supposed to be this hard? The latter question became particularly acute as I would occasionally dissolve into tears over beans and rice (again).
Our route of prayer for finances began to isolate us. Friends would e-mail us asking how we were, and we would reply ambiguously that we were facing challenges. I sensed God begin to whisper to me. ‘Be honest, be open, be vulnerable. Don’t be proud, admit your need.’ So we e-mailed some close friends, and following that our parents, to ask for their wisdom on our money situation. Awaiting response and sitting in our little undecorated house trying to work out how to move forward. It was difficult, but it also was a time that taught us much. One day we bought some cheap grilled chicken, and I have never been so grateful. I began to understand the frustration of not having money, the jealousy that I felt as I saw others enjoy simple pleasures – and also beautiful things; the intimacy that came with drawing near to Him in the stretch, the dependence, the opening of my heart to another world of people unlike me.
It was not forever. In fact it was only to be two weeks, but it felt a lot longer. An American couple asked us to housesit (and dog-sit) while they returned to the States for two months. Delighted to be in a beautifully furnished, comfortable home, we accepted. A cheerful dog, a spacious yard, a fridge full of food – what a treat! Meanwhile, e-mail responses full of love and sincere counsel flooded our inbox, and we felt so held and cared for. Since then – through some of those precious ones, and through others too – abundant provision poured in, and has done ever since.
I can see the beauty of what we learned during our testing trip north, and our first fortnight in Pemba. But sometimes we are open to learning even more when hardship is chosen. Enforced simplicity can stir up a gritted-teeth, hardened-heart approach – this route says I have to do this, and it is hard, but I will do it. On the other hand, chosen sacrificial love has better fruit – that route says I will go without because I love you. Nonetheless despite our somewhat imposed simplicity, we managed to waver between these two routes and it was a humbling beginning in Pemba. And, sitting at the table of our air-conditioned home we were to housesit for two months, we seriously enjoyed our first bite of a homemade pancake.
Wednesday, 6 July 2011
Friday, 17 June 2011
Delightful Cape Town, Difficult journey
Cate
Cape Town was a blur of many beautiful memories. We began in Constancia with friends of Bill & Joyce, welcoming the latter with much excitement! After four months we were very happy to be with family again and sped off for lunch on a farm surrounded by pecking chicks. Our stay in Contancia was lovely, and we had some good conversations too.
We hired a car and our next stop was Newlands, staying in a very pretty cottage with the majestic Table Mountain watching over us. We took a very untaxing cable car to the top and witnessed stunning views of the beach below, with seemingly tiny ants sunbathing and moving around in miniscule metal cars. Braving an explosive ocean, we made it to Robben Island which for me was as solemn as it should be, but also inspiring as to what a person’s heart and will can achieve. We also ran around Kirstenbosch and there we drank the sweetest, deepest, thickest hot chocolate on earth.
Cape Town’s other side didn’t hide itself during our trip, for which I am glad. In fact visiting our friend Pete in Manenberg was a sheer delight, painting his house in bright colours and bible verses. Despite much fearful advice from people who look like us saying we mustn’t venture into the infamously dangerous Cape Flats, we met the friendliest Capetonians there and had a lot of fun. We also ate local African food in an informal settlement, met the children in the local nursery and asked ourselves questions. It takes forty minutes to drive on one road from the glossiest of wealth to the very hungry. Why on earth does Cape Town look like this? Why does the world look like this? Who will wade into this dynamic, be unafraid of its mess and love unceasingly? Am I willing to face these questions and not flinch? Are you?
We finished at Fishhoek, one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen, perched at the bottom of the earth. Surrounded by sea views, I spent much time snuggled in a rug on our veranda watching waves crash in the wind and drinking coffee. It was delightful to be with Bill and Joyce, who always love us so well and make us laugh. We had real conversations and thoroughly enjoyed each other’s company. It is really these rich days together, full of time and talk and sharing, that make up for the distance.
Our time together came to a close and a long journey north hung in the horizon. We had to make it all the way back to Iris in the Northern Mozambican town of Pemba, our chosen place to settle. Cape Town to Bloemfontein was the first stretch and we arrived at 1am into Bloem. Praying for a safe taxi, we had to trust a stranger with an unmarked car to take us in an unknown city to an unknown hostel. Considering all this, we arrived safely into a dingy warehouse and slept for five hours in a room with things like ‘Chris loves Stacey 2002’ ebbed in black marker pen on the wall.
Regretting our unrefreshing stop and vowing next time to sleep on the bus, we were back on a new bus to Johannesburg. We arrived drained to a perfect and invigorating stay with friends of Bill and Joyce. They looked after us so thoughtfully, fed us delicious food and sent us to Maputo cheered up with a gigantic bag of snacks.
Across the border to Maputo we felt a surprising sense of relief. Relief from what is still a great divide in South African – although there are differences in Mozambique, the stark separation is gone and in its place the warmth of mixture. In Maputo we checked into a backpackers and celebrated Nick eating fish again by going to a smart poolside restaurant and ordering the cheapest fish on the menu.
It was the following day that we realised we were very much behind on bookkeeping. The concerning conclusion was that we barely had enough money to eat, never mind make it to Pemba. Suddenly immeasurably grateful for the big bag of food our friends in Jo’burg gave us, we sat down to the share a little spinach salad in our hostel, and went to bed wondering what on earth we were going to do.
Quickly our imagined beachside amble north to Pemba, stopping in at little lodges to snooze, was forgotten. Our goal was to get to Pemba fast (because fast meant fewer hotel bills). We spent the next day brainstorming in the local bus company’s office. At 3am that night we boarded the bus to Beira, alongside weeping wives waving goodbye to working husbands, and 17 hours later we emerged at Beira utterly exhausted. I’m sure many enjoy their stay in Beira. What we read about it was it was a malaria hotspot and had an unpleasant night scene. What we experienced was a long and hungry day wandering around, with not a lot to eat, hoping someone might hand us a wad of cash. (Before you all start to worry, we are doing much better financially these days, but forget I told you for the moment, so you can really enjoy our tumultuous tale.)
Another middle-of-the-night awakening and another 17-hour bus journey awaited us. By this time we were really having to pull ourselves on the bus, pull ourselves north. The bus was unbearably cold with the AC pulsing freezing jets all night long, so I wore my scarf wrapped around my head for pure warmth and again felt grateful for the nuts and raisins to nibble on through the night. Finally in Nampula, friends of friends kindly took us in and fed us hot bean stew – and I am unsure if I have ever been so thankful for a hot meal! We spent a day resting at their place as I was feeling a bit unwell, and the next day spent seven hours on a bumpy ride up to Pemba. The last seven hours of a much longer trip that took seven months: England, France, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, South Africa, southern Mozambique, central Mozambique, northern Mozambique… Pemba. And this time to stay.
Cape Town was a blur of many beautiful memories. We began in Constancia with friends of Bill & Joyce, welcoming the latter with much excitement! After four months we were very happy to be with family again and sped off for lunch on a farm surrounded by pecking chicks. Our stay in Contancia was lovely, and we had some good conversations too.
We hired a car and our next stop was Newlands, staying in a very pretty cottage with the majestic Table Mountain watching over us. We took a very untaxing cable car to the top and witnessed stunning views of the beach below, with seemingly tiny ants sunbathing and moving around in miniscule metal cars. Braving an explosive ocean, we made it to Robben Island which for me was as solemn as it should be, but also inspiring as to what a person’s heart and will can achieve. We also ran around Kirstenbosch and there we drank the sweetest, deepest, thickest hot chocolate on earth.
Cape Town’s other side didn’t hide itself during our trip, for which I am glad. In fact visiting our friend Pete in Manenberg was a sheer delight, painting his house in bright colours and bible verses. Despite much fearful advice from people who look like us saying we mustn’t venture into the infamously dangerous Cape Flats, we met the friendliest Capetonians there and had a lot of fun. We also ate local African food in an informal settlement, met the children in the local nursery and asked ourselves questions. It takes forty minutes to drive on one road from the glossiest of wealth to the very hungry. Why on earth does Cape Town look like this? Why does the world look like this? Who will wade into this dynamic, be unafraid of its mess and love unceasingly? Am I willing to face these questions and not flinch? Are you?
We finished at Fishhoek, one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen, perched at the bottom of the earth. Surrounded by sea views, I spent much time snuggled in a rug on our veranda watching waves crash in the wind and drinking coffee. It was delightful to be with Bill and Joyce, who always love us so well and make us laugh. We had real conversations and thoroughly enjoyed each other’s company. It is really these rich days together, full of time and talk and sharing, that make up for the distance.
Our time together came to a close and a long journey north hung in the horizon. We had to make it all the way back to Iris in the Northern Mozambican town of Pemba, our chosen place to settle. Cape Town to Bloemfontein was the first stretch and we arrived at 1am into Bloem. Praying for a safe taxi, we had to trust a stranger with an unmarked car to take us in an unknown city to an unknown hostel. Considering all this, we arrived safely into a dingy warehouse and slept for five hours in a room with things like ‘Chris loves Stacey 2002’ ebbed in black marker pen on the wall.
Regretting our unrefreshing stop and vowing next time to sleep on the bus, we were back on a new bus to Johannesburg. We arrived drained to a perfect and invigorating stay with friends of Bill and Joyce. They looked after us so thoughtfully, fed us delicious food and sent us to Maputo cheered up with a gigantic bag of snacks.
Across the border to Maputo we felt a surprising sense of relief. Relief from what is still a great divide in South African – although there are differences in Mozambique, the stark separation is gone and in its place the warmth of mixture. In Maputo we checked into a backpackers and celebrated Nick eating fish again by going to a smart poolside restaurant and ordering the cheapest fish on the menu.
It was the following day that we realised we were very much behind on bookkeeping. The concerning conclusion was that we barely had enough money to eat, never mind make it to Pemba. Suddenly immeasurably grateful for the big bag of food our friends in Jo’burg gave us, we sat down to the share a little spinach salad in our hostel, and went to bed wondering what on earth we were going to do.
Quickly our imagined beachside amble north to Pemba, stopping in at little lodges to snooze, was forgotten. Our goal was to get to Pemba fast (because fast meant fewer hotel bills). We spent the next day brainstorming in the local bus company’s office. At 3am that night we boarded the bus to Beira, alongside weeping wives waving goodbye to working husbands, and 17 hours later we emerged at Beira utterly exhausted. I’m sure many enjoy their stay in Beira. What we read about it was it was a malaria hotspot and had an unpleasant night scene. What we experienced was a long and hungry day wandering around, with not a lot to eat, hoping someone might hand us a wad of cash. (Before you all start to worry, we are doing much better financially these days, but forget I told you for the moment, so you can really enjoy our tumultuous tale.)
Another middle-of-the-night awakening and another 17-hour bus journey awaited us. By this time we were really having to pull ourselves on the bus, pull ourselves north. The bus was unbearably cold with the AC pulsing freezing jets all night long, so I wore my scarf wrapped around my head for pure warmth and again felt grateful for the nuts and raisins to nibble on through the night. Finally in Nampula, friends of friends kindly took us in and fed us hot bean stew – and I am unsure if I have ever been so thankful for a hot meal! We spent a day resting at their place as I was feeling a bit unwell, and the next day spent seven hours on a bumpy ride up to Pemba. The last seven hours of a much longer trip that took seven months: England, France, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, South Africa, southern Mozambique, central Mozambique, northern Mozambique… Pemba. And this time to stay.
Thursday, 9 June 2011
A Playful Month in Zimbabwe
Cate
The school finished in dancing, celebration and glory on December 19th, 150 students racing out of Pemba believing they really could do anything. We raced out among them, but we knew we were returning in a month or two to this beautiful little Mozambiquan seaside town. Yes, during our stay God had spoken to us about staying, but more on that later.
Twenty of us jammed in the back of a truck, we left Pemba early in the morning. Zimbabwe – a land birthing stories of unparelled beauty and also pain – awaited us. An uncomfortable seven hours later, we emerged grubby and tired on a stunning farm outside Nampula, a town a little further south in Mozambique. Towering orange mountain rocks encircled us, and we spent a happy day playing in the greenery and running away from unnaturally huge insects. There we met two easygoing Zimbabweans who were driving to Harare the following day, and offered us a lift. Unbelievably helpful for us, we said yes please.
We broke for the night in a delightful guesthouse near the border of Mozambique and Zimbabwe. However the ‘superbugs’ (as we called them) we came across on the Nampula farm paled in comparison to the creatures that surrounded our little room. Great lizards, enormous crickets and cockroaches in the sink all competed for the ‘most alarming’ prize, but our winner was surely the baby scorpion hanging happily on our curtain. We fearfully informed the lady preparing our room, who calmly pinched the curtain with her bare fingers, killing the little intruder in two pinches.
We arrived in Harare and had a strange couple of days. We foolishly accepted a lift from a stranger (I know, I know) and felt a little shaken afterwards, as it brought back some unpleasant feelings from Dar. It felt almost like a ghost city – once a hub of art, life and richness, our snapshot was of countless vacant hotels, slightly sad Christmas lights and angry men. Happy to leave on the bus to Bulawayo we met our wonderful friend Ezra who took us in at his farm for what ended up being a month.
And what a fun month it was! We remember that month full of good conversation round his huge wooden table, long mornings with coffee, worship music always playing on the ipod, lots of delicious food, rambling around the farm with his two enormous puppies, making new friends, jumping on the back of Ez’s pick-up. We enjoying glimpsing Ez’s daily life, visiting ladies outgrowing chickens in his project and meeting some of the Zimbabwean leaders he works with – and even visiting Ebeneezer, a beautiful stretch of land where youth learn to farm in a similar way to how God cares for the land. Seeing the land bursting with food brought hope to our hearts and portrayed a bright alternative to the British media’s desolate depiction of a bleak nation. We absolutely heard horrendous stories during our trip; no doubt many Zimbabweans have witnessed a terrible degree of suffering. But the inspirational people we meet, the crops waving in the breeze and the faith of many stirred us with excitement.
We spent Christmas spotting elephants and hippos, and saw the unspeakably beautiful Victoria Falls. Our first wedding anniversary was celebrated over a veggie lasagne in a café – not exactly five star treatment, but full of good conversations, laughter and love – the good things of life! We even got to catch our dear friend Chris before we set out south.
And set out south we did, waving goodbye to our friends from the Bulawayo – Pretoria bus. South Africa here we come! I had never been before and this country of lions and landscapes, famous for countless reasons, held much allure. And it was only a night bus away…
We woke exhausted after a bad night’s sleep on the bus to Pretoria. (Picture it being the middle of the night, having to walk for ages carrying all your luggage. It was at this moment I remember saying to Nick in quite a cross voice ‘Why do we travel like this?’) Anna, our friend, came to collect us and hosted us in her beautiful house for what was an oasis of rest. We were still reeling at any Western food, and loved roaming around Western shopping complexes – we had seen nothing like this for months. Onwards to Cape Town - 24 hours in a train, but absolutely worth it for who awaited us there: the one and only Bill & Joyce Lear!
The school finished in dancing, celebration and glory on December 19th, 150 students racing out of Pemba believing they really could do anything. We raced out among them, but we knew we were returning in a month or two to this beautiful little Mozambiquan seaside town. Yes, during our stay God had spoken to us about staying, but more on that later.
Twenty of us jammed in the back of a truck, we left Pemba early in the morning. Zimbabwe – a land birthing stories of unparelled beauty and also pain – awaited us. An uncomfortable seven hours later, we emerged grubby and tired on a stunning farm outside Nampula, a town a little further south in Mozambique. Towering orange mountain rocks encircled us, and we spent a happy day playing in the greenery and running away from unnaturally huge insects. There we met two easygoing Zimbabweans who were driving to Harare the following day, and offered us a lift. Unbelievably helpful for us, we said yes please.
We broke for the night in a delightful guesthouse near the border of Mozambique and Zimbabwe. However the ‘superbugs’ (as we called them) we came across on the Nampula farm paled in comparison to the creatures that surrounded our little room. Great lizards, enormous crickets and cockroaches in the sink all competed for the ‘most alarming’ prize, but our winner was surely the baby scorpion hanging happily on our curtain. We fearfully informed the lady preparing our room, who calmly pinched the curtain with her bare fingers, killing the little intruder in two pinches.
We arrived in Harare and had a strange couple of days. We foolishly accepted a lift from a stranger (I know, I know) and felt a little shaken afterwards, as it brought back some unpleasant feelings from Dar. It felt almost like a ghost city – once a hub of art, life and richness, our snapshot was of countless vacant hotels, slightly sad Christmas lights and angry men. Happy to leave on the bus to Bulawayo we met our wonderful friend Ezra who took us in at his farm for what ended up being a month.
And what a fun month it was! We remember that month full of good conversation round his huge wooden table, long mornings with coffee, worship music always playing on the ipod, lots of delicious food, rambling around the farm with his two enormous puppies, making new friends, jumping on the back of Ez’s pick-up. We enjoying glimpsing Ez’s daily life, visiting ladies outgrowing chickens in his project and meeting some of the Zimbabwean leaders he works with – and even visiting Ebeneezer, a beautiful stretch of land where youth learn to farm in a similar way to how God cares for the land. Seeing the land bursting with food brought hope to our hearts and portrayed a bright alternative to the British media’s desolate depiction of a bleak nation. We absolutely heard horrendous stories during our trip; no doubt many Zimbabweans have witnessed a terrible degree of suffering. But the inspirational people we meet, the crops waving in the breeze and the faith of many stirred us with excitement.
We spent Christmas spotting elephants and hippos, and saw the unspeakably beautiful Victoria Falls. Our first wedding anniversary was celebrated over a veggie lasagne in a café – not exactly five star treatment, but full of good conversations, laughter and love – the good things of life! We even got to catch our dear friend Chris before we set out south.
And set out south we did, waving goodbye to our friends from the Bulawayo – Pretoria bus. South Africa here we come! I had never been before and this country of lions and landscapes, famous for countless reasons, held much allure. And it was only a night bus away…
We woke exhausted after a bad night’s sleep on the bus to Pretoria. (Picture it being the middle of the night, having to walk for ages carrying all your luggage. It was at this moment I remember saying to Nick in quite a cross voice ‘Why do we travel like this?’) Anna, our friend, came to collect us and hosted us in her beautiful house for what was an oasis of rest. We were still reeling at any Western food, and loved roaming around Western shopping complexes – we had seen nothing like this for months. Onwards to Cape Town - 24 hours in a train, but absolutely worth it for who awaited us there: the one and only Bill & Joyce Lear!
Saturday, 4 June 2011
The Iris Harvest School, Oct-Dec
Cate
Is it possible to sum up two months in a few paragraphs? It is even more of a challenge when those two months are spent intensely, sometimes learning an abundance of new thoughts, sometimes mediating on the beauty of the oldest truths, the heart whizzing through the weeks with barely any time to digest all that is poured in. Does that make any sense?
