Eighteen Days in the Desert - Part 1 of 3

Well, here it is, at long last, part one of my final post about Africa. I am in Wales at my friends' place (Kevin & Rowan). I arrived last Wednesday and have since been basically relaxing, playing with the kids (Elsa, my goddaughter, and Freja). It's cold, rainy, windy and just plain damp here - I feel right at home! It's really nice to be with good friends, who are like family, after 5 weeks of going from place to place and staying in hostels and guesthouses. I am starting to get into the holiday spirit now that I am no longer in a tropical part of the world. I went to a couple Christmas craft fairs and have been writing Christmas cards to send back home. The girls have colds, so I have appointed myself the snotty nose wiper...good times...good times...

Okay, I will try to convey, as thoroughly as possible, my experience of building a wall in the desert. But first, just a quick overview of the project, to provide context. We were on a two week work program with Elephant Human Relations Aid (EHRA). It is a small, grassroots organization that was set up to respond to situations where farmers and elephants end up in conflict, because elephants looking for water often damage wind mills and water tanks. The farmers see the elephants as a nuisance and often shoot them (which is illegal). EHRA educates the farmers on how to coexist with the elephants and then offers to build walls around water points. Part of the plan involves providing the elephants with an alternative water source, while protecting the tank, reservoir, wind mill, etc. EHRA is funded by the volunteers who pay to participate in this project.

Our group was quite eclectic: There were 14 volunteers, ranging in age from 20 to 64. There were 9 Brits, 2 Canadians (us), 1 German, 1 Norwegian and one woman from Singapore who lives in Switzerland. We had, among others, 2 journalists, 2 lawyers, a shepherd, a bookie, a retired doctor, a risk manager and a music composer. What a potent mix of talent, skill and experience!! We had many fascinating, lively and sometimes heated conversations around the campfire (no pun intended). And the jokes and hilarity were rampant! I laughed a lot!

On Monday, November 9, we arrived at base camp (one of the coolest places I had ever been), after a 4 hour drive from Swakopmund. The tour and orientation revealed that our sleeping quarters were basically a tree fort!! How cool is that? The toilets were also quite interesting (photo-worthy for my collection of toilet pictures), as were the showers. Before dinner, we were given the safety briefing and overview of the upcoming week. We learned the difference between the scorpions that are dangerous and those that are deadly. We were told all about the various spiders and snakes that live in the desert. "Before putting your boots on in the morning, shake them upside down to make sure nothing is hiding in them. Shake your bedding and your clothing, if you have left them out over night. When you lift a rock, tilt it with the opening away from you so that anything that might be underneath it, runs away from you rather than towards you. When you put a log on the fire, stay clear of the end that is not in the fire, since anything that may be hiding in the wood will run away from the fire". We were told to let one of our leaders know right away if we are bitten by by something, as they have a device that sucks out poison and could save our lives. At one point I remember thinking "I hope I live to post a blog entry about the next couple weeks". After the briefing Dave, one of our two leaders, asked if anyone wanted to bail at this point...no one did.

Our Tree Fort Accommodation

A Room With a View
Fantastic Outdoor Showers

One of Two Bathrooms

The Tool Shed at Base Camp

Dry River Bed at Sunset - Base Camp

We left early the next morning to begin work. After driving for an hour and a half, we arrived at our work site and we set up camp about a quarter of a mile away. Home, for the next 4 days, would consist of a couple tents (one for food and another for our bags and personal belongings), a plastic folding table (the kitchen/meal prep. area) and two large tarps on the ground. Bed would be a sleeping bag, on a bed roll, on the tarp, under the stars. I remember waking up in the middle of the night, on more than one occasion, looking up at the sky and thinking "Wow, I'm in Africa. This is the African sky!".

