We’re back…

Okay, we are back in the UK, but we thought we should do one more post. This will provide closure for the blog, allowing you to sleep at night.

We spent the last week in Kenya hobnobbing with various bishops & grandees and chilling with our friends (actually munching at the carnivore). Coming to the end of our year, and back where we started, we find a lot has changed  - but other things haven’t. For example Jonas (smallest May) is no longer smallest May but is still very small! One thing is sure, we were sad to leave and shall miss Africa and our friends very much.

Well done for reading our blog right through to its conclusion. You deserve a perseverance prize. Thanks too for those who have commented and have made us laugh (or just bemused us – Dad).

So let us give you a selection of our favourite comments:

The funniest has got to be Tiina May with the following piece of defecatory goodness…

‘At times I was laughing so hard that the contents of your godson's diaper uuzed [sic] out on his clothes and mine, since I was shaking him around too much’

The most prolific commenter was ‘Anonymous’. We brought you a prize, but don’t know who you are.

Most pedantic has got to be the Mumba – complaining about ‘would of’.

And the Millwards didn’t bore us with a single comment, and for that we thank you.

We have also met many interesting people,  not least the indomitable Jane Nkonge from Meru, or the loquacious Samwel Atunga, but also the little cutie pie, Matthew May.

But we also met the worlds weirdest woman, who served as a reminder as to why we left Europe. Okay, how we met is a convoluted tale and not very interesting, so we shall skip it. Basically we ended up having dinner with this woman who complained non stop of sleazy men trying to get her in the sack, and a good half hour was devoted to deciding which nations men are worst. One got the impression that all men were sleazy and perverted dogs who should be put down/locked up and I ended up hanging my head in despair over the shame of my sex (also I was afraid that I might look at or look like I was looking at something female – I had a feeling that even pigeons were out). So we leave, and she confides in her room mate that she wanted kids, and had found a willing Algerian on the internet… Weird that white women have such a reputation…

And what does the future hold now? Well let you give you the highlights of our last few weeks. Fry up, cream tea, McDonalds (x2), donuts, cookies, etc. You get the idea. And let’s not forget the rain. Or the cold. Now I come to think of it, how do you people live in this county. It’s green, pleasant and freezing.

 

Oh, and whilst TV in Kenya is terrible, it is only marginally better here.

Stand on Zanzibar

We have spent the last week on Zanzibar, an island of the coast of Tanzania. And whilst it is a part of Tanzania, it is also a self governing province. It was also the site of the shortest war in history, lasting roughly half an hour – the time taken for the British to flatten the palace of the Sultan in order to gently encourage surrender.

The history basically is, Zanzibar was settled as a convenient base to trade with the mainland, but it didn’t achieve its importance until 1698 when the sultanate of Oman moved there – at some point eclipsing Lamu as the centre of Muslim power on the coast. From the 1830s, the buildings we now see in Stone Town started to be constructed as the island became the centre of the Arab slave trade. As it was constructed later than Lamu, the roads are much wider allowing cars to drive down them (which they do, fast) although much of the town has thankfully been pedestrianised. The real difference between Stone Town and Lamu is that people welcomed us in Lamu. In Stone Town we were welcomed… …into their shop.

Our plan was simple. To spend a few nights in Stone town before moving to the beach for a few more nights, and for once the plan came off without a hitch.

Stone Town is cool. Not only is it where Freddy Mercury was born, but it is a maze of twisting alleyways and totally unfamiliar architecture. For those who have never been to the Swahili coast, this means that we mazungu have no frame of reference and so spend our whole time lost. We had a very happy time wandering around listening to exaggerated tales of the slave trade. For example we saw the slave pits where underneath the market slaves were held before being sold (now the Anglican cathedral). Apparently here they were suffocated or starved to death… etc. This was after the traders had gone to all the trouble of bringing slaves from as far afield as the Congo, on expeditions sometimes lasting decades. I think not.