Let me start with our home. We were given a little concrete house amidst fifteen other houses. In this little house we had a room a little larger than our double bed. We shared our wee kitchen with eight other women (also doing the school). This was to be our community for the next ten weeks. We woke around 6am, to have tea and bread for breakfast, have a quiet time, sometimes hand-washing our clothes until we dripped with sweat, and began class at 8am singing to God and loving him with all our hearts. We sat on the floor for 5 or 6 hours listening to some of the most inspirational people walking the earth share with us – on all manner of things… on love, on being with the poor, on learning a new culture, on miraculous healing and raising the dead, on being intimate with Jesus, knowing the Father’s heart… It was truly shaping and we would always leave for beans at lunch with our heads spinning and our hearts on fire – inspired to be what we heard about.
Afternoons were free, but we would often have meetings, hang around with kids, read our required book list… Yet sometimes Nick and I would escape the crazy schedule and catch up over a soda. It was a deeply beautiful time and we learnt a lot. During those months it felt like my head was full, my heart was full, and I was hungry to see what all of this teaching looked like in practice.
A question Heidi often posed to us was “what does love look like?” To the widow, to the orphan, to the rich banker, to your sister, to the lonely? And I felt my heart enlarge… She shared from her depths, pleading with us to stop with compassion for the one in front of us, and also inviting us to stop to spend time with God, to let him be a Daddy to us, to cover us with his love. Often we would spend time singing to him, talking to him after someone had taught, and it was in these times that I felt him open my eyes to new things – like, for example, I felt a huge joy that I had been forgiven. Often people tell you in church “oh you are forgiven through Jesus” and we are supposed to be happy about it, but sometimes we are pretending because we don’t know what that really means. One day after Rolland shared about Jesus saving us I felt so happy, so delighted, so grateful I was in tears.
Nick
The Iris Harvest School is an incredible opportunity to grow in your faith. For us, it was like someone holding our hand as we had ventured out of our home countries into Africa, following a sense of God’s call to work with children in need, but with no home or place to go. Some of you may have been to church conferences or church weekends and experienced God in a new and more powerful way. The school was a bit like that, but tenfold. People had come from all over the world to experience God and that itself bought a really exciting feel to the group of 150 or so students. On the other hand most of us found being outside of our comfort zones pretty tough – lack of personal space in the houses and out and about, the soaring temperatures, the basic diet (oops, we’re now responsible for that diet!) – and that meant it was pretty difficult at times. Also, for me it was stretching to hear so much about miracles and the supernatural and to be with a group that was quite as loud as this one was in the meetings. At times some would scream and laugh and cry and fall over when they were experiencing God in some way. It’s always tempting to judge people for doing this and want to feel like they are looking for attention, but I tried to fight this as hard as I could and just focus on my response to what we were learning about.
By far and away the most inspirational teaching came from Heidi Baker who started the ministry with her husband. I have never heard teaching with the heart that she has and with real life action to back it up. The only reason Iris is here in Mozambique at all is because 15 years ago she started going to a rubbish dump and telling them about Jesus, and then started taking in kids to their home when they found orphans who’d been left to fend for themselves. Rolland Baker too brought excellent teaching, bringing a lot of wisdom and balance to the more fiery visiting speakers. And fiery ones there were! From the USA, from Singapore, from Brazil, from Mozambique… people Heidi thought would inspire us and who were walking the walk too. Some of the major themes were taking risks, expecting miracles, being compassionate to the one person in front of you when surrounded by so much need, coming to a new culture humbly and from a place of service and bringing in the kingdom of God through preaching the gospel and praying for the sick. Iris Pemba has an incredible commitment to send out teams every weekend week in week out to visit villages in the bush to show the Jesus film, preach the gospel and pray for the sick.
I think this last thing was the thing that impacted me most on the school. I think for a long time I have drifted from the commitment I had in my 20’s to enable people to hear of the wonderful grace that is available to them in Jesus. He has absolutely transformed my life and continues to do so, and I want to live and speak in a way that brings people to God. I think for a long time, under the cover of sensitivity or feeling like I was too hypocritical to preach any message, I have long ceased to live like that. I felt like a weight lifted off me on the school. I think it helps stepping out of the UK and being in a different culture – it helped me see more clearly what my life had become. I was also spending a lot of my time and energy focusing on issues of the environment and of the institutional church. These are still areas I am passionate about, but they had become far too dominant for me. Jesus’ first disciples had a pretty simple message on their minds when they travelled village to village.
Cate
For me, the school was not only a beautiful walk but a wrestle. “What does love look like?” is a challenging question, and I found myself constantly probing myself. Is it ok to have a coke? Should I live in a mud hut? It is easy to say “no, no, don’t be too extreme” to these kind of questions, but I think there is beauty in loving the poor so much that they become my family, and it is difficult to see huge gulfs of wealth between me and my family. But there is also a beauty in letting God be Daddy and letting him treat me, nurture me, look after me, and that might mean a coke! Throughout the school I wrestled a fair bit, and occasionally drifted into the arid lands of pushing myself towards a simplicity of lifestyle that I could not achieve – nor one Daddy was asking of me. I found the food tough too and found myself longing for a feta salad like never before.
Despite all this, I was ringing with joy from so many different wonderful experiences. With hindsight now I see a lot of beautiful thoughts were carved into my heart during that time… But, really, life is more beautiful now we are actually living it (more about this later). Yes it harder now. Yes we have to engineer our own spiritual input rather than pitching up to six hours of teaching and singing. Yes now people can be really mean and a lot of people during the school was amazingly sweet. Yes we slept more then than we do now. Yes, then, we were free to go to the beach whenever we wanted, and now we have to hand out plates of beans and deal with terrible conflicts. But I found learning about love was absolutely not what I crave. I crave to live a life of love. A life that spends hours receiving the beautiful love of my saviour, and a life that pours out, like wine, unceasing, full of compassion for the one who fights, full of healing for the one who hurts, overflowing and pouring, redeeming and changing. Why only learn about the most beautiful thing on earth when one can really become it?
Is it possible to sum up two months in a few paragraphs? It is even more of a challenge when those two months are spent intensely, sometimes learning an abundance of new thoughts, sometimes mediating on the beauty of the oldest truths, the heart whizzing through the weeks with barely any time to digest all that is poured in. Does that make any sense?
Let me start with our home. We were given a little concrete house amidst fifteen other houses. In this little house we had a room a little larger than our double bed. We shared our wee kitchen with eight other women (also doing the school). This was to be our community for the next ten weeks. We woke around 6am, to have tea and bread for breakfast, have a quiet time, sometimes hand-washing our clothes until we dripped with sweat, and began class at 8am singing to God and loving him with all our hearts. We sat on the floor for 5 or 6 hours listening to some of the most inspirational people walking the earth share with us – on all manner of things… on love, on being with the poor, on learning a new culture, on miraculous healing and raising the dead, on being intimate with Jesus, knowing the Father’s heart… It was truly shaping and we would always leave for beans at lunch with our heads spinning and our hearts on fire – inspired to be what we heard about.
Afternoons were free, but we would often have meetings, hang around with kids, read our required book list… Yet sometimes Nick and I would escape the crazy schedule and catch up over a soda. It was a deeply beautiful time and we learnt a lot. During those months it felt like my head was full, my heart was full, and I was hungry to see what all of this teaching looked like in practice.
A question Heidi often posed to us was “what does love look like?” To the widow, to the orphan, to the rich banker, to your sister, to the lonely? And I felt my heart enlarge… She shared from her depths, pleading with us to stop with compassion for the one in front of us, and also inviting us to stop to spend time with God, to let him be a Daddy to us, to cover us with his love. Often we would spend time singing to him, talking to him after someone had taught, and it was in these times that I felt him open my eyes to new things – like, for example, I felt a huge joy that I had been forgiven. Often people tell you in church “oh you are forgiven through Jesus” and we are supposed to be happy about it, but sometimes we are pretending because we don’t know what that really means. One day after Rolland shared about Jesus saving us I felt so happy, so delighted, so grateful I was in tears.
Nick
The Iris Harvest School is an incredible opportunity to grow in your faith. For us, it was like someone holding our hand as we had ventured out of our home countries into Africa, following a sense of God’s call to work with children in need, but with no home or place to go. Some of you may have been to church conferences or church weekends and experienced God in a new and more powerful way. The school was a bit like that, but tenfold. People had come from all over the world to experience God and that itself bought a really exciting feel to the group of 150 or so students. On the other hand most of us found being outside of our comfort zones pretty tough – lack of personal space in the houses and out and about, the soaring temperatures, the basic diet (oops, we’re now responsible for that diet!) – and that meant it was pretty difficult at times. Also, for me it was stretching to hear so much about miracles and the supernatural and to be with a group that was quite as loud as this one was in the meetings. At times some would scream and laugh and cry and fall over when they were experiencing God in some way. It’s always tempting to judge people for doing this and want to feel like they are looking for attention, but I tried to fight this as hard as I could and just focus on my response to what we were learning about.
By far and away the most inspirational teaching came from Heidi Baker who started the ministry with her husband. I have never heard teaching with the heart that she has and with real life action to back it up. The only reason Iris is here in Mozambique at all is because 15 years ago she started going to a rubbish dump and telling them about Jesus, and then started taking in kids to their home when they found orphans who’d been left to fend for themselves. Rolland Baker too brought excellent teaching, bringing a lot of wisdom and balance to the more fiery visiting speakers. And fiery ones there were! From the USA, from Singapore, from Brazil, from Mozambique… people Heidi thought would inspire us and who were walking the walk too. Some of the major themes were taking risks, expecting miracles, being compassionate to the one person in front of you when surrounded by so much need, coming to a new culture humbly and from a place of service and bringing in the kingdom of God through preaching the gospel and praying for the sick. Iris Pemba has an incredible commitment to send out teams every weekend week in week out to visit villages in the bush to show the Jesus film, preach the gospel and pray for the sick.
I think this last thing was the thing that impacted me most on the school. I think for a long time I have drifted from the commitment I had in my 20’s to enable people to hear of the wonderful grace that is available to them in Jesus. He has absolutely transformed my life and continues to do so, and I want to live and speak in a way that brings people to God. I think for a long time, under the cover of sensitivity or feeling like I was too hypocritical to preach any message, I have long ceased to live like that. I felt like a weight lifted off me on the school. I think it helps stepping out of the UK and being in a different culture – it helped me see more clearly what my life had become. I was also spending a lot of my time and energy focusing on issues of the environment and of the institutional church. These are still areas I am passionate about, but they had become far too dominant for me. Jesus’ first disciples had a pretty simple message on their minds when they travelled village to village.
Cate
For me, the school was not only a beautiful walk but a wrestle. “What does love look like?” is a challenging question, and I found myself constantly probing myself. Is it ok to have a coke? Should I live in a mud hut? It is easy to say “no, no, don’t be too extreme” to these kind of questions, but I think there is beauty in loving the poor so much that they become my family, and it is difficult to see huge gulfs of wealth between me and my family. But there is also a beauty in letting God be Daddy and letting him treat me, nurture me, look after me, and that might mean a coke! Throughout the school I wrestled a fair bit, and occasionally drifted into the arid lands of pushing myself towards a simplicity of lifestyle that I could not achieve – nor one Daddy was asking of me. I found the food tough too and found myself longing for a feta salad like never before.
Despite all this, I was ringing with joy from so many different wonderful experiences. With hindsight now I see a lot of beautiful thoughts were carved into my heart during that time… But, really, life is more beautiful now we are actually living it (more about this later). Yes it harder now. Yes we have to engineer our own spiritual input rather than pitching up to six hours of teaching and singing. Yes now people can be really mean and a lot of people during the school was amazingly sweet. Yes we slept more then than we do now. Yes, then, we were free to go to the beach whenever we wanted, and now we have to hand out plates of beans and deal with terrible conflicts. But I found learning about love was absolutely not what I crave. I crave to live a life of love. A life that spends hours receiving the beautiful love of my saviour, and a life that pours out, like wine, unceasing, full of compassion for the one who fights, full of healing for the one who hurts, overflowing and pouring, redeeming and changing. Why only learn about the most beautiful thing on earth when one can really become it?
Friday, 20 May 2011
Danger in Dar
Nick
If you were following our blog when we travelled down to Mozambique from London, we got as far as the Kenya-Tanzania border where we had our third and most embarassing incident of not having enough money to buy the visa into the next country & where I had to spend a few hours travelling back to a town with a cash machine while Cate sat with the border police. All of this meant that by the time we had cleared the border – getting on the back of a motorbike being the only way to travel between Lunga Lunga in Kenya and Hora Hora in Tanzania – it was too late to travel further, which we had planned to do, as we had often read dubious reports of small border towns.
It was a slightly scary experience, as the almost complete lack of electrical lighting added to our general fear of borders, but we found a basic hotel which served an even more basic meal. We even braved a walk around and talked to some of the people, who were very friendly, and there were plenty of Masai in their traditional dress. In the morning light, all fears were gone as we waited for the next bus travelling down to the capital, Dar Es Salaam. This bus proved to be the bumpiest we had yet experienced with us being thrown right out of our seats for a particularly bumpy stretch. Nevertheless we made it safely to the city.
When we arrived, the taxi drivers outside were already competing for our custom by trying to catch our eye on the bus & we agreed to go with a particularly keen man who gave his name as ‘Jones’. With the benefit of hindsight there will be many points where it is hard to see why we didn’t smell something fishy, but remember we had travelled across Europe, through the Middle East & down through half of Africa without a hitch, so we’d become very trusting.
We had a few budget places in mind to stay in, but he recommended the Arocha Grand Hotel & we decided to go with his advice. We noticed he sat in reception for the whole time we were checking in and was keen to give us his number if we needed a taxi later on. We did need a taxi to take us to the ferry port for our trip to the island of Zanzibar, so booked Jones to return the next day. He picked us up with his friend in the car. This would be very strange in the UK, but it didn’t feel any different to us than a lot of other strange experiences we’d had on our journey down.
At the port, his friend accompanied us through the ticket office, which was appreciated as we didn’t know much about what to do and there was a lot of hassle at the port, like men arguing and picking up rocks outside the office. At the end Jones’ friend asked if we wanted a taxi to pick us up on return to Dar two days later. We booked this friend, and told him our return time.
Cate
And so off we zoomed to Zanzibar for a special couple of days. A birthday treat and a celebration of the near-end of our travels, we booked into a lovely beachside place. With an entire apartment to ourselves, we walked on white sands and swam in astonishingly blue waters. I had a lovely massage listening to the gentle murmuring of waves, and we nuzzled up with prawns by candlelight. The sound of Zanzibar evokes wealth in the imagination, and fittingly so– exotic and beautiful, a picture of boats in azure sea in the afternoon, warm fushia skies by night.
Nick
Two days later in the Zanzibar port, the morning ferry was cancelled. Still, after getting the afternoon ferry after a lovely lunch in Stone Town, the man was there to pick us up. I felt bad that he had waited all day for our custom.
He took us to his taxi where there were two new men – one was introduced as his driver and the other his uncle. We had gone from having 1 to 2 to 3 men in the taxi each time and had thought it was just a cultural thing – we had often seen the Afircan custom of sharing business with friends or family even when it wasn’t what we would call efficient or needed. They were also incredibly charming and friendly – some of the friendliest men we had met on our travels. We had intended to go to the Mozambique embassy that day, but because our boat was delayed, we knew it was now shut. The guys said they knew the embassy worker and could take us to his house, where he would arrange a visa for us. We were so pleased about this as we were behind schedule in getting to Pemba and thought it was a real stroke of luck. Within about half an hour we were driving out of town. They turned off the main road, saying we were near the embassy worker’s house. I remember feeling a slight twinge at this point, that perhaps it was a little bit odd that we were driving out of town with three guys we didn’t know, but I put it down to just one more of the very different experieces that we’d had on this trip.
They turned off the main road – saying it was to avoid the traffic – and as we were heading away into a quiet, dusty, residential area they stopped the car and in got one more man. We now had four men in the car – two of them in the front and two squeezed in the back with us. I know it seems hard to believe, but even at this point we trusted them. Even now we were laughing and chatting away with them and with this new man, believing them to be some of the nicest people we’d met on our trip.
A few minutes later they stopped the car and said it was time to introduce themselves. This was a chilling and horrible moment. In an instant all their charm and friendliness vanished. The newest man seemed to take the lead and calmly explained that they were going to take all our money, and that nothing would happen to us if we cooperated. The man in the front was much more agitated and shouted at us that they were dangerous. We had long ago decided that in a mugging we would do what was asked of us, that money was nothing compared to saftey. We were also trapped. The doors were locked from the front, they were four strong men & I remembered that I had waved to children before and they’d looked right through me. The windows were reflective.
So I handed over all our cash and cards. They took all this, but they were quite nervous and agitated and quite soon they were having a four-way shouting match with each other. Cate was crying by this time and pleading with them not to hurt me. Under pressure, Cate showed her selfless character. The man in the front was angry that Cate was crying, saying that they hadn’t hit her or anything. In a panic they thrust all the cash and cards back at me and drove off, as if they weren’t happy with how this was going. That didn’t last long however & they stopped again and took everything back.
We had already been in the car with them for about an hour by now, Congolese music playing the whole time in the background. We were more than ready to get out of that car. But their method was to drive around the city using different cash machines, not taking too much at each machine, until they had reached the limit on the cards. On our journey we had constantly had problems with our cards not working in all machines or with all banks and sometimes not working in a country at all. We tried to explain this to them, as the cards were not working at the first few machines they tried. They seemed to believe us for a time, but as time went on and they were getting increasingly stressed. They were driving madly around, finding new ATMs, parking up, getting out and queueing, using the card and seeing no cash. They decided we were lying about the PIN numbers. This was a sickly, horrible time as their threats increased, as did our pleas that we were telling the truth and that the cards were at fault. They kept saying, “Maybe you have made a mistake with the PIN number” as if I was lying and that would make it easier to say “Sorry, you’re right, I have made a mistake, this is the right number.” But I knew I hadn’t. It was starting to feel like we’d never be released. Even so, we were able to explain that as Christians we forgave them for what they were doing & that we wouldn’t hold it against them.
Cate
After three hours of no success, they were convinced we were lying. They provided an ultimatum, that they would kill me if Nick did not confess the correct pin. The man left the car for what he said was his final time. We were praying like crazy, unbearably desperate. I felt as though God showed me a huge ring of fire around us, protecting us. Sure enough, that time the pin worked! I tell you, it was a complete miracle and I believe God utterly broke in and saved our lives.
After retracting a nasty amount of cash, they put us in a tuk tuk (three-wheeled taxi) and sent us off to a hotel of their recommendation. Not keen to take advice from our fellow bandits, I requested we go straight to the smartest and safest hotel in town. There we spent a few days resting, worshipping and recovering. It was a beautiful time. We were fragile and yet so held by our loving God. We would get scared and then we would worship and feel safe and bold. We slept in unimaginable luxury after two months of roughing it to reach Africa. We ate a lot of food. We also caught a flight to Pemba, keen to head towards our destination. And I must say once we arrived in our little Pemba place, we let out a big sigh of relief. Rich and incredibly joyous, and yet full of hard hours and tears – the long journey south was finally over. At least for the moment.
