Are the Rumours True?

Well…it depends which rumours you’ve heard.

If you’ve heard the rumour that I’ve fallen in love with a trombone-playing journalist and am secretly planning to elope in Nepal, that one’s not true.

Nor is the one that I’ve accepted the dowry offer of 250 cows from the Sudanese immigration officer at the Juba airport and have become his 3^rd wife, have learned to carry a 20L jerican of water on my head and am settling down in Sudan for good.

The rumours about me taking up bonsai tree-growing, raising non-laying chickens, flying around Southern Sudan on a plane without enough fuel looking for an airstrip dry enough to land and moving to Belgium in January – those rumours are true.

That’s right, I’m moving to Belgium.

For all of you who like to ask those “what’s next questions”, and to deal with my dread of answering them…here’s my official statement of “Kendrah’s Future Life Plans” (rest assured, this will be a relatively short post).

1. Immediate future travel/work/play plans: Will be in Sudan until the beginning of November. (Very sad about leaving.) Then planning to do a bit of travelling in Egypt with my brother en-route back to Canada. (Excited about that.) I’ll be in BC for a couple of weeks of island recuperation with my Ma & Pa. (Very much looking forward to that.) Then back to Alberta in early December for about a month of rest, playing in the snow, family fun, visiting friends and the dentist, and Christmas in Canada. (All very exciting and happily anticipated.) Then it’s off to Belgium to begin a new life adventure in early January. (A little scary but holds great potential.)

2. Job plans: I’ve recently accepted a position with another relief and development organization based in Brussels. I’ll be working at their operations headquarters as a “desk officer” (terrible job title I know…apparently my relationship with the furniture in the office is of paramount importance), providing a wide array of administrative/logistical/HR/IT support to various field programs run by the organization in Afghanistan, Armenia, Nepal, Tajikistan and Romania. It’s going to be a major change from Sudan, but the work builds nicely on what I have been doing, and I’m excited about living in Europe for a while.

3. Marriage plans: n/a

4. Child-rearing plans: n/a

5. Chicken-rearing plans: Feeling dejected about my chicken’s apparent inability to lay eggs or get along with one another (I got a new hen…she’s getting seriously bullied by the resident hen in-charge), I remain slightly hopefully that they’ll start laying again, given the new “limited-free-range” area I’ve recently constructed for them. If I’m really lucky, one of them will raise a clutch of eggs to chick-hood before I leave. Then I’m passing on my chickens to one of my neighbours who shares a passion for chicken-rearing, and has experience and wisdom that may actually make it a success.

6. Settling down plans: n/a

7. Weekend plans: Teaching a beginner computer course on Saturday morning to some Sudanese youth, working all afternoon, possible cycling excursion outside of the city Saturday evening, crepes for breakfast Sunday morning, sending off colleague at the airport, game of squash & lunch out, lazy afternoon, international fellowship in the evening.

There you have it: the entirety of my life plans.

Tanzania: Spice Island Paradise & Masai Mountain Magic

Zanzibar.


The name itself whispers of delights unknown.


When we stepped off the rockin' 2 1/2 hour ferry-ride from Dar es Salaam, trying our best to retain our breakfasts...and went through the little passport control queue on the island, the man stamping our passports said "welcome to paradise". I figured he was just being friendly and charming - everyone likes to promote their home as a good and praiseworthy place. But...after a few days in Zanzibar, I fully concurred.


What's required for a place to qualify as "paradise"?...my list might include things like warm, but moderate temperatures, sun, blue sky, soft white sand, "ethereal blue-green waters" (that one's a direct quote from the Lonely Planet), friendly people, good food, including lots of coconut curries, exotic spices, fun fruit, chocolate pancakes, fruit smoothies.... check, check, check...


As lovely places go, Zanzibar was right up there with the loveliest of lovely.

We started by exploring the charming old "Stone Town" with it's meandering narrow streets, wafting aromas of well-spiced curries and zesty orange vendor carts. We had the unanticipated good fortune of arriving on the final day of the Zanzibar International Film Festival and watched the festival's winning film under a full-moon sky in an open air historical auditorium. It was all very lovely and magical - until the disc the movie was on started seizing up - gently reminding us that we were still in Africa where half the charm is that things don't often work.

Portrait of a Little Girl in Stonetown

Portrait of a Little Boy in Stonetown

Carving on typical Swahili wooden door

Market Colour

We risked being rather touristy and joined a group "Spice Tour". They take you on a tour of various areas where spices are grown and harvested on the island, let you taste, smell & feel the plants, give you samples of scrumptious tropical fruit and feed you an excellent Zanzibar Pilau lunch. We were okay with being touristy tourists for the day.

Cloves: Zanzibar's main export.

Care to guess? - Cardamom. Pretty, no?

A Rambutan (close relative of the Lychee).

It wins my prize as the funnest fruit.

Our spice tour ended at a lovely spot on the beach. And this is how we felt:


There's something so delicious about one's first barefoot steps in the sand, digging one's toes into the sand when it's been a long time. Deep soul satisfying. (And feels nice on the callouses too).


So we decided to leave town and head to the other side of the island for more beach, and the Lonely Planet's promised "ethereal blue-green waters" of Jambiani Beach.

We forgot to ask when boarding the dala-dala (mini-bus/truck) whether the estimated 3 1/2 hours journey was a direct trip or if it included breakdowns, 1 flat tire, or 2 flat tires. Again...loving reminders from dear sweet dysfunctional mamma africa.

Flat Tire #1: A quick change and we were back on the road.