Essentially our day was structured as follows: We would be woken up at 6:00 am with a coffee/tea brought to our bed...nice way to wake up...breakfast...then at the work site by 7:00 - 7:15. Break at 10:00 ish for about 20 minutes, then lunch from 12:00 ish to 2:30 (during the hottest part of the day). Return to work at 2:30 until about 5:00. Dinner and relaxing, chatting, hanging out until bed time at 9:00 - 9:30. During our lunch/siesta time, we would eat and then most of us would have a little snooze. It was a strange, unusual experience to go to bed and get up so early (for me), sleep in the middle of the day, after an exhausting, sweltering morning of hard labour and then wake up and go back to labouring in the desert heat. Keep in mind that during the work week, there were no showers or bathing facilities. Most of us used wet wipes (baby wipes) at the end of the day to get rid of the worst of the dirt. My hair closely resembled a rat's nest for the entire week. Sweat and sand do not mix well with hair.

The tasks involved in building the wall were, essentially, mixing cement by hand - no machines(10 parts sand to two parts cement and a bucket of water), going out in the truck on rock picking expeditions, lifting/carrying huge 30 pound rocks, slapping cement onto rocks and filling up buckets of water at the animal trough. Sound easy? Well, it wasn't...remember, 45 degree heat, sun so hot I could feel it burning through my clothes, an unlimited supply of sand and dirt to get into my mouth, under my nails, in my ears, in my eyes...and my throat usually felt like it had become the desert. Oh, and most of the time there was a water pump about 3 feet from our heads that was very loud and spewed noxious fumes and black smoke. By lunch, my back would be killing me and every muscle in my legs and arms would be aching. I did lots of stretching in order to keep from seizing up. It was probably the hardest physical work I have ever done in my life. Overall, however, despite everything I just described, it was a life-enhancing experience!! I got to know some wonderful people, learned many new skills, did something I'd never done before, pushed myself beyond my comfort zone and experienced a tremendous sense of accomplishment. Stay tuned for Part Two: The Elephants!

The Wall Goes Up

Lizanne Mixing Cement

Lizanne and Me After a Hard Day's Work

Goats at the Trough

On Our Last Day we Got to Have a Trough Shower
The Wall is Two Thirds Done and Our Time is Over
My Boots and Gloves at the End of Building Week
They all remained in Africa

Nov. 5 to 8: South Africa & Namibia - Are we still in Africa???

We spent two nights and just one full day in Johannesburg, South Africa, en route to Namibia. Not much to report, except to say that it was NOTHING like any other part of Africa I've been to; more like Europe/North America. The airport was brand new and modern...I think they have snazzed it up in preparation for the 2010 World Cup. It was nice to be able to get stuff we needed. I have a few observations of the dynamics between the whites and the blacks, which I also noticed in Namibia. At the hostel we stayed at in Johannesburg, the white Afrikaaner inn-keeper spoke to a black employee in a very condescending way, saying something like "Don't walk away when I'm speaking to you!!". In an other incident, I was at a restaurant a few blocks away and the white owner smacked an black waiter on the back of the head. At first I thought he was being playful, but then quickly realized (when the waiter frowned) that he was serious.

When we got to Namibia, I witnessed a white hostel owner tear a strip off our black shuttle driver for ringing the bell too many times. At a grocery store, a white woman freaked out because a black employee, who was buying some groceries, was standing too close to her in line. She went on and on, referring to him in the 3rd person, about why he had to stand so close to her, etc. etc. My conclusion: Old outdated, colonial mentality is alive and well!

We are now in a town called Swakopmund on the Atlantic coast of Namibia. I don't feel like I'm in Africa, here either. It's like the Twilight Zone. I will try to paint a picture: Imagine a small western town (reminds me a bit of Merritt, BC, but bigger), very flat and dusty, dry and hot. Add palm trees, German street names and a weird mix of European/German and frontier town architecture. Some store/commercial signs are English, some German, some Afrikaans and some French. Then add the ocean, with a huge powerful surf and, in the distance, the desert where you can see dune buggies zipping around. Then throw in black Africans (along with the white German-Africans) and African art, jewellery, etc. And then the cherry on top is that the Christmas decorations are out, so the main streets have lighted decorations on the lampposts and I have been hearing Christmas music in some of the stores. Very very weird and surreal. So far this is my favourite place on this trip. The town is charming (despite the very odd mix that I described above), with many little stores and artisan shops, 2 movie theaters (that are showing relatively new movies), good infrastructure, friendly people. I have been to a couple of pretty good restaurants too. My favourite dining experience so far was a wine tasting restaurant where you get to sample up to 4 or 5 wines before deciding which one to order with your food.