If you were following our blog when we travelled down to Mozambique from London, we got as far as the Kenya-Tanzania border where we had our third and most embarassing incident of not having enough money to buy the visa into the next country & where I had to spend a few hours travelling back to a town with a cash machine while Cate sat with the border police. All of this meant that by the time we had cleared the border – getting on the back of a motorbike being the only way to travel between Lunga Lunga in Kenya and Hora Hora in Tanzania – it was too late to travel further, which we had planned to do, as we had often read dubious reports of small border towns.
It was a slightly scary experience, as the almost complete lack of electrical lighting added to our general fear of borders, but we found a basic hotel which served an even more basic meal. We even braved a walk around and talked to some of the people, who were very friendly, and there were plenty of Masai in their traditional dress. In the morning light, all fears were gone as we waited for the next bus travelling down to the capital, Dar Es Salaam. This bus proved to be the bumpiest we had yet experienced with us being thrown right out of our seats for a particularly bumpy stretch. Nevertheless we made it safely to the city.
When we arrived, the taxi drivers outside were already competing for our custom by trying to catch our eye on the bus & we agreed to go with a particularly keen man who gave his name as ‘Jones’. With the benefit of hindsight there will be many points where it is hard to see why we didn’t smell something fishy, but remember we had travelled across Europe, through the Middle East & down through half of Africa without a hitch, so we’d become very trusting.
We had a few budget places in mind to stay in, but he recommended the Arocha Grand Hotel & we decided to go with his advice. We noticed he sat in reception for the whole time we were checking in and was keen to give us his number if we needed a taxi later on. We did need a taxi to take us to the ferry port for our trip to the island of Zanzibar, so booked Jones to return the next day. He picked us up with his friend in the car. This would be very strange in the UK, but it didn’t feel any different to us than a lot of other strange experiences we’d had on our journey down.
At the port, his friend accompanied us through the ticket office, which was appreciated as we didn’t know much about what to do and there was a lot of hassle at the port, like men arguing and picking up rocks outside the office. At the end Jones’ friend asked if we wanted a taxi to pick us up on return to Dar two days later. We booked this friend, and told him our return time.
Cate
And so off we zoomed to Zanzibar for a special couple of days. A birthday treat and a celebration of the near-end of our travels, we booked into a lovely beachside place. With an entire apartment to ourselves, we walked on white sands and swam in astonishingly blue waters. I had a lovely massage listening to the gentle murmuring of waves, and we nuzzled up with prawns by candlelight. The sound of Zanzibar evokes wealth in the imagination, and fittingly so– exotic and beautiful, a picture of boats in azure sea in the afternoon, warm fushia skies by night.
Nick
Two days later in the Zanzibar port, the morning ferry was cancelled. Still, after getting the afternoon ferry after a lovely lunch in Stone Town, the man was there to pick us up. I felt bad that he had waited all day for our custom.
He took us to his taxi where there were two new men – one was introduced as his driver and the other his uncle. We had gone from having 1 to 2 to 3 men in the taxi each time and had thought it was just a cultural thing – we had often seen the Afircan custom of sharing business with friends or family even when it wasn’t what we would call efficient or needed. They were also incredibly charming and friendly – some of the friendliest men we had met on our travels. We had intended to go to the Mozambique embassy that day, but because our boat was delayed, we knew it was now shut. The guys said they knew the embassy worker and could take us to his house, where he would arrange a visa for us. We were so pleased about this as we were behind schedule in getting to Pemba and thought it was a real stroke of luck. Within about half an hour we were driving out of town. They turned off the main road, saying we were near the embassy worker’s house. I remember feeling a slight twinge at this point, that perhaps it was a little bit odd that we were driving out of town with three guys we didn’t know, but I put it down to just one more of the very different experieces that we’d had on this trip.
They turned off the main road – saying it was to avoid the traffic – and as we were heading away into a quiet, dusty, residential area they stopped the car and in got one more man. We now had four men in the car – two of them in the front and two squeezed in the back with us. I know it seems hard to believe, but even at this point we trusted them. Even now we were laughing and chatting away with them and with this new man, believing them to be some of the nicest people we’d met on our trip.
A few minutes later they stopped the car and said it was time to introduce themselves. This was a chilling and horrible moment. In an instant all their charm and friendliness vanished. The newest man seemed to take the lead and calmly explained that they were going to take all our money, and that nothing would happen to us if we cooperated. The man in the front was much more agitated and shouted at us that they were dangerous. We had long ago decided that in a mugging we would do what was asked of us, that money was nothing compared to saftey. We were also trapped. The doors were locked from the front, they were four strong men & I remembered that I had waved to children before and they’d looked right through me. The windows were reflective.
So I handed over all our cash and cards. They took all this, but they were quite nervous and agitated and quite soon they were having a four-way shouting match with each other. Cate was crying by this time and pleading with them not to hurt me. Under pressure, Cate showed her selfless character. The man in the front was angry that Cate was crying, saying that they hadn’t hit her or anything. In a panic they thrust all the cash and cards back at me and drove off, as if they weren’t happy with how this was going. That didn’t last long however & they stopped again and took everything back.
We had already been in the car with them for about an hour by now, Congolese music playing the whole time in the background. We were more than ready to get out of that car. But their method was to drive around the city using different cash machines, not taking too much at each machine, until they had reached the limit on the cards. On our journey we had constantly had problems with our cards not working in all machines or with all banks and sometimes not working in a country at all. We tried to explain this to them, as the cards were not working at the first few machines they tried. They seemed to believe us for a time, but as time went on and they were getting increasingly stressed. They were driving madly around, finding new ATMs, parking up, getting out and queueing, using the card and seeing no cash. They decided we were lying about the PIN numbers. This was a sickly, horrible time as their threats increased, as did our pleas that we were telling the truth and that the cards were at fault. They kept saying, “Maybe you have made a mistake with the PIN number” as if I was lying and that would make it easier to say “Sorry, you’re right, I have made a mistake, this is the right number.” But I knew I hadn’t. It was starting to feel like we’d never be released. Even so, we were able to explain that as Christians we forgave them for what they were doing & that we wouldn’t hold it against them.
Cate
After three hours of no success, they were convinced we were lying. They provided an ultimatum, that they would kill me if Nick did not confess the correct pin. The man left the car for what he said was his final time. We were praying like crazy, unbearably desperate. I felt as though God showed me a huge ring of fire around us, protecting us. Sure enough, that time the pin worked! I tell you, it was a complete miracle and I believe God utterly broke in and saved our lives.
After retracting a nasty amount of cash, they put us in a tuk tuk (three-wheeled taxi) and sent us off to a hotel of their recommendation. Not keen to take advice from our fellow bandits, I requested we go straight to the smartest and safest hotel in town. There we spent a few days resting, worshipping and recovering. It was a beautiful time. We were fragile and yet so held by our loving God. We would get scared and then we would worship and feel safe and bold. We slept in unimaginable luxury after two months of roughing it to reach Africa. We ate a lot of food. We also caught a flight to Pemba, keen to head towards our destination. And I must say once we arrived in our little Pemba place, we let out a big sigh of relief. Rich and incredibly joyous, and yet full of hard hours and tears – the long journey south was finally over. At least for the moment.
Thursday, 12 May 2011
What has happened since we last wrote
Nick
So we did finally fulfill our original blog title and make it all the way from Camberwell to Cape Town. We travelled through 3 continents & 18 Countries, on 30 long train & bus journeys (many of which were through the night & a couple were more than 24 hours!), plus 2 plane flights, 3 ferries, quite a few taxis and tuk-tuks and motorbikes and one camel. London to Cape Town is about 6000 miles as the plane flies, but I think we travelled around 9000 miles to get there. It cost a lot more in pounds and a lot less in carbon dioxide. And we had a life-changing experience of cultures and people that we may never have again (or might have in a couple of years if we want to come back and visit!) I’ve got to say that neither of us are born travellers – we didn’t chose to do this for fun and it was pretty tough at times. But I think it has shaped us and our ability to adjust to the different culture that we now live in.
Cate
Let’s go back to early October last year. We will spend a bit of time going through our experience in Dar es Salaam – mainly the reason why our blog stopped so abruptly. Then we must share a bit about our two months attending the Iris school in Mozambique, zoom onto our month in Zimbabwe, share stories from South Africa and finally report back from our long trip north – back to Pemba. I now sit in Pemba looking out on the expansive blue Indian Ocean, the sun beginning to sink in the sky. We now call this place our home. But I am skipping ahead. Back to Dar, and then onwards and upwards!
So we did finally fulfill our original blog title and make it all the way from Camberwell to Cape Town. We travelled through 3 continents & 18 Countries, on 30 long train & bus journeys (many of which were through the night & a couple were more than 24 hours!), plus 2 plane flights, 3 ferries, quite a few taxis and tuk-tuks and motorbikes and one camel. London to Cape Town is about 6000 miles as the plane flies, but I think we travelled around 9000 miles to get there. It cost a lot more in pounds and a lot less in carbon dioxide. And we had a life-changing experience of cultures and people that we may never have again (or might have in a couple of years if we want to come back and visit!) I’ve got to say that neither of us are born travellers – we didn’t chose to do this for fun and it was pretty tough at times. But I think it has shaped us and our ability to adjust to the different culture that we now live in.
Cate
Let’s go back to early October last year. We will spend a bit of time going through our experience in Dar es Salaam – mainly the reason why our blog stopped so abruptly. Then we must share a bit about our two months attending the Iris school in Mozambique, zoom onto our month in Zimbabwe, share stories from South Africa and finally report back from our long trip north – back to Pemba. I now sit in Pemba looking out on the expansive blue Indian Ocean, the sun beginning to sink in the sky. We now call this place our home. But I am skipping ahead. Back to Dar, and then onwards and upwards!
Thursday, 11 November 2010
We are safely in Pemba, Mozambique
Nick
I am so sorry that we didn't post this a month ago. We were hoping to finish off the blog in chronological order, but it has proved hard to get to the internet here & time has flown by.
We will try to have time to finish off the story of our travels - not that anyone's following it by now I imagine, but it would be good for it to be a complete record. By the way, thank you for all of you that did follow our journey - it was a strength for us as we travelled.
We have been at the Heidi & Rolland Baker School out here for 5 weeks now and have 4 more to go. If you zoom in on the map you can see where we are - right on the coast literally on the beach which is beautiful.
We are loving it. There are some hard things, but we're learning so so much and are around people who have gone ahead of us on the path we are heading down. We'll try to write more at some point.
If you are praying the main things are
- God speaking to us about what comes next, whether with Iris or not
- Health, e.g. Malaria and tummy bugs
- For God to change us and teach us and grow us, particularly in the areas less up our street (I have a longer list than Cate!)
Lots of love, Nick and Cate
I am so sorry that we didn't post this a month ago. We were hoping to finish off the blog in chronological order, but it has proved hard to get to the internet here & time has flown by.
We will try to have time to finish off the story of our travels - not that anyone's following it by now I imagine, but it would be good for it to be a complete record. By the way, thank you for all of you that did follow our journey - it was a strength for us as we travelled.
We have been at the Heidi & Rolland Baker School out here for 5 weeks now and have 4 more to go. If you zoom in on the map you can see where we are - right on the coast literally on the beach which is beautiful.
We are loving it. There are some hard things, but we're learning so so much and are around people who have gone ahead of us on the path we are heading down. We'll try to write more at some point.
If you are praying the main things are
- God speaking to us about what comes next, whether with Iris or not
- Health, e.g. Malaria and tummy bugs
- For God to change us and teach us and grow us, particularly in the areas less up our street (I have a longer list than Cate!)
Lots of love, Nick and Cate
Tuesday, 12 October 2010
To the coast
Nick
So that night we got the sleeper from Nairobi to Mombassa. My friend had warned me that the last few times she took it it had taken a lot longer than the 14 hours that it should. Getting in to the train station was quite stressful as they tried to keep out some people and let others in - through a small gate. This sleeper had a buffet car where we unwisely opted for the second sitting which was a lot later than its adverised time. At some point during the meal the train stopped. Going to sleep it was still stationary. I was woken at about 1am by a german guy being really loud 2 cabins along. I asked him politely to be quieter which he ignored. Cate had a go a bit firmer which I could hear him ignoring. I kind of lost it at this point & got quite angry, as I was so tired still being a bit ill and needing to sleep. I even... pointed at him as I was talking, which he really didn't like and swore at me quite a lot, but he did quiten down ofter this.
We awoke to a still stationary train and were able to get off and look around. We were in the middle of nowhere - who'd have guessed it - except there were still a fair number of kids who were enjoying the train being there. It's quite easy to look down on the africans for this kind of thing, but as they have only been able to afford one track from Nairobi to the coast, with occasional passing places, it only takes one to break down and the line is blocked. In this case it wasn't our train that had broken down (as I had assumed), but a small cargo train. It had taken all night for another train to get there to take it away. Getting off the train seemed to get things moving as someone was shouting for us to get back on! So we rushed back on and had our breakfast in the buffet. At one point the german guy came and apologised which I thought was quite decent of him and I accepted it and we kind of became friends and greeted each other like long-lost brothers, Cate said, when we saw each other later on in Mombassa.
So we had an unexpected day journey, most of which being thwough a massive game reserve. Some of the guys we met saw elephants in the distance. We arrived in Mombassa about 1 day and 1 hour after we'd left which was our longest train journey yet. We found a really sweet hotel with a roof courtyard & an amazing curry house. The only sad bit was when our waiter asked us if we knew how he could get child sponsorship for his child. He was an older guy and didn't look at all tricksy and also wasn't asking us for money. It was a nice restaurant & we had assumed that a waiter there would earn enough to look after his kids.
Mombassa's old town was really beatiful and we found the scene of boys playing football in front of Fort Jesus (not two words that I like to see together!) that Cate had seen in her Cities book. We met a sweet old man selling crafts who'd lost most of his voice. We explored the old city a bit and ending up eating chapattis and beans in a little room / restaurant for something like 40p which reminded us how most people there live.
The next day we had quite a long journey ahead as we took a taxi to the small (& free!) ferry accross from the peninsula and then waited about an hour for a minibus matatu to fill up to take us to the border town of Lunga Lunga to head into Tanzania. They were competing with the north africans for noise levels, with a home made wooden box subwoofer. Time for the earplugs again.
Quite a few squeezed in hours later and we were almost at the border. This is going to be a little embarassing, but we are committed to honesty on the blog, so here goes... we remembered that again we didn't have enough money for the visa!! We asked someone if there was an ATM at the border. Oh no. There was one an hour ago in the last big town if we'd have remembered before that. So once we'd got there I had to get in a matatu heading back north for an hour or so and go and get money and get another one back, which turned out to drop me only halfway back so I had to wait for yet another one. And did I mention these are fairly cosy?!
On the plus side we did then get across the border fairly easily, not without the help of two motorbikes which seemed the only way between the two customs spots - a few miles apart, one in Lunga Lunga, the other in Hora Hora, Tanzania. At some point I found some money hidden away which we had actually had all along (whether it was enough for visas and onward travel we don't quite know...) We had hoped to head to a bigger town in Tanznaia, but we had promised ourselves not to travel after dark and so hoped that this tiny place would look after us well for our first night in Tanzania.
So that night we got the sleeper from Nairobi to Mombassa. My friend had warned me that the last few times she took it it had taken a lot longer than the 14 hours that it should. Getting in to the train station was quite stressful as they tried to keep out some people and let others in - through a small gate. This sleeper had a buffet car where we unwisely opted for the second sitting which was a lot later than its adverised time. At some point during the meal the train stopped. Going to sleep it was still stationary. I was woken at about 1am by a german guy being really loud 2 cabins along. I asked him politely to be quieter which he ignored. Cate had a go a bit firmer which I could hear him ignoring. I kind of lost it at this point & got quite angry, as I was so tired still being a bit ill and needing to sleep. I even... pointed at him as I was talking, which he really didn't like and swore at me quite a lot, but he did quiten down ofter this.
We awoke to a still stationary train and were able to get off and look around. We were in the middle of nowhere - who'd have guessed it - except there were still a fair number of kids who were enjoying the train being there. It's quite easy to look down on the africans for this kind of thing, but as they have only been able to afford one track from Nairobi to the coast, with occasional passing places, it only takes one to break down and the line is blocked. In this case it wasn't our train that had broken down (as I had assumed), but a small cargo train. It had taken all night for another train to get there to take it away. Getting off the train seemed to get things moving as someone was shouting for us to get back on! So we rushed back on and had our breakfast in the buffet. At one point the german guy came and apologised which I thought was quite decent of him and I accepted it and we kind of became friends and greeted each other like long-lost brothers, Cate said, when we saw each other later on in Mombassa.
So we had an unexpected day journey, most of which being thwough a massive game reserve. Some of the guys we met saw elephants in the distance. We arrived in Mombassa about 1 day and 1 hour after we'd left which was our longest train journey yet. We found a really sweet hotel with a roof courtyard & an amazing curry house. The only sad bit was when our waiter asked us if we knew how he could get child sponsorship for his child. He was an older guy and didn't look at all tricksy and also wasn't asking us for money. It was a nice restaurant & we had assumed that a waiter there would earn enough to look after his kids.
Mombassa's old town was really beatiful and we found the scene of boys playing football in front of Fort Jesus (not two words that I like to see together!) that Cate had seen in her Cities book. We met a sweet old man selling crafts who'd lost most of his voice. We explored the old city a bit and ending up eating chapattis and beans in a little room / restaurant for something like 40p which reminded us how most people there live.
The next day we had quite a long journey ahead as we took a taxi to the small (& free!) ferry accross from the peninsula and then waited about an hour for a minibus matatu to fill up to take us to the border town of Lunga Lunga to head into Tanzania. They were competing with the north africans for noise levels, with a home made wooden box subwoofer. Time for the earplugs again.
Quite a few squeezed in hours later and we were almost at the border. This is going to be a little embarassing, but we are committed to honesty on the blog, so here goes... we remembered that again we didn't have enough money for the visa!! We asked someone if there was an ATM at the border. Oh no. There was one an hour ago in the last big town if we'd have remembered before that. So once we'd got there I had to get in a matatu heading back north for an hour or so and go and get money and get another one back, which turned out to drop me only halfway back so I had to wait for yet another one. And did I mention these are fairly cosy?!
On the plus side we did then get across the border fairly easily, not without the help of two motorbikes which seemed the only way between the two customs spots - a few miles apart, one in Lunga Lunga, the other in Hora Hora, Tanzania. At some point I found some money hidden away which we had actually had all along (whether it was enough for visas and onward travel we don't quite know...) We had hoped to head to a bigger town in Tanznaia, but we had promised ourselves not to travel after dark and so hoped that this tiny place would look after us well for our first night in Tanzania.