Flat Tire #2: Oops, we only had 1 spare...umm...
eventually another fully loaded dalla-dalla will come
along and ALL of us can squeeze in to the crevasses
between the other people on the bus - no problem!

The end that justified the means.

How significant amounts of R&R time should always be spent:
sipping smooth fruity vitamin-rich goodness.

Wherever we ate or slept in Zanzibar, we always found very gregarious dread-locked rasta hosts who wanted to make sure we had everything we needed to be happy. This included things like invitations to stay with them forever in their little shacks behind the beach... That I turned down. However, I was rather charmed when after waiting exceptionally long for my mango smoothy in this tree-house restaurant I found out the waiter ran all the way into town to get me a mango. I told him he should have just told me they were out, but he said, "I just wanted your dreams to come true". Forget roses! - Mangoes...melt my heart every time.

The stairway to....?...heaven?? (notice how it's not very far away).

Well, the children of Ethiopia were awfully cute, but they have some serious competition from these Zanzibar schoolgirls.

I'm still not sure why I ever left Zanzibar, but somehow I was able to tear myself away with the knowledge that there's more good world out there to explore. (My inner nomad keeps me moving.) We bussed up to northern Tanzania to the city of Arusha, the home of the Masai people, and the area of Africa's tallest mountain: Kilimanjaro.

Mount Meru behind the maize fields.

Time kept me from joining my friends for an ambitious climb up Kili, and we spent our few remaining days together enjoying some day trips outside of Arusha. Again, we took the risk of being kitchy tourists and signed ourselves up for a couple of "cultural tourism trips". We had fears of awkward artificial poses with costumed "authentic tribal people" and forced dance presentations.

We ended up being very pleasantly surprised and impressed with our down-to-earth local Masai guides who took us on the crammed public mini-buses out to their home villages, where we walked in the hills, enjoyed the scenery, chatted about their culture and peered into a few homes.

Typical Masai Home

Proceeds from our reasonably priced tour went to community projects: a school rehabilitation, environmental awareness projects and water sources like this.


But just to be slightly the kitchy tourists we did let them dress Gabby up for a photo op.



A glimpse into yet another beautiful world.

Ethiopia: History, Mystery & Macchiatos

Over a month ago, I returned from my last "escape" from Sudan and enjoyed exploring a little more of Africa as I rested.

Here's Part 1 of my travels (Ethiopia) in photos:

Gonder: little town with fantastic fruit smoothies and a castle known as the "Camelot of Africa". I was thinking "Lord of the Rings" myself (Gonder, and a place called Shire too - didn't see any hobbits, but here's a painting of a saint that looks an awful lot like Gandalf)

Here's another old building, some history...looks like your standard "historic site", tourist point of interest....

...Until...you realize that this is a church built in the 1200's, not by brick and mortar, or stone blocks, or some other conventional form of construction. But rather, chipped and chiselled - by hand, by some impressively persistent villagers - out of a giant cliff of rock.

And wait, there's not 1 of them, but 11.

Because, who doesn't look at a large cliff of rock like the one below, and think: "alright, neighbours, let's get our chisels out and chip out a large church - Oh yes, and when we're finished, let's do 10 more." (Evidently, King Lalibela did.)


Lalibella: beautiful little village in the highlands, known for its 11 mysterious rock-hewn churches.

In this one you can see the still-attached "mother rock" that it was chipped from.


Here you see an entire cross-shaped church cut out of the rock around it.



I kept asking myself: "why? how?" and responding with, "amazing!"


So, how did they do it? The villages chipped away during the day, and at night, angels continued the work. I'm inclined to believe it. I'm pretty sure after carpel tunnel syndrome set in, and the chisel-weary villagers neared the end of each day, they started saying, "don't worry - let's call it a day - the angels will take care of the rest."


Pondering the mystery. Seeking the transcendent light.


Excellent travel companion, Gabrielle - joined me from Canada as my fellow explorer.


Pilgrims, priests and villagers continue to utilize these ancient churches, keeping them alive and active places of worship to this day.


Slightly anachronistic sunglasses, but they not only help with the flash photography, but also look way cool.



Where pilgrims and visiting nuns & priests sleep when they come to visit the churches. (We opted for a more "all-inclusive" option.)

The villagers of Lalibella were very friendly and hospitable. We made many small friends while in Ethiopia, and often had an entourage. Once we got passed the "hello, give me money" part of the conversation, the relationships were much more fulfilling.



Outside of the village: a day hike up to a monastary in the mountains.

Highlands view.

Children driving the plow in the mountains.


Ethiopia is famous for its coffee. And justifiably so. I'm not a coffee drinker. But I became one for the duration of my Ethiopia visit - otherwise I would have missed out on so much. Fresh roasted beans, smoking and wafted before you at your table, then ground with a mortar and pestle, and boiled in a clay pot for sipping at great strength and very sweet from a tiny cup, is the essential "coffee ceremony experience".


Clay coffee pots in Africa's biggest market in Addis Ababa.


In addition to the traditional coffee ceremony, every single cafe or restarant, no matter how dingy and homely, no matter how deep its hole in the wall, is bound to have a sleek, hissing cappacino machine in the back, and within moments of sitting down, you can be sipping a frothy macchiato with a cocoa dusting shaped into the image of a palm tree, or heart, or the word "enjoy", served in a stylin ceramic mug. The Italians occupied Ethiopia briefly (though, importantly, they never managed to colonize). They left behind a lovely cafe tradition, nice leather shoes and a spaggetti section on nearly every menu.


Tej, Ethiopian Honey Wine, with travel companions after a day magical adventures: fantastical history, lovely people, delicious platters of food on fermented bread that doubles as a napkin, good coffee and beautiful sites.