The beach in Swakopmund

A street in Swakopmund

An example of some of the Swakopmund architecture

For some reason many people here have Jack Russell dogs. The place we are staying has 2 or 3 of them. One of them reminds me of my dog, Spot, who I had from the age of 8 until I was 21. He was part JR and part Chihuahua. The weird thing is that this dog has a little brown spot on his side, right where Spot had his (hence the name).

Stoffel, aka, Spot

On Sunday, the day before leaving for the desert, we went on a dolphin watching "cruise". We saw more seals than dolphins, mostly because dolphins are more elusive and harder to spot and because a couple of the seals got right up into our boat. Can you say "habituated"? I had some great video footage of this but it got lost along with all the photos I took before arriving in Namibia, including the ones I took in South Africa. I am still hopeful that maybe someone who knows something about computers/cameras will be able to recover them.

Pelican flying near our boat

Hungry pelicans

Seal on our boat



Dolphins

Nov. 1 to 4: Rwanda - Country of a Thousand Hills

We got on a bus from Bukavu (Congo) to Kigali (Rwanda), on Sunday, Nov. 1, exactly one week after arriving in Bukavu. I must say I was in significantly better shape leaving The DRC than I was when I arrived! With very little trouble at the border, we got on a clean, relatively new mini bus on the Rwanda side of the border and began our journey to Kigali. It took approximately 6 hours and the ride was smooth and hassle free...oh ya, except for a man on the bus who was having the same trouble I had a week earlier. He opened the door of the bus to throw up but didn't quite make it...some ended up on the inside of the bus door (dangerously close to my brand new, $350.00 backpack). I couldn't see what was happening from where I was sitting but I could hear what I thought was more vomiting so I asked Lizanne, who was in the seat across the aisle, what was going on and she said he was wiping my bag and "I'll tell you later".

For the next half hour I had visions of my bag being covered in vomit and I was NOT impressed. Luckily, the bus then ran out of gas :) so we all got off while waiting for the probnlem to be resolved. At that point I was able to inspect my bag and see that it was fine. Lizanne explained that he had not, in fact, been throwing up again and that he was wiping my bag because a tiny little bit may have ended up on the bottom of it when he had been sick earlier. Phew - disaster averted!! The gasoline arrived and we were on our way.

We drove through Nyungwe National Park, a beautiful forest and primate habitat. Lizanne saw some colobus monkeys (black with a white "mane") scampering about by the side of the road, but I didn't see them because they were on her side of the bus (and I was asleep). The scenery after that was spectacular! I have included a few pictures that I took while whizzing by but I was not able to get any really good photos of the truly amazing hills that we saw. It is quite visually stunning how they are all divided into sections for agricultural purposes. From a distance it creates a beautiful patchwork effect of various shades of green and brown.

We arrived at our Inn - Auberge de la Caverne - where Morag has stayed before. After showering and dressing, etc. we went out for a nice dinner at Chez Robert. We decided to walk, as it was not far and Kigali (ironically) is considered a relatively safe city, even at night. We weren't 5 minutes into our walk when a very tall, thin man (most certainly Tutsi) walked past us in a slow and kind of "odd' manner. Once he was a few feet ahead of us he quicky pulled something out of his back pocket and held it out to his side in an obvious way. I immediately realized it was a sharp object of some sort (a knife or scissors).