Monday, 4 October 2010
Night safari and butternut squash in Nairobi
Cate
We reached Nairobi from Addis Ababa in two hours. This journey should have taken us 8 days, and it was very odd to find ourselves speeding from Nairobi airport towards the city centre at 2am. We collapsed in our hotel, which even the receptionist admitted 'wasn't that nice, but it's okay'. The warmth of the dudes who worked here definitely filled what lacked in our room. We awoke to the rich tapestry of African worship pouring into the street, a beautiful signpost of God at work in Kenya! Post pancakes and coffee for breakfast in a local cafe (mmm), we called Nick's Kenya friend to see if we might be able to stay at her place. It turned out she had moved out of her parents' place, and her parents were in England. It also turned out that we could stay in their empty house and borrow their unused pick-up! This amazing generosity enabled us to have a day of fun and a day of rest before travelling again.
Day of fun first - this was in Nairobi National Park, twenty minutes from their home. I imagined this to be a slightly bigger zoo but it blew all my expectations! For all I knew, I could have been tearing through the Masai Mara, endless plains with jagged trees, streams, mountains, blue sky punched with exquisite white clouds - all above Nick and I in our truck (!), with only the occasional jeep to bump into. The animals were also tougher to spot than I imagined, which we both loved, as it made it a chase. A chase until we turned a corner and halted extremely suddenly. A giant giraffe was standing in the road, languidly chewing on a leaf. My heart leapt! I was not expecting to be afraid of a giraffe! But he was so enormous, I am sure with one lurch of his neck he could wipe me out. As we adjusted, we saw we were surrounded by about seven of them, all tall, grand, graceful.
At 'Hippo Point' we found a sign and a path that seemed to insinuate debarking from your car and ambling through the forest. Considering every other sign had commanded visitors to remain in their vehicles, this was puzzling. But debark we did. Admittedly at every rustle in the bushes we jumped, expecting a lion to pounce. Out would flutter a teeny weeny bird. This was for me the most beautiful part. The brown river ran through great, lush trees, and a concoction of bird songs filling the air. Nick followed a baboon swinging through a tree, which led us to a vast tree, housing about twenty baboons - a kingly one sitting at the front facing us, a baby perching at the top, a few inquisitive ones creeping towards us. We both faced one another in silence. Out of the corner of our eye we saw several giraffes pad down to the river to drink. It was humbling to walk among nature - I felt so small, so grateful, sharing the land with all these creatures. In Africa the sun seems to drop out of the sky in minutes, and we saw the blue sky deepen and darken, so we hastily scrambled back to the car. We had driven almost as far as you could from the main gate, but we saw on our map 'Cheetah Gate' was nearby, so we headed towards it. 'STOP!', I cried. 'A few expletives!', I cried. 'Be ready to drive'!, I cried. 'Get the windows up now', I whispered.
On Nick's side, only two metres from the car, lay a male lion. I have never seen a lion like this before. His face was captivating, powerful, with almost mournful eyes, an enormous mane. He sat at peace, staring into our eyes, and glancing away whenever he wished. Surely the most pursued animal in the park - and we had found him, right next to us! Slowly, surely, we watched the female prowl down the road towards us. She passed behind us and approached her male. She yawned widely, sleepily, terrifyingly. The male yawned back. She leapt onto him, and they rolled playfully in abandonment, only a few feet away. It seemed such an intimate and beautiful moment, and we were so grateful. Dark was closing in on us however, so we zoomed towards the gate, a herd of zebras bashing their way in front of us en route.
We finally reached the gate only to see it's rickety metal frame pulled together by chains and a solid padlock. 'Something about Cheetah Gate being pernamently closed...' mused Nick. 'Yes. I remember hearing something...' Children from the village peeped through the gate and a man lent us his mobile to call our friend so she didn't worry. It was already 7.15pm. The park shut at 7pm. Our friend advised us to leave at 6.30pm. We realised there was no option but to turn back, back into the pitch black depths of the park, to roam freely among rhinos and lions, and try to find the road that would lead us out of the wild. Plently of obstacles to face - an owl flying into our windscreen, potholes, a rhino charging off the road, that zebra herd again - we finally reached the gate (well done Nick!). We expected a severe rebuke from the park guard - a fierce looking lady with a gun - but she seemed only to care that we had shut the gate behind us properly (understandable - I would NOT choose to be the one between a killer lion and the population of Nairobi).
And then our day of rest. Both of us needed it. Nick had his second influx of man flu, which totally knocked him. Being in this house enabled him to sleep in a lovely big white bed and have a deep bath. It was a beautiful place filled with pretty things, which I loved, and a garden with flowers. I sat on the sofa with my feet up and closed by eyes for about fifteen minutes - the comfort was something I hadn't felt for ages! I popped into the nearby town, bought some yummy food for lunch and sat drinking coffee and writing in my journal. Back at the house I made a butternut squash and halloumi salad - something we'd often eat in London, but never now - and ambled around enjoying the lovely things. It felt very different to our lives these days! And I think that is a good thing - this journey feels so like the right thing for us.
Nick emerged from white puffy duvet land late in the afternoon and we began packing our bags. A night train - our last sleeper for the entire trip - to Mombasa awaited us.
We reached Nairobi from Addis Ababa in two hours. This journey should have taken us 8 days, and it was very odd to find ourselves speeding from Nairobi airport towards the city centre at 2am. We collapsed in our hotel, which even the receptionist admitted 'wasn't that nice, but it's okay'. The warmth of the dudes who worked here definitely filled what lacked in our room. We awoke to the rich tapestry of African worship pouring into the street, a beautiful signpost of God at work in Kenya! Post pancakes and coffee for breakfast in a local cafe (mmm), we called Nick's Kenya friend to see if we might be able to stay at her place. It turned out she had moved out of her parents' place, and her parents were in England. It also turned out that we could stay in their empty house and borrow their unused pick-up! This amazing generosity enabled us to have a day of fun and a day of rest before travelling again.
Day of fun first - this was in Nairobi National Park, twenty minutes from their home. I imagined this to be a slightly bigger zoo but it blew all my expectations! For all I knew, I could have been tearing through the Masai Mara, endless plains with jagged trees, streams, mountains, blue sky punched with exquisite white clouds - all above Nick and I in our truck (!), with only the occasional jeep to bump into. The animals were also tougher to spot than I imagined, which we both loved, as it made it a chase. A chase until we turned a corner and halted extremely suddenly. A giant giraffe was standing in the road, languidly chewing on a leaf. My heart leapt! I was not expecting to be afraid of a giraffe! But he was so enormous, I am sure with one lurch of his neck he could wipe me out. As we adjusted, we saw we were surrounded by about seven of them, all tall, grand, graceful.
At 'Hippo Point' we found a sign and a path that seemed to insinuate debarking from your car and ambling through the forest. Considering every other sign had commanded visitors to remain in their vehicles, this was puzzling. But debark we did. Admittedly at every rustle in the bushes we jumped, expecting a lion to pounce. Out would flutter a teeny weeny bird. This was for me the most beautiful part. The brown river ran through great, lush trees, and a concoction of bird songs filling the air. Nick followed a baboon swinging through a tree, which led us to a vast tree, housing about twenty baboons - a kingly one sitting at the front facing us, a baby perching at the top, a few inquisitive ones creeping towards us. We both faced one another in silence. Out of the corner of our eye we saw several giraffes pad down to the river to drink. It was humbling to walk among nature - I felt so small, so grateful, sharing the land with all these creatures. In Africa the sun seems to drop out of the sky in minutes, and we saw the blue sky deepen and darken, so we hastily scrambled back to the car. We had driven almost as far as you could from the main gate, but we saw on our map 'Cheetah Gate' was nearby, so we headed towards it. 'STOP!', I cried. 'A few expletives!', I cried. 'Be ready to drive'!, I cried. 'Get the windows up now', I whispered.
On Nick's side, only two metres from the car, lay a male lion. I have never seen a lion like this before. His face was captivating, powerful, with almost mournful eyes, an enormous mane. He sat at peace, staring into our eyes, and glancing away whenever he wished. Surely the most pursued animal in the park - and we had found him, right next to us! Slowly, surely, we watched the female prowl down the road towards us. She passed behind us and approached her male. She yawned widely, sleepily, terrifyingly. The male yawned back. She leapt onto him, and they rolled playfully in abandonment, only a few feet away. It seemed such an intimate and beautiful moment, and we were so grateful. Dark was closing in on us however, so we zoomed towards the gate, a herd of zebras bashing their way in front of us en route.
We finally reached the gate only to see it's rickety metal frame pulled together by chains and a solid padlock. 'Something about Cheetah Gate being pernamently closed...' mused Nick. 'Yes. I remember hearing something...' Children from the village peeped through the gate and a man lent us his mobile to call our friend so she didn't worry. It was already 7.15pm. The park shut at 7pm. Our friend advised us to leave at 6.30pm. We realised there was no option but to turn back, back into the pitch black depths of the park, to roam freely among rhinos and lions, and try to find the road that would lead us out of the wild. Plently of obstacles to face - an owl flying into our windscreen, potholes, a rhino charging off the road, that zebra herd again - we finally reached the gate (well done Nick!). We expected a severe rebuke from the park guard - a fierce looking lady with a gun - but she seemed only to care that we had shut the gate behind us properly (understandable - I would NOT choose to be the one between a killer lion and the population of Nairobi).
And then our day of rest. Both of us needed it. Nick had his second influx of man flu, which totally knocked him. Being in this house enabled him to sleep in a lovely big white bed and have a deep bath. It was a beautiful place filled with pretty things, which I loved, and a garden with flowers. I sat on the sofa with my feet up and closed by eyes for about fifteen minutes - the comfort was something I hadn't felt for ages! I popped into the nearby town, bought some yummy food for lunch and sat drinking coffee and writing in my journal. Back at the house I made a butternut squash and halloumi salad - something we'd often eat in London, but never now - and ambled around enjoying the lovely things. It felt very different to our lives these days! And I think that is a good thing - this journey feels so like the right thing for us.
Nick emerged from white puffy duvet land late in the afternoon and we began packing our bags. A night train - our last sleeper for the entire trip - to Mombasa awaited us.
Addis and the journey south
Nick
We had been told that our matatu minibus would turn up between 3.30 and 4am. We got a knock on our door at about 3.15am for which we were not ready! We reached for the light switch to do our final packing - things we need during the night like our mosquito net. No electricity. I ran out in my pajamas to borrow the night guards torch. Groggily we packed and went out to the minibus. It had started at 2am to pick up the first passenger so we were lucky!
The first bus journey - to Gondar - had involved getting out and walking for a stretch - so we weren't too surprised at the various interruptions on this long trip. We snoozed through the early hours, then stopped for breakfast and continued to get lovely coffee even in the small towns. Then we had a couple of stops were we had to wait for half an hour and pretend we weren't going the whole way from Bahir to Addis because of the new bus regulations apparently. One of these involved leaving the bus stop the back way and getting stuck in mud and me and the other guys all pushing the bus out! This was all quite good fun and we made a friend who spoke English. We also stopped for a 'carwash' - done by the driver and conductor in a small waterfall amongst beautiful mountains. By the way, had we mentioned Ethiopia is COLD! We are wearing all our clothes in the evenings when it is, brace yourselves, below 20C! We had got used to 40C until a couple of days ago so this is freezing to us!
Our friend 'helped' us find a hotel room, i.e. took over and wanted something different from us, which turned out to be quite stressful after something like 12 hours since we left in the small hours. We eventually got away after me saying stupid things, like "We've taken up too much of your time" - HIM "oh, no, not at all... (has this line ever worked?)" We found a quiet, sweet little hotel ran by women. This was nice for Cate after the long period of male dominance of the past few weeks where we had almost no interaction with anyone but men.
Addis was quite tough as the visible poverty and begging was much more than we had experienced in the north. We always try to stop for people, but here we got overwhelmed at times and just going to the internet cafe was a tiring voyage. We also felt the tension of wanting to live simply and needing to transition from the lifestyles we are used to, especially as this trip tires us out. So as in Cairo we went to the Hilton for a coffee and an escape. In both of these a coffee is less than we would pay in London, but here it feels like something out of place and yet is somewhere we can escape when our capacity seems run dry.
We spent our day off catching up with the internet or admin for the Mozambique school that is coming soon. We went to a cafe called Kaldi's that amusingly has copied the Starbucks design and font and uniform exactly and it even smells like Starbucks! We also had another get-lost-in-a-taxi experience where the taxi driver pretended he knew the restaurant we wanted. It turned out to have shut down a year ago so he really was bluffing. We eventually found our second choice and had a lovely meal, though we got thrown out at 10pm when they closed!
We had done a fair bit of research into whether we thought northern Kenya was an acceptable risk or not. But we decided to do some more before heading on from Addis the next day as this was the last chance to change our minds. Cate had had a wake in the night fearful moment a few months ago about it, but as this was after we had read some of the horror stories, we weren't sure whether it was understandable fear or a warning from God. The first time round most people that we'd read online had been saying the area was much better in the last few years. This time it seemed that the majority of what we read seemed to suggest it was a fairly dangerous stretch. There were stories of bullets through windscreens, armed robberies, much inter-tribe fighting etc. There was also the issue of it being by far the most difficult part of the trip in terms of road quality, transport and accomodation & we were finding it pretty hard as it was.
All in all, we felt like it was worth flying over this stretch from Addis to Nairobi. I had been pretty adamant against flying at all for most of the trip. We are really concerned about cutting back our carbon footprint for the sake of those in poorer countries who are the most effected by climate change. The UK average footprint is about 10 tonnes, and 2 tonnes is what we're supposed to cut down to. I had worked out that a flight from London to Mozambique was about 2 tonnes - i.e. a whole year's budget of carbon - meaning our year's footprint would be well over that. Going overland, though more costly in pounds, was only about 1/2 tonne.
A short flight though, would only push it up a little - to 0.6 or 0.7 tonnes - so I knew this was do-able, but we've always felt that when most people seem to be ignoring the warnings that scientists are giving, it is much clearer to give things up completely, which was why I was unkeen. But I changed my mind on reading about the Kenya-Ethiopa border.
So the next day we found ourselves in Addis Ababa airport. We love playing looky-likey's - we're always spotting people that look (a bit) like people we know - and Cate said, "I've got an excellent Bridget" so I crept forward for a good look, and lo and behold...It was Bridget! She and a bunch of our friends were on their way home from a trip to Zimbabwe. It was lovely to catch up and be prayed for and see familiar faces.
To prove I am no longer a seasoned air traveller, I was carrying my swiss army knife in my carry on bag. Apparently this isn't allowed. I pleaded with the lady, saying I'd had it since I was a boy and she said they could carry my bag on from there to the hold & I'd get it on the luggage conveyor. I'm not sure I would try this at Heathrow, but I was very happy.
We had been told that our matatu minibus would turn up between 3.30 and 4am. We got a knock on our door at about 3.15am for which we were not ready! We reached for the light switch to do our final packing - things we need during the night like our mosquito net. No electricity. I ran out in my pajamas to borrow the night guards torch. Groggily we packed and went out to the minibus. It had started at 2am to pick up the first passenger so we were lucky!
The first bus journey - to Gondar - had involved getting out and walking for a stretch - so we weren't too surprised at the various interruptions on this long trip. We snoozed through the early hours, then stopped for breakfast and continued to get lovely coffee even in the small towns. Then we had a couple of stops were we had to wait for half an hour and pretend we weren't going the whole way from Bahir to Addis because of the new bus regulations apparently. One of these involved leaving the bus stop the back way and getting stuck in mud and me and the other guys all pushing the bus out! This was all quite good fun and we made a friend who spoke English. We also stopped for a 'carwash' - done by the driver and conductor in a small waterfall amongst beautiful mountains. By the way, had we mentioned Ethiopia is COLD! We are wearing all our clothes in the evenings when it is, brace yourselves, below 20C! We had got used to 40C until a couple of days ago so this is freezing to us!
Our friend 'helped' us find a hotel room, i.e. took over and wanted something different from us, which turned out to be quite stressful after something like 12 hours since we left in the small hours. We eventually got away after me saying stupid things, like "We've taken up too much of your time" - HIM "oh, no, not at all... (has this line ever worked?)" We found a quiet, sweet little hotel ran by women. This was nice for Cate after the long period of male dominance of the past few weeks where we had almost no interaction with anyone but men.
Addis was quite tough as the visible poverty and begging was much more than we had experienced in the north. We always try to stop for people, but here we got overwhelmed at times and just going to the internet cafe was a tiring voyage. We also felt the tension of wanting to live simply and needing to transition from the lifestyles we are used to, especially as this trip tires us out. So as in Cairo we went to the Hilton for a coffee and an escape. In both of these a coffee is less than we would pay in London, but here it feels like something out of place and yet is somewhere we can escape when our capacity seems run dry.
We spent our day off catching up with the internet or admin for the Mozambique school that is coming soon. We went to a cafe called Kaldi's that amusingly has copied the Starbucks design and font and uniform exactly and it even smells like Starbucks! We also had another get-lost-in-a-taxi experience where the taxi driver pretended he knew the restaurant we wanted. It turned out to have shut down a year ago so he really was bluffing. We eventually found our second choice and had a lovely meal, though we got thrown out at 10pm when they closed!
We had done a fair bit of research into whether we thought northern Kenya was an acceptable risk or not. But we decided to do some more before heading on from Addis the next day as this was the last chance to change our minds. Cate had had a wake in the night fearful moment a few months ago about it, but as this was after we had read some of the horror stories, we weren't sure whether it was understandable fear or a warning from God. The first time round most people that we'd read online had been saying the area was much better in the last few years. This time it seemed that the majority of what we read seemed to suggest it was a fairly dangerous stretch. There were stories of bullets through windscreens, armed robberies, much inter-tribe fighting etc. There was also the issue of it being by far the most difficult part of the trip in terms of road quality, transport and accomodation & we were finding it pretty hard as it was.
All in all, we felt like it was worth flying over this stretch from Addis to Nairobi. I had been pretty adamant against flying at all for most of the trip. We are really concerned about cutting back our carbon footprint for the sake of those in poorer countries who are the most effected by climate change. The UK average footprint is about 10 tonnes, and 2 tonnes is what we're supposed to cut down to. I had worked out that a flight from London to Mozambique was about 2 tonnes - i.e. a whole year's budget of carbon - meaning our year's footprint would be well over that. Going overland, though more costly in pounds, was only about 1/2 tonne.
A short flight though, would only push it up a little - to 0.6 or 0.7 tonnes - so I knew this was do-able, but we've always felt that when most people seem to be ignoring the warnings that scientists are giving, it is much clearer to give things up completely, which was why I was unkeen. But I changed my mind on reading about the Kenya-Ethiopa border.
So the next day we found ourselves in Addis Ababa airport. We love playing looky-likey's - we're always spotting people that look (a bit) like people we know - and Cate said, "I've got an excellent Bridget" so I crept forward for a good look, and lo and behold...It was Bridget! She and a bunch of our friends were on their way home from a trip to Zimbabwe. It was lovely to catch up and be prayed for and see familiar faces.