Stone Town also has a fantastic evening market type thing where there are many stalls selling food (consisting of fish kebabs, lobster, crab, pizza etc – all of it delicious). Of course, none of the stall workers do this to make money for themselves. No siree. They are far too altruistic for that. They get up at 6 am and fish all day. Then they prepare the food which they have just caught. After all this, they work until late at night before starting the process again. And the proceeds from their stalls? Why, they give it all to the local orphanage of course. This means one can feel good whilst gorging oneself on freshly unfrozen food.

Soon our time was up and we were off to the beach. We stayed in a hotel which was  almost a lodge, with a well stocked bar, three course dinners and a rather panicky American owner. 

Everything on Zanzibar is frighteningly expensive (at least where we were) with hotels easily double the cost of the mainland. This made the poverty gap much more striking with crude buildings, children cleaning themselves in the sea and groups out doing the Zanzibar equivalent of cockle picking (ie grabbing monster crabs and octopuses) nestled in between the super luxury beach hotels. A happy few days were spent wandering or cycling up the beach or swimming in the sea (and talking to an amazing Brit who, having studied the slave triangle at university was excited to be where it actually happened. Duh).

 

But a piece of advice for all visitors to Zanzibar – take your own ice cream. Despite hours of looking, we failed to find any. We didn’t even have any speedo clad Italians to laugh at and distract us from our pain.

The final highlight was the spice tour (they grow spices on Zanzibar). Here we wondered round a government plantation (essentially a jungle), sniffing crushed leaves and being serenaded by some crazy nutter up a palm tree. They did make us fetching palm accessories – which begged the question ‘why would you do that to someone?’

But before we knew it we were off, back to Nairobi, for our final week in Africa.

TAZARA – Tanzanian Zambian Railways

It was with sadness that we said goodbye to Zambia and the Arkkilas. Not only were we made to feel incredibly welcome, but leaving marked the beginning of the end. In two weeks we shall be home and complaining about the weather.

So what have we been up to? Not much really. Working, I have been swanning around doing accountancy type stuff. Jo on the other hand has been useful and has taught English to Sinikka, one of the new Finnish arrivals. Of course the highlight of each day was playing in the garden with Little Joanna (number 1 I think, but it might be number 2 – not sure). After the comments about someone not liking the mural, it is my sad duty to report that we have not had much luck taking photos of Joanna, just before the family snap, she fell over and hurt her hand. Well, you can judge for yourselves… And in case you are wondering the dog, Teddy, is terrifying and friendly. Once you start to stroke him you are afraid to stop.

“So what have you really been doing?”’ we hear you ask, and a very prescient question too. Well what we have really been doing is… … watching ‘Little House on the Prairie’, which for some reason I missed the first time around! Two things to say.
i)   Jo is still as soft as ever and cries in nearly every episode.
ii)   The littlest one is the most powerful argument I have yet seen against children. Gives me the heebie jeebies.
and iii) lucky there were no Indians living on the prairie ‘cause Mr Ingalls is too damn wholesome and nice to steal someone else’s land.

Sadly, our time came all to soon (before we even finished the first series of LHOTP!) and we found ourselves on the train to Dar es Salaam in Tanzania (where we are now) . This is a mammoth two day journey, with restaurant cars and bars. There were even showers, but someone liked the look of the plumbing so they are non functional. Sadly this means that the toilets are none too hot either.

There are actually many similarities between TAZARA and British Rail. As mentioned, journeys take around two days (although here they are meant to). You also have to make part of your train journey by bus (again here that is expected as for some reason the train starts 2 hours out from Lusaka). Of course the accommodation is in a different league. We are travelling first class and have a cabin to ourselves, with food brought to us by our friendly waiter, the aforementioned toilets and showers as well as a bunch of irritatingly loud Japanese. You then move onto second class with six crammed into a cabin, but still with beds (and with squat toilets – if only we had that hygienic luxury here…) And then you are into third class with the poor and starving masses, steerage way – where the peons are crammed like sardines. And guess what, just like BR.