I alerted Lizanne and Morag and we stopped walking. We quickly decided to hail a cab and then a couple young men came by and asked what was happening. As we were explaining the situation, the man turned around and started walking towards us. The young men stayed with us as the man with the sharp object walked past. I felt quite tense and apprehensive because I didn't know what was going to happen. He just slowly walked past the two young men, donning his (what I now realized was) gardening shears as we sort of "cowered" behind them. Luckily a cab pulled up and we jumped in. As the cab was turning around, he began to walk towards the car and we were all kind of saying "Please hurry, go, go" to the driver as we fumbled with the locks, trying to ensure we were safe. It was a bit of a scary few minutes. Upon reflection, I surmised that, being Tutsi, he may be experiencing the long-term effects of untreated trauma. I suspect there are many Rwandans (Tutsi as well as Hutu) living with the impact of the genocide that occurred in 1994.

Monday was Morag's birthday so we went out for really good Indian food. Morag was in desperate need of a pedicure and a hair coloring so she did that while Lizanne and I spent the day wandering around Kigali, which is a well organized, clean city, by African (and, to some degree, even Europen standards). Here is a photo of a the town centre.

Here we are, after dinner, at our inn.

I painted Morag's toenails before we went out for dinner.

On our last day in Kigali, Lizanne and I went to the Genocide Museum and Education Centre. We spent three and a half hours there, as it was very well done and quite informative. I was moved to tears more than once. I already knew a fair bit about the genocide (having read Shake Hands With the Devil and a few other articles) and I still learned so much. They also included an exhibit about other genocides that occurred throughout history, i.e. the Nazi Holocaust, the Germans' attempt to wipe out the Hereros tribe in Namibia (by poisoning their well water - more about this in my next post) in the early 20th century, the Turks' attempted ethnic cleansing of the Armenians , as well as a few others. It was very interesting and, of course, shocking. No matter how much I try to grasp it, I really don't understand the whole mentality that goes with the desire to wipe out an entire ethnic group in order to "improve" the condition of another group. It is a deeply disturbing and incredibly perplexing phenomenon. The final part of the exhibit, which was dedicated to the children that were killed in Rwanda, pretty much put me over the emotional edge. It was very specific and personal. There were approxiamtely 20 or so children featured, ranging in age from 15 months to 13 years old. For each child, there was a photograph and a short "biography" that went something like this:

Name: Joseph

Favourite food: Peanut butter

Favourite drink: Orange Fanta

Best Friend: His mom

Personality: Quiet and well-behaved

Cause of Death: Hacked by machete

It was HEARTBREAKING!!! I stepped outside the museum and cried for about 5 minutes...

Coincidentally, when we arrived at our hostel in Johannesburg a movie called Shooting Dogs,about the Rwandan genocide, was being shown, so I watched it. It appeared to be a British film and had that indie-film feel to it. It was quite graphic (appropriately) and very powerful. I highly recommend it. Hotel Rwanda is also an excellent movie but its focus is narrower, examining the true story of the manager of Hotel des Mille Collines who saved thousands of lives by providing safe harbour to Tutsis and moderate Hutus who were being targeted by the "genocidaires". We wanted to have lunch at the hotel but it was closed for renovations. I snapped a few pictures.

I could go on and on about Rwanda, because I found it beautiful, tragic and fascinating, especially in terms of how far it has come since 1994 (plastic bags are banned in the entire country!!!), as a model for Africa.