To prove I am no longer a seasoned air traveller, I was carrying my swiss army knife in my carry on bag. Apparently this isn't allowed. I pleaded with the lady, saying I'd had it since I was a boy and she said they could carry my bag on from there to the hold & I'd get it on the luggage conveyor. I'm not sure I would try this at Heathrow, but I was very happy.
Wednesday, 22 September 2010
Friends in Bahir Dar
Cate
Gondar's African castle long forgotten, we jumped on the minibus to Bahir Dar. Six hours and a numb bum later, we reached this delightful town. Lined with palm trees and at the foot of the tranquil Lake Tana, we were happy to be there and ready to rest. As soon as we stepped off the bus a new friend awaited us! Abebe was his name and he was to be our favourite character so far. He happened to work at the hotel we stayed at - a clean, restful place - and we liked him instantly.
Abebe showed us our hotel. We ate some traditional Ethiopian food (a large pancake, a pot of sauce), both of us sitting on the fence of whether we liked it or not. For me this fence was a pernament feature of Ethiopian cuisine - apart from its strong, bitter sometimes chocolately coffee. Breakfast the next day was wonderful dark coffee and an enormous doughnut. Ethiopian coffee after the Middle East's long trail of instant Nescafe is like cold water in the desert! My coffee desires are quenched! The doughnut, however, was the last in a long line of dense, white-bread food devoured and my stomach was fed up. I spent the morning in bouts of pain as everything inside me squidged together and refused to be deposited. Devouring a few bananas and some local laxatives, relief came.
Nick
In Gondar, when we had been giving out bread, we came across one boy who didn't have the use of his legs and we saw him crawling around with his face staring at the dirty pavement a few inches below. When I gave him some bread, he looked up and made a circular signal with his hands - I thought he was saying thanks, but our Ethiopian friend said he was asking for a wheelchair. It had been heartbreaking enough seeing him drag himself around, and now, knowing no better than to just ask, he looked to me to lift him up. As a westerner he obviously thought that I was able to do something about it where others couldn't. I had just smiled at him sadly, thinking that we only had an hour before the bus left & it was impossible, but it stayed with me. Now in Bahir Dar, I asked Abebe tentitively if it was possible to buy wheelchairs. We ended up spending the whole day, with Abebe as our constant companion, walking around asking people and waiting for meetings that got postponed. At the end of the day, we had a price, but it would only be available the next day & we were leaving early.
It turned out he was a childhood friend of the guy in Gondar & he offered to buy it and take it there on the bus himself and find the boy with his friend. So we decided to trust Abebe & gave him the money for the wheelchair, plus money for transportation & asked him to take photos of the boy once he had it. The ending to the story is bittersweet. The boy did get the wheelchair and we have many photos that show how joyful he is with it. It is wonderful to think of him being able to look people in the eye as he moves around town. The sad part is that Abebe's bus crashed on the way back - nothing fatal, but Abebe did get quite injured - enough to need hospital treatment that he can't afford. We are going to pay for his hospital fees and we are still working out how best to do this.
Cate
It is probably worth going back to the unpleasant details of my bowels, since they shape the rest of our time in Bahir Dar. For some the following will contain more detail than desired. If this is you, bear in mind that some of our friends would appreciate even more information on the matter than I will give. After a day's running around with Abebe, we sank into bed tired - me particularly, as the doughnut had exhausted me that morning. About 2am, I woke in incredible pain. It turns out the relief I had experienced was probably not the laxatives but the natural blessing of bananas. I say this because the laxatives kicked in now. My stomach was so cramped I was crying out in pain, and spent the following couple of hours running up and down the corridor visiting the loo. Not a highlight of the trip. The thought of getting up in two hours at 5am to catch our planned 12-hour bus to Addis Ababa brought me to tears. Nick - the man - was keen to catch it. A good amount of crying helped him see that perhaps I was not in agreement. Finally my stomach relented and I fell asleep.
And so another unplanned day in Bahir Dar. I felt as if all my energy had drained out of me and was not in a rush to return. As a treat we booked into the best hotel in town, an Ethiopian place on the banks of Lake Tana. It had spacious turquoise rooms and a bath. The garden led to the water and tropical golden birds fluttered between palm trees - we were slightly obsessed with them and took endless photos. We began to relax. A boat glided us towards an island, home of a 12th century monastery. Despite ancient art and a sweet priest, it was too dark to see much and most of it was deemed 'the holies of holies' - only for the priest to enter. Nick particularly found this heart-breaking, as we both are so excited about us all being wonderfully equal in Christ - all able to receive his amazing gifts! Much more invigorating was a coffee hut we stumbled upon. I saw the coffee tree, the beans being roasted, and then the crushed conclusion. We sipped the dark, rich coffee from little pots and it tasted wonderful. Incense floated into the air - in these common Ethiopian 'coffee ceremonies' incense and coffee seem to be interwoven. It was beautiful to see something I love being grown so sustainably. I am forever challenged on the worldwide circulation of coffee and it was a delight to drink it from a gentle little tree a few meters away!
Our guide - who I think was called Alex, we meet so many people - told us his story. He was a Christian with a living relationship with Jesus, which the Ethiopian's call 'protestants'. He explained that the 'Orthodox Christians' hate the 'protestants' and if he ever spoke out he would be persecuted. He also seemed to get a hard time from the other guides lurking around the water. When we had boarded, one guide had shouted at him in Aramaic for guiding us. As we debarked the boat at sunset, we paid him 100birr. We left him surrounded by the other guides for a moment, as we enjoyed the powerful blue grey clouds sweeping over the lake, an African eagle soaring over towering trees. He caught us up. After a bit of probing, he told us they bullied him. In his pocket he had only 40birr left. Because he was an orphan, he told us, he was vulnerable. He had no family to fight his battles. How can we help this young man? If we tell the hotel, the other guides will beat him. Giving him an abundance of money does not seem to be the answer. Another story, another set of new questions. I'm sure the answer is not to detach and close down our hearts. Creativity is needed - and many hearts, many hearts who will reach out to the poor with their own time and support them.
My tummy had healed and my exhuastion had healed. We set our alarm for 3.20am. The bus to Addis Ababa was on. We were ready for the road again... At least a little more ready.
Gondar's African castle long forgotten, we jumped on the minibus to Bahir Dar. Six hours and a numb bum later, we reached this delightful town. Lined with palm trees and at the foot of the tranquil Lake Tana, we were happy to be there and ready to rest. As soon as we stepped off the bus a new friend awaited us! Abebe was his name and he was to be our favourite character so far. He happened to work at the hotel we stayed at - a clean, restful place - and we liked him instantly.
Abebe showed us our hotel. We ate some traditional Ethiopian food (a large pancake, a pot of sauce), both of us sitting on the fence of whether we liked it or not. For me this fence was a pernament feature of Ethiopian cuisine - apart from its strong, bitter sometimes chocolately coffee. Breakfast the next day was wonderful dark coffee and an enormous doughnut. Ethiopian coffee after the Middle East's long trail of instant Nescafe is like cold water in the desert! My coffee desires are quenched! The doughnut, however, was the last in a long line of dense, white-bread food devoured and my stomach was fed up. I spent the morning in bouts of pain as everything inside me squidged together and refused to be deposited. Devouring a few bananas and some local laxatives, relief came.
Nick
In Gondar, when we had been giving out bread, we came across one boy who didn't have the use of his legs and we saw him crawling around with his face staring at the dirty pavement a few inches below. When I gave him some bread, he looked up and made a circular signal with his hands - I thought he was saying thanks, but our Ethiopian friend said he was asking for a wheelchair. It had been heartbreaking enough seeing him drag himself around, and now, knowing no better than to just ask, he looked to me to lift him up. As a westerner he obviously thought that I was able to do something about it where others couldn't. I had just smiled at him sadly, thinking that we only had an hour before the bus left & it was impossible, but it stayed with me. Now in Bahir Dar, I asked Abebe tentitively if it was possible to buy wheelchairs. We ended up spending the whole day, with Abebe as our constant companion, walking around asking people and waiting for meetings that got postponed. At the end of the day, we had a price, but it would only be available the next day & we were leaving early.
It turned out he was a childhood friend of the guy in Gondar & he offered to buy it and take it there on the bus himself and find the boy with his friend. So we decided to trust Abebe & gave him the money for the wheelchair, plus money for transportation & asked him to take photos of the boy once he had it. The ending to the story is bittersweet. The boy did get the wheelchair and we have many photos that show how joyful he is with it. It is wonderful to think of him being able to look people in the eye as he moves around town. The sad part is that Abebe's bus crashed on the way back - nothing fatal, but Abebe did get quite injured - enough to need hospital treatment that he can't afford. We are going to pay for his hospital fees and we are still working out how best to do this.
Cate
It is probably worth going back to the unpleasant details of my bowels, since they shape the rest of our time in Bahir Dar. For some the following will contain more detail than desired. If this is you, bear in mind that some of our friends would appreciate even more information on the matter than I will give. After a day's running around with Abebe, we sank into bed tired - me particularly, as the doughnut had exhausted me that morning. About 2am, I woke in incredible pain. It turns out the relief I had experienced was probably not the laxatives but the natural blessing of bananas. I say this because the laxatives kicked in now. My stomach was so cramped I was crying out in pain, and spent the following couple of hours running up and down the corridor visiting the loo. Not a highlight of the trip. The thought of getting up in two hours at 5am to catch our planned 12-hour bus to Addis Ababa brought me to tears. Nick - the man - was keen to catch it. A good amount of crying helped him see that perhaps I was not in agreement. Finally my stomach relented and I fell asleep.
And so another unplanned day in Bahir Dar. I felt as if all my energy had drained out of me and was not in a rush to return. As a treat we booked into the best hotel in town, an Ethiopian place on the banks of Lake Tana. It had spacious turquoise rooms and a bath. The garden led to the water and tropical golden birds fluttered between palm trees - we were slightly obsessed with them and took endless photos. We began to relax. A boat glided us towards an island, home of a 12th century monastery. Despite ancient art and a sweet priest, it was too dark to see much and most of it was deemed 'the holies of holies' - only for the priest to enter. Nick particularly found this heart-breaking, as we both are so excited about us all being wonderfully equal in Christ - all able to receive his amazing gifts! Much more invigorating was a coffee hut we stumbled upon. I saw the coffee tree, the beans being roasted, and then the crushed conclusion. We sipped the dark, rich coffee from little pots and it tasted wonderful. Incense floated into the air - in these common Ethiopian 'coffee ceremonies' incense and coffee seem to be interwoven. It was beautiful to see something I love being grown so sustainably. I am forever challenged on the worldwide circulation of coffee and it was a delight to drink it from a gentle little tree a few meters away!
Our guide - who I think was called Alex, we meet so many people - told us his story. He was a Christian with a living relationship with Jesus, which the Ethiopian's call 'protestants'. He explained that the 'Orthodox Christians' hate the 'protestants' and if he ever spoke out he would be persecuted. He also seemed to get a hard time from the other guides lurking around the water. When we had boarded, one guide had shouted at him in Aramaic for guiding us. As we debarked the boat at sunset, we paid him 100birr. We left him surrounded by the other guides for a moment, as we enjoyed the powerful blue grey clouds sweeping over the lake, an African eagle soaring over towering trees. He caught us up. After a bit of probing, he told us they bullied him. In his pocket he had only 40birr left. Because he was an orphan, he told us, he was vulnerable. He had no family to fight his battles. How can we help this young man? If we tell the hotel, the other guides will beat him. Giving him an abundance of money does not seem to be the answer. Another story, another set of new questions. I'm sure the answer is not to detach and close down our hearts. Creativity is needed - and many hearts, many hearts who will reach out to the poor with their own time and support them.
My tummy had healed and my exhuastion had healed. We set our alarm for 3.20am. The bus to Addis Ababa was on. We were ready for the road again... At least a little more ready.
Northern's Ethiopia's beauty and pain
Cate
We rose at dawn to begin our expedition to Ethiopia. We hopped on a three-wheeled tuktuk to Gedaref's bus station, and boarded a three-hour minibus to Gallabat, the Sudanese border town. Within minutes we were thrust into rural countryside, and we saw the land begin to change. Greenery sprung up, gently at first, then bursting out in patches. Khartoum's dusty sprawl and Wadi Halfa's harsh desert seemed as if they belonged to another continent. Circular straw and mud huts decorated the landscape where silent towns of dry square dirt houses had been before.
We reached the Ethiopian border and experienced it's extraordinary system. There seems to be one town at the border, but it is called Gallabat in Sudan and Metema in Ethiopia. You rock up, pay a visit to the police to pick up a form (though this was never checked) and walk over a bridge, filled with people and donkeys going to and fro. You can then sit down, and relax. You are in Ethiopia. We have experienced intimidating night police banging on our door in Turkey. We have entered towering customs buildings in Jordan. We have raced around the desert searching for dollars in Syria. The ease of this experience was bewildering.
From Metema, we waited for an hour for our six-hour bus to Gondar, where we would stay the night. Joy was brought to an otherwise tedious hour by some young guys picking up Nick's guitar and having a strum, as about thirty locals gathered and stared. Our bus arrived and we were on our way - high up into the highlands of Ethiopia. The view was breathtaking. Everywhere stood seemingly magical mountains as if out of a picture book, the slopes carpeted in thick luminous lime grass, perfectly dotted with wide, green trees. Wild flowers sprinkled the mountains with sunshine yellow. Violet flowers graced our winding road, as a baboon scurried in front of us to a the safe refuge of a nearby tree.
We reached Gondar. On these long journeys, I am beginning to feel as if the destination town is a bit like a promised land! I get so tired, and hope we will be there soon, glancing at the clock (yet trying not to). And then I see some houses... maybe we are there... and then a lorry park, a building site... yes, this could be it... a hotel, a restaurant... it must be... and then a sign with the name of the town... YES! We are here! And with awe, I soak in every shop, every face, every cafe - and I know soon my legs will be stretched and my tummy full of food, and it is a very good feeling!
We stayed at a 'pension' - which promised clean, comfy rooms but no breakfast. The hot water didn't work, and in fact leaked through our room, but the place was bright and calm, with a little balcony. Exhausted we gravitated towards the loveliest restaurant in town. Up a hill, it looked over the whole city, and we ate western food, spending the meal talking about the meal in thankfulness.
We woke the next morning ready for more travelling, this time to Bahir Dar, deeper into Ethiopia. Before then we had a few hours to explore the city. With an African castle to see and proper coffee machines filling each cafe, we set off with high expectations. On the way we bumped into a friendly dude who was keen to show us around. We, however, just wanted coffee. I can show you nice coffee place, he told us. Ok, we said, and followed. He then joined us for coffee, teaching us Amharic, listening to our story. We are learning to be more flexible with our plans. The late bus isn't our only refiner. Self-appointed guides and new friends are constantly teaching us the start of what Henri Nouwen learned: 'It has been the interruptions to my everyday life that have most revealed to me the divine mystery of which I am a part... All of these interruptions presented themselves as opportunities.'
And the opportunity this friend gave us was both painful and necessary. We saw two very poor men lying on the road. Nick suggested popping into a bakery and buying fresh bread. We did and handed it to these struggling gentlemen. And then we saw more. And more. There seemed to be beggars everywhere, some sitting, some lying down - and on top of that little children. We bought dozens of bread and went round handing it out, wincing at our skin's connotations, and yet moved by hunger. We saw appauling things - poverty I have never seen before. We saw a man naked who had surely lost his mind on the street. We saw a child with black tape over his eyes, a picture that continues to haunt me. We saw a child crawling on the ground with no legs, begging Nick to buy him a wheelchair. We saw old and blind woman beg, and as I approached one to give her bread she spilled her precious milk all over the street. We ran out of bread and we ran out of time. It was heart-wrenching to leave. A strong pain remained in my stomach, and re-emerges as I'm writing. Would anyone go to Gonder and give these beloved children of God a home? What can be more needed?
We rose at dawn to begin our expedition to Ethiopia. We hopped on a three-wheeled tuktuk to Gedaref's bus station, and boarded a three-hour minibus to Gallabat, the Sudanese border town. Within minutes we were thrust into rural countryside, and we saw the land begin to change. Greenery sprung up, gently at first, then bursting out in patches. Khartoum's dusty sprawl and Wadi Halfa's harsh desert seemed as if they belonged to another continent. Circular straw and mud huts decorated the landscape where silent towns of dry square dirt houses had been before.
We reached the Ethiopian border and experienced it's extraordinary system. There seems to be one town at the border, but it is called Gallabat in Sudan and Metema in Ethiopia. You rock up, pay a visit to the police to pick up a form (though this was never checked) and walk over a bridge, filled with people and donkeys going to and fro. You can then sit down, and relax. You are in Ethiopia. We have experienced intimidating night police banging on our door in Turkey. We have entered towering customs buildings in Jordan. We have raced around the desert searching for dollars in Syria. The ease of this experience was bewildering.
From Metema, we waited for an hour for our six-hour bus to Gondar, where we would stay the night. Joy was brought to an otherwise tedious hour by some young guys picking up Nick's guitar and having a strum, as about thirty locals gathered and stared. Our bus arrived and we were on our way - high up into the highlands of Ethiopia. The view was breathtaking. Everywhere stood seemingly magical mountains as if out of a picture book, the slopes carpeted in thick luminous lime grass, perfectly dotted with wide, green trees. Wild flowers sprinkled the mountains with sunshine yellow. Violet flowers graced our winding road, as a baboon scurried in front of us to a the safe refuge of a nearby tree.
We reached Gondar. On these long journeys, I am beginning to feel as if the destination town is a bit like a promised land! I get so tired, and hope we will be there soon, glancing at the clock (yet trying not to). And then I see some houses... maybe we are there... and then a lorry park, a building site... yes, this could be it... a hotel, a restaurant... it must be... and then a sign with the name of the town... YES! We are here! And with awe, I soak in every shop, every face, every cafe - and I know soon my legs will be stretched and my tummy full of food, and it is a very good feeling!
We stayed at a 'pension' - which promised clean, comfy rooms but no breakfast. The hot water didn't work, and in fact leaked through our room, but the place was bright and calm, with a little balcony. Exhausted we gravitated towards the loveliest restaurant in town. Up a hill, it looked over the whole city, and we ate western food, spending the meal talking about the meal in thankfulness.
We woke the next morning ready for more travelling, this time to Bahir Dar, deeper into Ethiopia. Before then we had a few hours to explore the city. With an African castle to see and proper coffee machines filling each cafe, we set off with high expectations. On the way we bumped into a friendly dude who was keen to show us around. We, however, just wanted coffee. I can show you nice coffee place, he told us. Ok, we said, and followed. He then joined us for coffee, teaching us Amharic, listening to our story. We are learning to be more flexible with our plans. The late bus isn't our only refiner. Self-appointed guides and new friends are constantly teaching us the start of what Henri Nouwen learned: 'It has been the interruptions to my everyday life that have most revealed to me the divine mystery of which I am a part... All of these interruptions presented themselves as opportunities.'