The Congo: Bumpy Roads, Mud and Mayhem

My week in The Congo is almost over...hard to believe...Just to paint a quick picture of the current scene around me as I type this: I am sitting on Morag's patio in Bukavu listening to the Barenaked Ladies on my new iPod (connected to speakers, because we have electricity today - but no running water), drinking wine, writing e-mails (using a wireless connection, which is amazing in itself). Up above on the other side of the street, the UN Pakistani Battalion (who we refer to as the Pak Bat) guards are watching us. We waved at them a little while ago. They are always there, perched in their little sky blue tree-fort-style shelter, wearing their sky blue berets. Over to my left, sitting on a low wall is a group of about 3 or 4 Congolese boys, just staring at us. White people here (Muzungus) always have an audience. In the trees around me are the African crows. I don't know what they are actually called, but they look just like crows who are wearing white undershirts. They make lots of noise, like crows, but they are a bit bigger (maybe more like ravens). We have been here for a week and we leave for Rwanda tomorrow. In some ways it feels like I've been here for a month (because I've experienced SO much) but in another way, the week has flown by and, now that I am into the routine, I don't want to go. I am craving Kraft Dinner, which I never eat back home...crazy, eh? The other day I had the honour of witnessing and participating in a group healing session for rape survivors...very moving and awe inspiring. I also had the opportunity to visit Panzi Hospital, which is where many of the rape survivors go for medical care. One of the doctors there is world renowned for the work he does for rape victims who have severe damage to their reproductive organs as a result of repeated and/or particularly brutal rapes. He was one of the Nobel Peace Prize nominees who lost to Obama.

Panzi Hospital

Last night I went to a UN club (at the base) where a whole bunch of soldiers and civilians danced and drank...not my scene, but an experience nonetheless! The club is called The Welfare Club and their tag line is "Your Welfare Matters". Everyone refers to it as "Welfare". So, the common expression is "Let's got to Welfare tonight" which, for Canadians, has a different connotation. The UN mission here in The Congo is called MONUC (Mission des Organizations des Nations Unis au Congo). During the genocide in Rwanda, for example, the mission was called UNAMIR (United Nations Assistance Mission in Rwanda). I have been meeting lots of Canadians which, in my other travels, has been a rare occurrence. Prior to going to the UN club last night, we were at a house party and there were 2 other people from BC!

I have spent a lot of time at Morag's workplace, using her computer, meeting her co-workers, etc. I went with her to a meeting at the UNFPA (UN Fund for Population Advancement) which no one else showed up for. Apparently there was some confusion around the time and day. I took a few photos of an original painting hanging on the wall. It depicts the pillaging and raping that happens when villages are attacked - very powerful.

Painting at UNFPA

Detail of painting Detail A few snapshots from the past week: I am walking down the street and, looking down, I realize I am stepping over a severed cat paw...Ew Ew Ew Ew...Morag's kitty, Simba, has no idea how good he has it. Of course I have been spoiling him with yummy food the whole time I've been here. Morag and her roommate want to know what my "exit strategy" is, i.e. What will Simba do once I'm gone?

Simba sleeping after a big night of partying

Me kissing a random kitten in a restaurant

Everytime we go out for dinner, at least once during the meal, the power goes out and we just continue on chatting in the dark, as if nothing has changed. Luckily, almost all restaurants have generators. Other than a few hours one evening, the whole time I stayed at Morag's, there was no running water. Showers consist of crouching in the bathtub and pouring water onto yourself. Morag's man-servant, Olivier, heats up water every morning before the power is turned off during the day. When we get up, there is hot water in a thermos for our instant coffee and powdered milk. There is also hot water in metal pots in the bathroom for our "shower".

Dinner on our last night in Bukavu

When driving, it is perfectly acceptable (even expected) that you drive all over the road like a drunk, in order to avoid huge gaping potholes that are often a couple feet deep. Even without this driving strategy, the driving here is insane. You take your life in your hands everytime you cross the road.

Morag has a walkie talkie which she uses to comunicate with her staff. They all have codenames and code words. She is like a cross between a spy and a military strategist.

Overall, I have to say that my time in the Congo was very meaningful to me. It was so amazing to be able to see first hand where Morag, someone who is like a sister to me and who I love to bits, lives and works. I watched her in action at work, I lived in her home, I met her friends and colleagues and I was able to see first hand what one of the most "broken" countries in the world is like. Bukavu makes other African cities (as well as most cities in other developing countries) that I have visited seem modern, clean and organized. And believe me, by our standards they are FAR from that! Despite the mud, the filth, the inconvenience, the unsafe conditions, I would not trade one minute of my experience in The Congo...well, maybe the fiasco at the border and the ride from hell...all while I was ill...but otherwise it was perfect chaos!

The compound where Morag works

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