And the opportunity this friend gave us was both painful and necessary. We saw two very poor men lying on the road. Nick suggested popping into a bakery and buying fresh bread. We did and handed it to these struggling gentlemen. And then we saw more. And more. There seemed to be beggars everywhere, some sitting, some lying down - and on top of that little children. We bought dozens of bread and went round handing it out, wincing at our skin's connotations, and yet moved by hunger. We saw appauling things - poverty I have never seen before. We saw a man naked who had surely lost his mind on the street. We saw a child with black tape over his eyes, a picture that continues to haunt me. We saw a child crawling on the ground with no legs, begging Nick to buy him a wheelchair. We saw old and blind woman beg, and as I approached one to give her bread she spilled her precious milk all over the street. We ran out of bread and we ran out of time. It was heart-wrenching to leave. A strong pain remained in my stomach, and re-emerges as I'm writing. Would anyone go to Gonder and give these beloved children of God a home? What can be more needed?
To Khartoum and onwards
Nick
Oh we are so behind on the blog!! Sorry to have caused any worry for being out of contact...
We spent about a month or maybe even two planning this trip - mainly in the Camberwell library. Initially we had a lot of worry about heading through Sudan. The press carry a lot of incidents from there. What we found on more research was that the country is made up of 3 different areas & given that it is the largest country in Africa, these areas are spread wide apart. Broadly you can split it into Northern Sudan, Southern Sudan & Western Sudan (Darfur) - map here. What we read of in the press comes from Darfur or Southern Sudan where there has been conflict for a long time. Northern Sudan, which we are cutting right through the middle of, has been said by other travellers to be one of the safest parts of the Cairo to Cape Town route. So it's a bit like travelling through England when there is fighting in Wales and Scotland, but on a much wider scale. In fact most seem to say that the Northern Kenyan border was the only real worry on this journey.
During that planning stage in Camberwell library we had allowed 3 days to travel down south to Khartoum. Lots of the info we were able to find on the internet and in our lonely planet turns out to be out of date as we travel. Mainly, things turn out to be easier than we thought. Only a year ago, with the help of China, they completed a tarmac road all the way to the capital and also have a load of brand new Chinese coaches (with plastic wrapping still on seats!). So in 12 hours in a very comfy coach (with a/c - phew!) we were able to cross the Nubian desert - the eastern most part of the Sahara that runs right across northern Africa (try clicking on 'Sat' on the map on the right & zooming in to see). This was a long and fairly uneventful journey, except for the 'camel's graveyard' which was a stretch of a couple of miles with literally hundreds of dead camels lying by the road. We got out for a couple of stops and were reminded that it was actually roasting outside, as you easily forget when there is air-conditioning.
We arrived just before nightfall, in a city that can take an hour and a half to drive across, with a vague address of our friend of a friend and their number. Very quickly a couple of Sudanese men wanted us to sit down - one in his taxi, the other at his bus ticket stall. We had got used to this kind of behaviour in Egypt and were very wary of it. But we had heard Sudan was different so we went along with it. We experienced what was to be the first time of many - they were genuinely just looking after us - they gave us tea and water (we don't drink the local water so this was a pray-and-hope-for-no-squits!) and one lent us his mobile to call our friend. We are much more helpless on this trip than we've ever been in London - just calling someone is difficult - and it means help is all the more sweet. Our friend came and collected us and we drove across the city, full of unfinished buildings, a posh hotel built by Gadaffi & many small shacks.
After endless tiny hotel rooms, it was an incredible treat to stay with this couple and meet another family who were staying with them. We joined them for church, we heard all about the community of workers there, we saw such unity and perseverance, it was a real joy. We were supposed to get travel permission from one government department and check in with the police somewhere else (and pay them quite a lot for the privilege) - but we had turned up at the end of Ramadan holidays - like Christmas - and only managed the first part of this. In the end neither was checked or remarked upon, even when at the border I said to 3 different police dudes that we hadn't checked in and pointed it out in the passports!
We also slightly reluctantly forced ourselves to explore the city a little bit - in search of a taxi a Sudanese lady stopped to help us and ended up driving us round the city herself! Again the Sudanese hospitality. She had a one and half year old - her nephew - sitting on her lap holding the steering wheel. Occasionally we would veer off the road a little as she forgot that his steering needed supervision. Then she would say sternly 'No, Dudey!' as Cate is so often heard exclaiming to me. Are you serious?! Did we hear right? Yes, this little one was also called 'Dudey'. We explained to her that we also speak to each other thus and the 3 dudies + lady had a good chuckle as she continued to say 'Well done Dudey' and the like. It was a bit worrying driving past the police as they couldn't see her hands holding the lower part of the wheel, but no-one seemed to mind this under-age driver.
We had to tear ourselves away after a couple of days and get on a bus to Gedaref, towards the eastern Ethiopian border. Another posh bus, with a thermometer reading of inside and out - over the course of the journey it dropped from 40 to 27 (and Khartoum had been 40 night and day). Gedaref was a much smaller town, like many it was dark at night with little electric lighting. Nevertheless we felt safe walking around as we have done since the beginning of the trip. We went to a restaurant where we were offered chicken, lamb or beef. After a lot of miming I got him to make me a fried egg sandwich (and no, I didn't have to go as far as miming laying an egg!). At one point a group of young men invited us to sit with them and have tea. We ended up talking for an hour, mainly to one guy who had excellent English and knew more about UK current affairs than us! He was also what I had really wanted to meet - a sincere and devoted Muslim who spoke English well enough that we could really talk. We all shared our faith, he with us & we with him. Cate shared very well as she always does, from the heart and unashamed. It was also sad, as he explained that he would love to travel like us, but it was far beyond what he could afford. Back to our hotel, which was quite a tough one. Cricket count was only 1 though, which I trapped under a glass. Don't worry, I freed him in the morning when we left.
Oh we are so behind on the blog!! Sorry to have caused any worry for being out of contact...
We spent about a month or maybe even two planning this trip - mainly in the Camberwell library. Initially we had a lot of worry about heading through Sudan. The press carry a lot of incidents from there. What we found on more research was that the country is made up of 3 different areas & given that it is the largest country in Africa, these areas are spread wide apart. Broadly you can split it into Northern Sudan, Southern Sudan & Western Sudan (Darfur) - map here. What we read of in the press comes from Darfur or Southern Sudan where there has been conflict for a long time. Northern Sudan, which we are cutting right through the middle of, has been said by other travellers to be one of the safest parts of the Cairo to Cape Town route. So it's a bit like travelling through England when there is fighting in Wales and Scotland, but on a much wider scale. In fact most seem to say that the Northern Kenyan border was the only real worry on this journey.
During that planning stage in Camberwell library we had allowed 3 days to travel down south to Khartoum. Lots of the info we were able to find on the internet and in our lonely planet turns out to be out of date as we travel. Mainly, things turn out to be easier than we thought. Only a year ago, with the help of China, they completed a tarmac road all the way to the capital and also have a load of brand new Chinese coaches (with plastic wrapping still on seats!). So in 12 hours in a very comfy coach (with a/c - phew!) we were able to cross the Nubian desert - the eastern most part of the Sahara that runs right across northern Africa (try clicking on 'Sat' on the map on the right & zooming in to see). This was a long and fairly uneventful journey, except for the 'camel's graveyard' which was a stretch of a couple of miles with literally hundreds of dead camels lying by the road. We got out for a couple of stops and were reminded that it was actually roasting outside, as you easily forget when there is air-conditioning.
We arrived just before nightfall, in a city that can take an hour and a half to drive across, with a vague address of our friend of a friend and their number. Very quickly a couple of Sudanese men wanted us to sit down - one in his taxi, the other at his bus ticket stall. We had got used to this kind of behaviour in Egypt and were very wary of it. But we had heard Sudan was different so we went along with it. We experienced what was to be the first time of many - they were genuinely just looking after us - they gave us tea and water (we don't drink the local water so this was a pray-and-hope-for-no-squits!) and one lent us his mobile to call our friend. We are much more helpless on this trip than we've ever been in London - just calling someone is difficult - and it means help is all the more sweet. Our friend came and collected us and we drove across the city, full of unfinished buildings, a posh hotel built by Gadaffi & many small shacks.
After endless tiny hotel rooms, it was an incredible treat to stay with this couple and meet another family who were staying with them. We joined them for church, we heard all about the community of workers there, we saw such unity and perseverance, it was a real joy. We were supposed to get travel permission from one government department and check in with the police somewhere else (and pay them quite a lot for the privilege) - but we had turned up at the end of Ramadan holidays - like Christmas - and only managed the first part of this. In the end neither was checked or remarked upon, even when at the border I said to 3 different police dudes that we hadn't checked in and pointed it out in the passports!
We also slightly reluctantly forced ourselves to explore the city a little bit - in search of a taxi a Sudanese lady stopped to help us and ended up driving us round the city herself! Again the Sudanese hospitality. She had a one and half year old - her nephew - sitting on her lap holding the steering wheel. Occasionally we would veer off the road a little as she forgot that his steering needed supervision. Then she would say sternly 'No, Dudey!' as Cate is so often heard exclaiming to me. Are you serious?! Did we hear right? Yes, this little one was also called 'Dudey'. We explained to her that we also speak to each other thus and the 3 dudies + lady had a good chuckle as she continued to say 'Well done Dudey' and the like. It was a bit worrying driving past the police as they couldn't see her hands holding the lower part of the wheel, but no-one seemed to mind this under-age driver.
We had to tear ourselves away after a couple of days and get on a bus to Gedaref, towards the eastern Ethiopian border. Another posh bus, with a thermometer reading of inside and out - over the course of the journey it dropped from 40 to 27 (and Khartoum had been 40 night and day). Gedaref was a much smaller town, like many it was dark at night with little electric lighting. Nevertheless we felt safe walking around as we have done since the beginning of the trip. We went to a restaurant where we were offered chicken, lamb or beef. After a lot of miming I got him to make me a fried egg sandwich (and no, I didn't have to go as far as miming laying an egg!). At one point a group of young men invited us to sit with them and have tea. We ended up talking for an hour, mainly to one guy who had excellent English and knew more about UK current affairs than us! He was also what I had really wanted to meet - a sincere and devoted Muslim who spoke English well enough that we could really talk. We all shared our faith, he with us & we with him. Cate shared very well as she always does, from the heart and unashamed. It was also sad, as he explained that he would love to travel like us, but it was far beyond what he could afford. Back to our hotel, which was quite a tough one. Cricket count was only 1 though, which I trapped under a glass. Don't worry, I freed him in the morning when we left.
Friday, 17 September 2010
Sea voyage to Sudan
Nick
We awoke on our last day in Egypt with excitement and a certain amount of trepidation as we rushed around getting as much money out as our bank cards would allow before heading to the ferry. We had heard that our cards wouldn't work at all in Sudan.
The ferry to Sudan only leaves once a week and it is the only allowed overland route in. This acts as a funnel for all those heading south - the majority going in jeeps. We've now met about 12 westerners on the same journey. Two of those were doing the same as us, but in reverse - Cape Town to England, and were waiting in Aswan for their 4x4 to follow on the separate barge that takes vehicles and cargo. They gave us this priceless info about the bank cards and also encouraged us greatly with how good and safe a trip they have had so far and how sad they were to leave sub-Saharan Africa. The others were not doing so well as they'd been told they had to wait another 2 weeks before a ferry + barge combo would sail.
We worked out a safe amount of money that we might need and then proceeded to be able to get much less than that out because Cate's card isn't working and mine has a daily limit. Do not fear, we have some spare dollars and we were being quite safe, especially as we rather wonderfully are going to be staying with some friends of a friend in Khartoum.
We didn't know what time the ferry was - we only knew that the norm is to turn up at 10am and for it to leave at 6pm. Still, we were a bit nervous as it was nearly 10 when we got our taxi for the 20 mile trip to the port - but we kept our heads and went via the tiny hidden coffee shop that we had found to buy some excellent felafel sandwiches. When we got to the port, all the others were there - negotiating a possibility of some of them travelling with us and a few staying with the vehicles and sailing a week later.
Cate
The Aswan to Wadi Halfa ferry has always been excitedly anticipated on our itinerary. Maybe it was the exotic voyage from Egypt to Sudan. Maybe it was sleeping on the water. Maybe it was delving deeper into Africa. Or maybe all three – but I must admit this romantic exhilaration slowly seeped out of me as we battled our way through endless customs before boarding. It was blazing hot and our bags were heavy. We felt self-conscious drinking water as everyone is fasting for Ramadan and every two minutes yet another uniformless dude would ask for our passports. Eventually we got on this medium-sized, tired and dirty boat, knowing when we stepped off we would step foot on Sudanese soil.
But we had 24 hours to face before that. Our room, with a bunkbed and a table, was grimy to say the least. Dirt seemed to be stuck onto everything and a mini cockroach scuttled under Nick’s foot. Initially grateful for air-conditioning, the system progressively froze the air until we were reaching for sleeping bags, cardigans, anything. Outside men shouted and banged various gigantic boxes about the boat. Romance, me and this ferry parted ways.
After boarding at 10am, the boat didn’t set off until 5pm. When it did however, we got up on deck and relaxed. We bumped into the British travelers, which was fun, and watched the sun set in a rich sky of pink gold over the water. As the sun sank into the water, everyone’s fast was broken and food was guzzled down. Darker Sudanese faces were dotted around, and each face beamed a brilliant white smile at us – so refreshing after the stares and smirks of Egypt. Romance was nudging its way back on board.
We slept surprisingly well and after some sweet tea and an egg in the cramped ferry restaurant, we arrived on the promised Sudanese soil – or sand. We boarded a truck with the Brits and were thrown out in Wadi Halfa, a tiny desert town, which one traveller deemed ‘the hottest place on earth’. We were shown what seemed to be the best hotel – one room had air-conditioning and the lobby had swanky chairs and wooden tables. Discovering this hotel had been built for the government by the government, we searched for another place to rest our heads. What we found was different to anywhere we have stayed so far. The rooms were dirty, the corridor was old stone, leading to the open air and a couple of long drops (yes – cockroach infected, yes – I preferred to pee in a bottle than brave them). The water to drink was kept in old orange stone jars and our open light switch had a threatening hanging wire. It was also 40C and though we had a fan Nick
likened it to a fan oven. Leaving Nick to rest, I snuck out to see the sunset and discovered a little family of cats – a mother and her two miniscule kittens. Fascinated I watched them for ages, and when I returned I found Nick in his sleeping bag at 40C. He was ‘testing a theory’ that once the body is at a certain heat, a sleeping bag would cool it down. The only theory I saw was that extreme heat fuels extreme peculiarity.
Walking round Wadi Halfa was delightful – a colourful shop, a donkey there, smoking coals for tea here, smiles there, all surrounded by relentless desert. Nick was seriously pummelled by some youngsters at a football PlayStation game - in a games console cafe - excatly like an internet one, but full of PlayStations and excited boys. Evening fell, and we ate beans, surrounded by men in long white kaftans drinking tea and watching the village television. We staggered home through the darkness. We needed all the sleep we could get - we were tired, it was hot and we had a 12 hour bus journey the next morning. Khartoum, Sudan's capital, awaited us.
We awoke on our last day in Egypt with excitement and a certain amount of trepidation as we rushed around getting as much money out as our bank cards would allow before heading to the ferry. We had heard that our cards wouldn't work at all in Sudan.
The ferry to Sudan only leaves once a week and it is the only allowed overland route in. This acts as a funnel for all those heading south - the majority going in jeeps. We've now met about 12 westerners on the same journey. Two of those were doing the same as us, but in reverse - Cape Town to England, and were waiting in Aswan for their 4x4 to follow on the separate barge that takes vehicles and cargo. They gave us this priceless info about the bank cards and also encouraged us greatly with how good and safe a trip they have had so far and how sad they were to leave sub-Saharan Africa. The others were not doing so well as they'd been told they had to wait another 2 weeks before a ferry + barge combo would sail.
We worked out a safe amount of money that we might need and then proceeded to be able to get much less than that out because Cate's card isn't working and mine has a daily limit. Do not fear, we have some spare dollars and we were being quite safe, especially as we rather wonderfully are going to be staying with some friends of a friend in Khartoum.
We didn't know what time the ferry was - we only knew that the norm is to turn up at 10am and for it to leave at 6pm. Still, we were a bit nervous as it was nearly 10 when we got our taxi for the 20 mile trip to the port - but we kept our heads and went via the tiny hidden coffee shop that we had found to buy some excellent felafel sandwiches. When we got to the port, all the others were there - negotiating a possibility of some of them travelling with us and a few staying with the vehicles and sailing a week later.
Cate
The Aswan to Wadi Halfa ferry has always been excitedly anticipated on our itinerary. Maybe it was the exotic voyage from Egypt to Sudan. Maybe it was sleeping on the water. Maybe it was delving deeper into Africa. Or maybe all three – but I must admit this romantic exhilaration slowly seeped out of me as we battled our way through endless customs before boarding. It was blazing hot and our bags were heavy. We felt self-conscious drinking water as everyone is fasting for Ramadan and every two minutes yet another uniformless dude would ask for our passports. Eventually we got on this medium-sized, tired and dirty boat, knowing when we stepped off we would step foot on Sudanese soil.
But we had 24 hours to face before that. Our room, with a bunkbed and a table, was grimy to say the least. Dirt seemed to be stuck onto everything and a mini cockroach scuttled under Nick’s foot. Initially grateful for air-conditioning, the system progressively froze the air until we were reaching for sleeping bags, cardigans, anything. Outside men shouted and banged various gigantic boxes about the boat. Romance, me and this ferry parted ways.
After boarding at 10am, the boat didn’t set off until 5pm. When it did however, we got up on deck and relaxed. We bumped into the British travelers, which was fun, and watched the sun set in a rich sky of pink gold over the water. As the sun sank into the water, everyone’s fast was broken and food was guzzled down. Darker Sudanese faces were dotted around, and each face beamed a brilliant white smile at us – so refreshing after the stares and smirks of Egypt. Romance was nudging its way back on board.
We slept surprisingly well and after some sweet tea and an egg in the cramped ferry restaurant, we arrived on the promised Sudanese soil – or sand. We boarded a truck with the Brits and were thrown out in Wadi Halfa, a tiny desert town, which one traveller deemed ‘the hottest place on earth’. We were shown what seemed to be the best hotel – one room had air-conditioning and the lobby had swanky chairs and wooden tables. Discovering this hotel had been built for the government by the government, we searched for another place to rest our heads. What we found was different to anywhere we have stayed so far. The rooms were dirty, the corridor was old stone, leading to the open air and a couple of long drops (yes – cockroach infected, yes – I preferred to pee in a bottle than brave them). The water to drink was kept in old orange stone jars and our open light switch had a threatening hanging wire. It was also 40C and though we had a fan Nick
likened it to a fan oven. Leaving Nick to rest, I snuck out to see the sunset and discovered a little family of cats – a mother and her two miniscule kittens. Fascinated I watched them for ages, and when I returned I found Nick in his sleeping bag at 40C. He was ‘testing a theory’ that once the body is at a certain heat, a sleeping bag would cool it down. The only theory I saw was that extreme heat fuels extreme peculiarity.
Walking round Wadi Halfa was delightful – a colourful shop, a donkey there, smoking coals for tea here, smiles there, all surrounded by relentless desert. Nick was seriously pummelled by some youngsters at a football PlayStation game - in a games console cafe - excatly like an internet one, but full of PlayStations and excited boys. Evening fell, and we ate beans, surrounded by men in long white kaftans drinking tea and watching the village television. We staggered home through the darkness. We needed all the sleep we could get - we were tired, it was hot and we had a 12 hour bus journey the next morning. Khartoum, Sudan's capital, awaited us.
Sunday, 5 September 2010
Nile grazing in Aswan
Cate
A painless sleeper from Cairo - soft white sheets, a cinnamon roll in the morning - arrived in Aswan, southern Egypt, at 9.30am. We stumbled through the heat (having gently dipped into a cool Zone 1 in Cairo, we are back in Zone 2 of 40c plus) to our hotel, the Keylany. We found our little room, simliar to most rooms we stay in - but very clean. More delights than bedroom bound cleanliness were to come! Yes - delight upon delight! And all at the same price as our normal B&B! For breakfast a smartly dressed waiter serves pancakes, fresh fruit and fresh lemon juice - which is joyous, as we have had many an egg over these last few weeks. Also in the Middle East they LOVE 'Nescafe' which means instant coffee, but NOT HERE - REAL coffee is brought in a gorgeous crumbling stone mug. These guys are going against the grain (in more ways than one...) and I am relishing it. They serve all of this yummy goodness on a roof terrace with wooden sun loungers and a little POOL! perfect for zone 2 temperatures. The joy of this little space is that no one seems to use it, and we spent a wonderful few hours up there on our first day with a non-alcholic beer in the pool. So strange to sometimes get those glimpses of being on an amazing holiday - and the next minute be embracing all SORTS of comfort challengers!
Aswan is a sweet town. The Nile seems to have magically transformed from a flat grey to a sparkling blue, the hot sun dancing on its ripples and graceful white feluccas sailing to and fro. The pace of life has slowed and we can cross roads again - most of the time. There is a wonderful souk (market) that flows in old arches through the town, with copper lanterns, blue and red spices, pretty glass bottles and wicker baskets. With the influx of beauty comes the influx of tourists, which we did not expect. Zone 2 creates a low season at this time of year, but there are still a few white faces and long shorts bopping about. The mark of tourism is greater than this however - we meet it almost continously as we walk the streets. We haven't been as hassled as this since we began our trip. Everywhere we go cries rise of 'felucca ride, I give you good price' or 'come and see, come' or 'spices?' or 'where are you from?' - the list is endless. I wish our patience too was endless, but it has started to wear on us.
It is a complicated business - this 'hassling'. Egypt is renowned for it, but I know it won't be our last encounter with desperate pleas for business. The intentions behind it are mixed - curiousity, money, fun, laziness, aggression. And I think the source of these intentions has a long history. Egypt's economy is struggling under severe population pressure. The reason for this struggle is also complicated. I know my country has acted appaulling in Africa throughout history and continues to through subtler means. Regardless of global context, the man in front of me hassling me to buy spices is poorer than me. I know it from his shoes and the fact that I can come and go to Aswan, and he may never leave it. Contempt for him is totally inappropriate - compassion and reptenence is better. We are reading Les Miserables at the moment, and I love this part, spoken by the bishop:
Amidst all this, we have also managed to relax, which has been wonderful. We caught a ferry to a neighbouring island, Elephantine Island and suddenly I felt like we had arrived in Africa. Everything up to this point has seemed distinctly Arab - men with lighter skin speaking Arabic, the desert and the Westernised cities, the women in seamless layers of black. But here I felt like we were exploring what I understand as Africa. It started with colourful mud huts among towering palm trees, and developed with the smell of smouldering fires and the sounds of cockrel cries. Goats hit in the shade and a woman walked between walls with baskets poised perfectly on her head.
We found a old man who had decorated his house in bright Nubian colours - blue, yellow, red, green against white walls, alongside jewellery and pink wicker hanging in neat lines. It was his own little restaurant and we sat on his roof balcony, watching maybe the most serene scene on earth. The Nile passed by, blue and deep, with strong palm trees decorating its edges. Behind the river lay daunting sand dunes, and the sun hot in the sky. White feluccas glided by and a couple of men were digging steadily outside their home. We spent hours there, eating and enjoying this beautiful place in quiet.
Quiet... until we met EL CROCO. El C was a little weeny croc rescued from a fishing net by our Nubian host. He took him in and raised him, and now he is a bigger and scarier croc. He is still a minicroc, but who doesn't get jittery over a minicroc? Especially in a very escapable tank in the house you are eating in. However we fearlessly hung around El C, amazed at his beauty and jagged little munchers. This harmless play is recorded on our previous post. El Croco decided at one stage he had enough.
These felucca sailing boats I've mentioned are a sight to behold. They seem ancient, made out of canvas, rope and wood - the wood painted white but wearing away at the edges. We hopped on one today for an hour and basked in the gentleness and beauty of the Nile. Our sailor had a brilliant smile and allowed Nick to steer us for a bit, much to his enjoyment! As he sailed I hopped around the boat taking in how beautiful it was. Man wants to steer, woman wants to appreciate beauty. Man also wanted to explain the techicalities of the sail but this was too great a reach across the divide and within minutes both were retreating to what they knew best.
We now approach the end of our week's delay in Egypt. Tomorrow we board the ferry to Wadi Halfa. Leaving behind the car horns of Cairo and the feluccas of Aswan, we hope to wake up in Sudan on Tuesday.
A painless sleeper from Cairo - soft white sheets, a cinnamon roll in the morning - arrived in Aswan, southern Egypt, at 9.30am. We stumbled through the heat (having gently dipped into a cool Zone 1 in Cairo, we are back in Zone 2 of 40c plus) to our hotel, the Keylany. We found our little room, simliar to most rooms we stay in - but very clean. More delights than bedroom bound cleanliness were to come! Yes - delight upon delight! And all at the same price as our normal B&B! For breakfast a smartly dressed waiter serves pancakes, fresh fruit and fresh lemon juice - which is joyous, as we have had many an egg over these last few weeks. Also in the Middle East they LOVE 'Nescafe' which means instant coffee, but NOT HERE - REAL coffee is brought in a gorgeous crumbling stone mug. These guys are going against the grain (in more ways than one...) and I am relishing it. They serve all of this yummy goodness on a roof terrace with wooden sun loungers and a little POOL! perfect for zone 2 temperatures. The joy of this little space is that no one seems to use it, and we spent a wonderful few hours up there on our first day with a non-alcholic beer in the pool. So strange to sometimes get those glimpses of being on an amazing holiday - and the next minute be embracing all SORTS of comfort challengers!
Aswan is a sweet town. The Nile seems to have magically transformed from a flat grey to a sparkling blue, the hot sun dancing on its ripples and graceful white feluccas sailing to and fro. The pace of life has slowed and we can cross roads again - most of the time. There is a wonderful souk (market) that flows in old arches through the town, with copper lanterns, blue and red spices, pretty glass bottles and wicker baskets. With the influx of beauty comes the influx of tourists, which we did not expect. Zone 2 creates a low season at this time of year, but there are still a few white faces and long shorts bopping about. The mark of tourism is greater than this however - we meet it almost continously as we walk the streets. We haven't been as hassled as this since we began our trip. Everywhere we go cries rise of 'felucca ride, I give you good price' or 'come and see, come' or 'spices?' or 'where are you from?' - the list is endless. I wish our patience too was endless, but it has started to wear on us.
It is a complicated business - this 'hassling'. Egypt is renowned for it, but I know it won't be our last encounter with desperate pleas for business. The intentions behind it are mixed - curiousity, money, fun, laziness, aggression. And I think the source of these intentions has a long history. Egypt's economy is struggling under severe population pressure. The reason for this struggle is also complicated. I know my country has acted appaulling in Africa throughout history and continues to through subtler means. Regardless of global context, the man in front of me hassling me to buy spices is poorer than me. I know it from his shoes and the fact that I can come and go to Aswan, and he may never leave it. Contempt for him is totally inappropriate - compassion and reptenence is better. We are reading Les Miserables at the moment, and I love this part, spoken by the bishop:
Teach the ignorant as much as you can, society is culpable in not providing instruction for all, and it must answer for the night it produces. If the soul is left in darkness, sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he commits the sin, but he who causes the darkness.We want to be like this bishop, but we are not always.
Amidst all this, we have also managed to relax, which has been wonderful. We caught a ferry to a neighbouring island, Elephantine Island and suddenly I felt like we had arrived in Africa. Everything up to this point has seemed distinctly Arab - men with lighter skin speaking Arabic, the desert and the Westernised cities, the women in seamless layers of black. But here I felt like we were exploring what I understand as Africa. It started with colourful mud huts among towering palm trees, and developed with the smell of smouldering fires and the sounds of cockrel cries. Goats hit in the shade and a woman walked between walls with baskets poised perfectly on her head.
We found a old man who had decorated his house in bright Nubian colours - blue, yellow, red, green against white walls, alongside jewellery and pink wicker hanging in neat lines. It was his own little restaurant and we sat on his roof balcony, watching maybe the most serene scene on earth. The Nile passed by, blue and deep, with strong palm trees decorating its edges. Behind the river lay daunting sand dunes, and the sun hot in the sky. White feluccas glided by and a couple of men were digging steadily outside their home. We spent hours there, eating and enjoying this beautiful place in quiet.
Quiet... until we met EL CROCO. El C was a little weeny croc rescued from a fishing net by our Nubian host. He took him in and raised him, and now he is a bigger and scarier croc. He is still a minicroc, but who doesn't get jittery over a minicroc? Especially in a very escapable tank in the house you are eating in. However we fearlessly hung around El C, amazed at his beauty and jagged little munchers. This harmless play is recorded on our previous post. El Croco decided at one stage he had enough.
These felucca sailing boats I've mentioned are a sight to behold. They seem ancient, made out of canvas, rope and wood - the wood painted white but wearing away at the edges. We hopped on one today for an hour and basked in the gentleness and beauty of the Nile. Our sailor had a brilliant smile and allowed Nick to steer us for a bit, much to his enjoyment! As he sailed I hopped around the boat taking in how beautiful it was. Man wants to steer, woman wants to appreciate beauty. Man also wanted to explain the techicalities of the sail but this was too great a reach across the divide and within minutes both were retreating to what they knew best.
We now approach the end of our week's delay in Egypt. Tomorrow we board the ferry to Wadi Halfa. Leaving behind the car horns of Cairo and the feluccas of Aswan, we hope to wake up in Sudan on Tuesday.
El Croco!
Nick
Hey, with Cate's new birthday camera, this blog just got a bit more blogtastic!
We will try to upload some photos as we go...
It does video as well - here is us with a pet crocodile (see Aswan post coming soon):
Hey, with Cate's new birthday camera, this blog just got a bit more blogtastic!
We will try to upload some photos as we go...
It does video as well - here is us with a pet crocodile (see Aswan post coming soon):
Sunday, 29 August 2010
Cairo: dust, horns, pedestrian peril
Cate
The next morning after our Sinai experience, we were up at 5am again to catch the six hour bus to Cairo. Apart from a serious argument that involved everyone on the bus except us, it was fairly uneventful.
Too difficult for us to meet Sudan's demands for a VISA (letters, more VISAs, money, photos, forms) in time to catch the ferry, we suddenly have over a week to rest in Cairo. Though initially disappointing, we arrived totally drained from desert strandings, bus journeys and mountain hikes, and actually the prospect of a stationary week sounded delicious! Desperate to relax I asked a local what to do to relax in Cairo. "Relax?" he asked incredulously. "No relax in Cairo! Cairo stress city!" Unabashed I asked another Egyptian. "Relax?" came his reply. "Stay in your hotel room."
I have decided not to ask anyone else, because I am finding out for myself. I am learning our initial impression was typical of this heaving city - the largest in Africa and the Arab world. A thousands horns blast into the air, lanes upon lanes of cars (including our taxi) jolt violently and dart between one another, blast blast, people amble carefree among speeding buses, blast, a donkey here, a running teenager there, jolt jolt, blast, it is stickily hot, dust and dirt fly everywhere, jolt jolt. Out of the taxi and onto the street - even harder to navigate, more jolts - and horn blasts replaced with cries from street sellers, children, old men, anyone.
We arrived at our hotel of choice - the Berlin hotel. The entrance and frighteningly bolt of a lift was filthy. But everything is dirty is Cairo. A grey dust cakes everything in a thick film of dirt - the streets, almost every building, the walls, the floor, my feet. Our room was surprising clean (apart from the slightly grey looking shower), and we collapsed exhausted, hungry and strained on the bed. At this point meat re-entered my life. It was becoming increasingly difficult to find veggie food, and I was finding about three hundred other aspects of daily life challenging. I thought it would be good to ease up on the food side and remove that stress - and it has been a real relief! Nick, amazingly and so graciously, continues to fight the veggie fight, even through lowpoints such as waiters saying 'yes we have veggie... green salad?'
The Berlin hotel lasted a night and only a night. About the only time we were seperated Nick went out to use the Internet while I rested. I began to feel a bit fearful and thought lying on a bed alone was not helping my heart! I needed to get up and engage with the world. As I left, however, the receptionist dude (who had appeared about 80 years old and very sweet) took my hand and told me he loved me! Although this maybe sounds comical, actually I was alone in a weird hotel up five floors and he had known Nick was out - so I felt really uncomfortable. Also women and men in this culture show NO affection: they even sit in different carriages in the tube. The superfast lift served me very well as I zoomed out of the hotel, and I went to Internet cafe to find Nicholas. En route I hurried across a green mat on the pavement - it turned out to be a holy place and a praying Muslim shouted and chased me off! I found the Internet cafe. It was closed. I was now stuck in Cairo without a clue where Nick was. An Egyptian man approcahed me to help and by now I was fed up with Egyptian men but he turned out to be a persistent and actually a very helpful Egyptian man who said he would show me the nearest Internet joint. I accepted. This happened to be his best friend's travel agents: a little shop with leaflets and one computer with a man behind it. He booted his best friend off the computer, and I sat down, manning the travel agents. His best friend didn't seem to mind chilling and made me some sweet tea. I tracked Nick down on Skype (in another internet cafe he'd found) - and we arranged to meet. Phew! And we met - not without me getting lost one more time, after telling another Egyptian man 'No help thanks, I know where I'm going!' and humbly having to retrace my steps and ask him for his aid.
And so we left the Berlin hotel that day. We gave the receptionist a hard time - Nick trying to call the manager, me telling him he better not do that again to a travelling girl. He apologised profusely, his hands shaking. We left feeling that weird mixture of anger but so much grace - knowing he is not in a good place. We dumped our bags at Hotel Luna Bella which was a world away from the Berlin. A dirty entrance and fast lift were it's only similaritites. It was spotless and had pretty rooms with hat stands and decorative mirrors. The reception wore glasses and mainly spoke to Nick: we liked him a lot! We plan to stay here for the next few days.
Slightly shellshocked from our difficult days in the desert and now all Cairo was flying at us - add to that concotion my nasty cold and unwanted runniness - we sought rest and comfort. We found it at the Cairo Hilton. Cool, airy and wonderfully comfy, everyone was so gentle and helpful and I began to feel life flowing back into me! We spent the afternoon having yummy Italian food and lazing on a sofa reading, me ordering a hot lemon with sugar (I imagine about the only place in Cairo I could!) to ease my cold... I also found a copy of 25 Beautiful Homes magazine - which in London I might avoid for how it makes me want to live a decadent life - but in Cairo with only a backpack en route to Africa, it only brings colour and creativity!
I woke up in our new hotel yesterday and was musing on beauty... It brings so much joy and life to me: pinks and turqouises, patterns and peonies, golden evening sunlight and worn wood. Sometimes on our trip my eyes are flooded with beauty - and sometimes I miss it, in plain hotels, dusty roads and metal buses. And so I hunger for it and felt God honouring my desire for it, saying it was from His heart of beauty and creativity. As I thought all these things silently in my heart, Nick popped out and came back with a beautiful bouquet of pink, yellow and red roses! A birthday treat, as we hadn't been near any flowers earlier in the week! What a treat and a gift I think from my smiling God... Seeing this display of love (well done Nick!) the hotel manager upgraded us to their best room - spacious with two balconies! - for no extra cost. What a blessing.
And so in among the high stress of Cairo there is also delight and fun. We had a gorgeous Indian dinner last night to celebrate my birthday with lots of laughter... we got sent out of a cafe for being too affectionate (we have been SO restrained so far but had a momentary lapse) and as we left I smashed the glass by accident, I have never seen a sadder waiter about a glass... and we are learning to carve our relaxing spaces in our quiet times and in restful hotels! Still, Cairo has been difficult for us. It is hard to cross ANY road, and in a taxi it is joltjoltjolt, when I am not near Nick within seconds a man will shout or approach me, and it feels like at night the city is in a permanent state of riot. Actually everyone is celebrating Ramadan's end of day feast, but what we see is thousands of people cramming the pavements and traffic at standstill. What we hear from our hotel room is blast blast and screams (really - I don't know why, but a yell / cry / scream / laugh mixture fills our ears as we try our best to sleep... pray for Nick, particularly to sleep, as he isn't easily.)
So a delicious blessing to have a stationery week. We just need to know how in a chaotic whirl of a city, we remain stationery inside and out. I think we are learning.
The next morning after our Sinai experience, we were up at 5am again to catch the six hour bus to Cairo. Apart from a serious argument that involved everyone on the bus except us, it was fairly uneventful.
Too difficult for us to meet Sudan's demands for a VISA (letters, more VISAs, money, photos, forms) in time to catch the ferry, we suddenly have over a week to rest in Cairo. Though initially disappointing, we arrived totally drained from desert strandings, bus journeys and mountain hikes, and actually the prospect of a stationary week sounded delicious! Desperate to relax I asked a local what to do to relax in Cairo. "Relax?" he asked incredulously. "No relax in Cairo! Cairo stress city!" Unabashed I asked another Egyptian. "Relax?" came his reply. "Stay in your hotel room."
I have decided not to ask anyone else, because I am finding out for myself. I am learning our initial impression was typical of this heaving city - the largest in Africa and the Arab world. A thousands horns blast into the air, lanes upon lanes of cars (including our taxi) jolt violently and dart between one another, blast blast, people amble carefree among speeding buses, blast, a donkey here, a running teenager there, jolt jolt, blast, it is stickily hot, dust and dirt fly everywhere, jolt jolt. Out of the taxi and onto the street - even harder to navigate, more jolts - and horn blasts replaced with cries from street sellers, children, old men, anyone.
We arrived at our hotel of choice - the Berlin hotel. The entrance and frighteningly bolt of a lift was filthy. But everything is dirty is Cairo. A grey dust cakes everything in a thick film of dirt - the streets, almost every building, the walls, the floor, my feet. Our room was surprising clean (apart from the slightly grey looking shower), and we collapsed exhausted, hungry and strained on the bed. At this point meat re-entered my life. It was becoming increasingly difficult to find veggie food, and I was finding about three hundred other aspects of daily life challenging. I thought it would be good to ease up on the food side and remove that stress - and it has been a real relief! Nick, amazingly and so graciously, continues to fight the veggie fight, even through lowpoints such as waiters saying 'yes we have veggie... green salad?'
The Berlin hotel lasted a night and only a night. About the only time we were seperated Nick went out to use the Internet while I rested. I began to feel a bit fearful and thought lying on a bed alone was not helping my heart! I needed to get up and engage with the world. As I left, however, the receptionist dude (who had appeared about 80 years old and very sweet) took my hand and told me he loved me! Although this maybe sounds comical, actually I was alone in a weird hotel up five floors and he had known Nick was out - so I felt really uncomfortable. Also women and men in this culture show NO affection: they even sit in different carriages in the tube. The superfast lift served me very well as I zoomed out of the hotel, and I went to Internet cafe to find Nicholas. En route I hurried across a green mat on the pavement - it turned out to be a holy place and a praying Muslim shouted and chased me off! I found the Internet cafe. It was closed. I was now stuck in Cairo without a clue where Nick was. An Egyptian man approcahed me to help and by now I was fed up with Egyptian men but he turned out to be a persistent and actually a very helpful Egyptian man who said he would show me the nearest Internet joint. I accepted. This happened to be his best friend's travel agents: a little shop with leaflets and one computer with a man behind it. He booted his best friend off the computer, and I sat down, manning the travel agents. His best friend didn't seem to mind chilling and made me some sweet tea. I tracked Nick down on Skype (in another internet cafe he'd found) - and we arranged to meet. Phew! And we met - not without me getting lost one more time, after telling another Egyptian man 'No help thanks, I know where I'm going!' and humbly having to retrace my steps and ask him for his aid.
And so we left the Berlin hotel that day. We gave the receptionist a hard time - Nick trying to call the manager, me telling him he better not do that again to a travelling girl. He apologised profusely, his hands shaking. We left feeling that weird mixture of anger but so much grace - knowing he is not in a good place. We dumped our bags at Hotel Luna Bella which was a world away from the Berlin. A dirty entrance and fast lift were it's only similaritites. It was spotless and had pretty rooms with hat stands and decorative mirrors. The reception wore glasses and mainly spoke to Nick: we liked him a lot! We plan to stay here for the next few days.
Slightly shellshocked from our difficult days in the desert and now all Cairo was flying at us - add to that concotion my nasty cold and unwanted runniness - we sought rest and comfort. We found it at the Cairo Hilton. Cool, airy and wonderfully comfy, everyone was so gentle and helpful and I began to feel life flowing back into me! We spent the afternoon having yummy Italian food and lazing on a sofa reading, me ordering a hot lemon with sugar (I imagine about the only place in Cairo I could!) to ease my cold... I also found a copy of 25 Beautiful Homes magazine - which in London I might avoid for how it makes me want to live a decadent life - but in Cairo with only a backpack en route to Africa, it only brings colour and creativity!
I woke up in our new hotel yesterday and was musing on beauty... It brings so much joy and life to me: pinks and turqouises, patterns and peonies, golden evening sunlight and worn wood. Sometimes on our trip my eyes are flooded with beauty - and sometimes I miss it, in plain hotels, dusty roads and metal buses. And so I hunger for it and felt God honouring my desire for it, saying it was from His heart of beauty and creativity. As I thought all these things silently in my heart, Nick popped out and came back with a beautiful bouquet of pink, yellow and red roses! A birthday treat, as we hadn't been near any flowers earlier in the week! What a treat and a gift I think from my smiling God... Seeing this display of love (well done Nick!) the hotel manager upgraded us to their best room - spacious with two balconies! - for no extra cost. What a blessing.
And so in among the high stress of Cairo there is also delight and fun. We had a gorgeous Indian dinner last night to celebrate my birthday with lots of laughter... we got sent out of a cafe for being too affectionate (we have been SO restrained so far but had a momentary lapse) and as we left I smashed the glass by accident, I have never seen a sadder waiter about a glass... and we are learning to carve our relaxing spaces in our quiet times and in restful hotels! Still, Cairo has been difficult for us. It is hard to cross ANY road, and in a taxi it is joltjoltjolt, when I am not near Nick within seconds a man will shout or approach me, and it feels like at night the city is in a permanent state of riot. Actually everyone is celebrating Ramadan's end of day feast, but what we see is thousands of people cramming the pavements and traffic at standstill. What we hear from our hotel room is blast blast and screams (really - I don't know why, but a yell / cry / scream / laugh mixture fills our ears as we try our best to sleep... pray for Nick, particularly to sleep, as he isn't easily.)
So a delicious blessing to have a stationery week. We just need to know how in a chaotic whirl of a city, we remain stationery inside and out. I think we are learning.
From sunrise to sunset: Cate's birthday
Cate
On the morning of the 25th of August, my birthday, we woke at 5am to watch the sunrise. Apparently Egypt don't do the whole hour ahead thing like the rest of the world does. So by accident we woke at 4am to watch a dark sky. At 5am, a slow purple haze appeared above the sea. Gently red infiltrated the purple, the pink, then yellow light. As this light fell on the waves, two giant crabs scuttled past us and were swept quite suddenly into the sea. One of us was a bit scared by the crabs. I won't say who, but he is known to call cockroaches crickets.
We ate some bread and our driver came to collect us in his pick-up. He sped us to the nearby town to catch the bus - our plan was to go to Mount Sinai, where God appeared to Moses and gave him the law. It was exhilirating, speeding through the air as the sun ascended, a red, burning ball above the sea. We got off at the local town Nuweiba. After an hour - a thoroughly enjoyable hour as we watched a stray camel amble down the road, seemingly unafraid of violently fast buses, chomping innocently on a tree - our bus arrived. Exhuasted after a rough night, I snoozed for what seemed like half an hour. Suddenly the driver was ushering us off the bus. We had hoped to get off at Dahab, and catch our connecting bus to Mount Sinai. This dude recommended we get off at this random junction, as it would save time. On the map it certainly seemed to save us two hours travel time. We disembarked.
The promised bus never came. The sun was beating down and we were stranded. Our only company was mountains, electric pylons and fifteen police men manning a checkpoint, grumpy with guns. In hope of our bus, we waited there for three hours. I cried. It was my birthday and I was stranded and sad. Nick was sad because I was sad. We were both really sad. I opened some of my beautiful cards... THANK you my dearest and most precious friends for these! Such a delight! Such colour and joy and words of love! These made me cry even more because I wanted to be in London drinking coffee and celebrating with loving people. Instead I had pilons and guns. (And the amazing Nick! who was seriously brilliant throughout our stranding.) One gunman became our friend and asked truck drivers to help us. We desperately held our thumbs to posh tour companies but all the westerners averted their eyes from us! The lowest point was when I asked the gunmen if I could use their longdrop. They didn't initially understand, and as I walked away I saw one look digusted and shake his hands at me with such a degree of horribleness that I told Nick when I got back. Ooh and then one of my favourite moments of the day! Nick marched up to the gunmen and gave them an impressive telling off - and as they fobbed him off with 'no problem, it's no problem', he said, undeterred by their gigantic rifles, 'It is a problem! You were rude! She's upset! And it's her birthday!' The man apologised and I was somewhat smitten with my choice of husband.
A Bedouin man (the local tribe in Sinai) stopped by and offered to take us to Sinai for a fee. We accepted gratefully, and got to stop by at his home en route - a tiny hole carved into a mountain of rock. He dropped us off once more in the middle of nowhere with guards, which was almost the final straw, but apparently this time we were extremely close to Sinai. Another Bedouin (very old with no teeth, wonderful eyes and an ancient wooden stick) offered us a lift to Sinai. We jumped in, and he too dropped us off NOT at Sinai but CLOSE to Sinai, and this time, hungry we stopped to eat. I pottered off to a local stall. By this stage I was so exhausted. I knew the stall owner would be keen for some chat. I decided to embark on a NEW TACTIC - silence. This is how it went.
Owner - 'Hello!'
Me - Silence
Owner - 'Come in!'
Me - Silence
Owner - 'Have a look!'
Me - Smile and silence
Owner - 'You are beautiful, and quiet! An angel!'
So impressed by my silence was he, that he gave me a free bracelet. When he offered to put it on for me, I said no thanks my husband would, and he started telling me how lucky my husband was. He interupted himself and started writing a postcard to my husband saying the following 'Necolas you are lucky, wife is beautiful angel, England.' He was so zealous that he didn't mind drawing on his own resources to pen his heartfelt congratulations.
We walked the final stretch, ten minutes in the desert heat, and found our monastry guesthouse, at the foot of Sinai. What an oasis in the desert: cool, clean rooms and a leafy courtyard. We had made it.
Nick
We were ready to make like Moses and, er, climb up Mount Sinai...
Or at least we were ready to sit on some camels while they did the legwork and we enjoyed the view. On the way we met a police man who insisted we go back and get a torch if we were to go up at this time - nearly 5pm. Having done that & got Cate's glasses, I showed him my super 1/2 Watt wind-up LED mini torch which he very much liked, though he did drop it. It's not up to much, but it doesn't get dark that quickly does it?
We paid for two camels and a guide with some of Cate's birthday money and we were off. This was harder work than either of us imagined as we gripped on with our legs and tried not to panic as we trusted them to follow the path and not wander off down the cliff. I noticed their feet were much more suited to the climb than say a horseshoe would be - they are kind of like lanky horses with slippers. Mine made very strange noises a lot. And also farted really really loudly on occasion. I'm not sure even now that Cate believes it was the camel. It was. Honestly.
After about an hour and half, we were ready to give up our sideways munching friends and walk the last 45 mins up to the summit. This is a much steeper bit not suitable for camels and was pretty hard going. Though we had been warned of the hoards of tourists, we had gone up the whole mountain alone. At the top we joined a few people who had also come for the sunset and found a place to sit.
Cate
The sweat and tears were to be rewarded. Mount Sinai was astounding: towering peaks as far as the eye could see, with dark shadows of valleys between. The red sun we watched rise now set amidmst this overwhelming land of mountains, of power, the earth brown peaks and black valleys illuminated by red and gold light. I was so amazed at its vastness and how small I was, that I felt almost frightened. The God who made all of this suddenly seemed so magnificent and massive, and I was so small. I knew He was God and He could do whatever He wanted. And then I remembered His love for me, and I was overwhelmed. He is so holy. I thought I could hear Him whispering 'Be holy, as I am holy'. What a call... and I have the Spirit in me, who is Holy by name, to lead me to holiness...
It suddenly grew dark very quickly, and I couldn't see Nick anywhere. A quick jaunt down the mountain I thought, jogging over in my little plastic flipflops. Nick was cross I had taken so long - he was worried about about the descent. I began to understand why. In the blink of an eye it was night, and we were stuck at the top of a mountain. We still had our guide who had accompanied us on the camel, and so we were reassured by his presence. The problem was he skipped like an antelope, leaping down the hills as if they were green English meadows, and we were often left quivering with our pathetic torch behind. This jaunt became an absolute marathon. A mix of ferociously uneven rocks, jolting our ankles and causing us to slip, combined with death traps around the corner, as a few wrong steps would lead to hurtling off the edge, and added to that serious exhaustion, antelope guide and hours still to go... At one point I mounted a stray camel to ease my legs, but it hurtled me back and forth so painfully I had to get down. In the end I was so tired I was speechless and my legs were shaking like jelly. We arrived like drained wretches to a wonderful three course meal at the monastry and an incredible night's sleep. Was the trek worth it? Yes. But I might not hop up there tomorrow.
On the morning of the 25th of August, my birthday, we woke at 5am to watch the sunrise. Apparently Egypt don't do the whole hour ahead thing like the rest of the world does. So by accident we woke at 4am to watch a dark sky. At 5am, a slow purple haze appeared above the sea. Gently red infiltrated the purple, the pink, then yellow light. As this light fell on the waves, two giant crabs scuttled past us and were swept quite suddenly into the sea. One of us was a bit scared by the crabs. I won't say who, but he is known to call cockroaches crickets.
We ate some bread and our driver came to collect us in his pick-up. He sped us to the nearby town to catch the bus - our plan was to go to Mount Sinai, where God appeared to Moses and gave him the law. It was exhilirating, speeding through the air as the sun ascended, a red, burning ball above the sea. We got off at the local town Nuweiba. After an hour - a thoroughly enjoyable hour as we watched a stray camel amble down the road, seemingly unafraid of violently fast buses, chomping innocently on a tree - our bus arrived. Exhuasted after a rough night, I snoozed for what seemed like half an hour. Suddenly the driver was ushering us off the bus. We had hoped to get off at Dahab, and catch our connecting bus to Mount Sinai. This dude recommended we get off at this random junction, as it would save time. On the map it certainly seemed to save us two hours travel time. We disembarked.
The promised bus never came. The sun was beating down and we were stranded. Our only company was mountains, electric pylons and fifteen police men manning a checkpoint, grumpy with guns. In hope of our bus, we waited there for three hours. I cried. It was my birthday and I was stranded and sad. Nick was sad because I was sad. We were both really sad. I opened some of my beautiful cards... THANK you my dearest and most precious friends for these! Such a delight! Such colour and joy and words of love! These made me cry even more because I wanted to be in London drinking coffee and celebrating with loving people. Instead I had pilons and guns. (And the amazing Nick! who was seriously brilliant throughout our stranding.) One gunman became our friend and asked truck drivers to help us. We desperately held our thumbs to posh tour companies but all the westerners averted their eyes from us! The lowest point was when I asked the gunmen if I could use their longdrop. They didn't initially understand, and as I walked away I saw one look digusted and shake his hands at me with such a degree of horribleness that I told Nick when I got back. Ooh and then one of my favourite moments of the day! Nick marched up to the gunmen and gave them an impressive telling off - and as they fobbed him off with 'no problem, it's no problem', he said, undeterred by their gigantic rifles, 'It is a problem! You were rude! She's upset! And it's her birthday!' The man apologised and I was somewhat smitten with my choice of husband.
A Bedouin man (the local tribe in Sinai) stopped by and offered to take us to Sinai for a fee. We accepted gratefully, and got to stop by at his home en route - a tiny hole carved into a mountain of rock. He dropped us off once more in the middle of nowhere with guards, which was almost the final straw, but apparently this time we were extremely close to Sinai. Another Bedouin (very old with no teeth, wonderful eyes and an ancient wooden stick) offered us a lift to Sinai. We jumped in, and he too dropped us off NOT at Sinai but CLOSE to Sinai, and this time, hungry we stopped to eat. I pottered off to a local stall. By this stage I was so exhausted. I knew the stall owner would be keen for some chat. I decided to embark on a NEW TACTIC - silence. This is how it went.
Owner - 'Hello!'
Me - Silence
Owner - 'Come in!'
Me - Silence
Owner - 'Have a look!'
Me - Smile and silence
Owner - 'You are beautiful, and quiet! An angel!'
So impressed by my silence was he, that he gave me a free bracelet. When he offered to put it on for me, I said no thanks my husband would, and he started telling me how lucky my husband was. He interupted himself and started writing a postcard to my husband saying the following 'Necolas you are lucky, wife is beautiful angel, England.' He was so zealous that he didn't mind drawing on his own resources to pen his heartfelt congratulations.
We walked the final stretch, ten minutes in the desert heat, and found our monastry guesthouse, at the foot of Sinai. What an oasis in the desert: cool, clean rooms and a leafy courtyard. We had made it.
Nick
We were ready to make like Moses and, er, climb up Mount Sinai...
Or at least we were ready to sit on some camels while they did the legwork and we enjoyed the view. On the way we met a police man who insisted we go back and get a torch if we were to go up at this time - nearly 5pm. Having done that & got Cate's glasses, I showed him my super 1/2 Watt wind-up LED mini torch which he very much liked, though he did drop it. It's not up to much, but it doesn't get dark that quickly does it?
We paid for two camels and a guide with some of Cate's birthday money and we were off. This was harder work than either of us imagined as we gripped on with our legs and tried not to panic as we trusted them to follow the path and not wander off down the cliff. I noticed their feet were much more suited to the climb than say a horseshoe would be - they are kind of like lanky horses with slippers. Mine made very strange noises a lot. And also farted really really loudly on occasion. I'm not sure even now that Cate believes it was the camel. It was. Honestly.
After about an hour and half, we were ready to give up our sideways munching friends and walk the last 45 mins up to the summit. This is a much steeper bit not suitable for camels and was pretty hard going. Though we had been warned of the hoards of tourists, we had gone up the whole mountain alone. At the top we joined a few people who had also come for the sunset and found a place to sit.
Cate
The sweat and tears were to be rewarded. Mount Sinai was astounding: towering peaks as far as the eye could see, with dark shadows of valleys between. The red sun we watched rise now set amidmst this overwhelming land of mountains, of power, the earth brown peaks and black valleys illuminated by red and gold light. I was so amazed at its vastness and how small I was, that I felt almost frightened. The God who made all of this suddenly seemed so magnificent and massive, and I was so small. I knew He was God and He could do whatever He wanted. And then I remembered His love for me, and I was overwhelmed. He is so holy. I thought I could hear Him whispering 'Be holy, as I am holy'. What a call... and I have the Spirit in me, who is Holy by name, to lead me to holiness...
It suddenly grew dark very quickly, and I couldn't see Nick anywhere. A quick jaunt down the mountain I thought, jogging over in my little plastic flipflops. Nick was cross I had taken so long - he was worried about about the descent. I began to understand why. In the blink of an eye it was night, and we were stuck at the top of a mountain. We still had our guide who had accompanied us on the camel, and so we were reassured by his presence. The problem was he skipped like an antelope, leaping down the hills as if they were green English meadows, and we were often left quivering with our pathetic torch behind. This jaunt became an absolute marathon. A mix of ferociously uneven rocks, jolting our ankles and causing us to slip, combined with death traps around the corner, as a few wrong steps would lead to hurtling off the edge, and added to that serious exhaustion, antelope guide and hours still to go... At one point I mounted a stray camel to ease my legs, but it hurtled me back and forth so painfully I had to get down. In the end I was so tired I was speechless and my legs were shaking like jelly. We arrived like drained wretches to a wonderful three course meal at the monastry and an incredible night's sleep. Was the trek worth it? Yes. But I might not hop up there tomorrow.
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