And what do the next few weeks hold for us? Well, we are off to the pristine island of Zanzibar. The intention, to relax and generally recover from our year of, err, relaxing.

So, bye bye Zambia, we shall miss you.

Twenty five days to go

So, we shall be back in Blighty in a meagre 25 days (26, but Edd’s an accountant so what does he know about counting?), so we thought we should share 25 things we have learnt/mused upon.

Always ask a woman for directions, never a man.

Treat the poor like children and children they will remain (whilst treating you like a chump).

Coke is better in 600ml bottles (although that may have been the 40 degree heat)

Africa isn’t always hot. In fact, Nairobi is freezing most of the time. Bring a hot water bottle.

 
Getting angry gets you nowhere.

When the sun shines every day, how can you be grumpy? (This does not bode well for England).

Don’t trip over a paving slab whilst carrying your too expensive camera. (that was Jo’s comment, the b…)

‘Stuff’ doesn’t make one happy. Red chickens do. And wireless broadband.

Being an African Bishop can be more lucrative than being a Colombian drug lord.

Chapaleau makes one fall over…

Germans are extremely grumpy on holiday (Italians are awful too…)

Aid doesn’t work. It just fosters greed and corruption. Having said that, how do you walk past someone starving and not help?

People living in the slums share everything (although not often voluntarily…)

A handshake is your most useful companion, although a digital camera comes a close second.

It is difficult to take photos of sad African children. This is because they are always happy.

All African choirs are awesome, even if they only have 6 people.

Zebras are just stripy donkeys. No, they really are.

Edd wants a monkey more than ever now.

It is possible to see nothing on safari. Even when this does happen, one feels guilty when one falls asleep.

Ugali doesn’t grow on you (neither does uji).

Pintard, sauce arachide and fufu are a little foretaste of heaven (if anyone knows how to make these please let us know.)

The thrill of using public transport is akin to the thrill of Russian Roulette (although Russian Roulette is safer).

Orphans are better off at home with their parents than in an orphanage.

 
Having white friends is nice, as they have lots of money to use for church repairs/just boost ones street cred.

The crap they sell in curio shops remains crap, no matter how many shops you look round. Please learn from this Jo.

The places in Dapaong with air conditioning are the bank, and the Post Office.

Buy an extra big wallet to put the wads of money you need for a brownie and cup of coffee (and remember you can only get 40 notes out the ATM in one go).

Lions are more scary than coming home!

We’re loving Lusaka

We should start with an apology for our lack of blogging commitment but we are afraid you get none. We are too busy chilling out, maxing and in general relaxing all cool. You do get a really long and probably quite boring rant though. Yippee.

We have arrived. The last leg of our African Odyssey starts NOW. Here we are: Lusaka, Zambia.

For those that don’t know, Lusaka is the capital of Zambia and has been since 1935. Like Nairobi, the site of Lusaka was chosen because it is quite high and so relatively cool. We wholeheartedly approve of this decision – the climate is heaven. 30 degree days with not a cloud in the sky. Bliss – but not if you are a farmer. It won’t rain until the end of November.

Okay, so you know we are staying with the Arkkilas. What you don’t know is what we have been doing. That is why you are reading this…

One of the things Jorma did when we first arrived was whizz us off to Chanyanya, a village with  (extremely unlikely and weird we know) a harbour. LEAF has provided a loan for a local group to buy and operate a fishing boat. Sounds simple right, but the locals don’t quite get this here micro-finance and still kinda think of it as LEAF’s boat. Don’t get me wrong, they are working hard, looking after the boat and making a profit. It’s just that they don’t see why they should pay for the fishing licence… The people were, of course, very friendly, and delighted with what they had achieved.

Another thing that Jorma has had us doing a lot is swimming. They seem to know all the pools that are not frequented (well, at least two of them) by people, and we have a very happy time playing games, watching Jorma throwing his kids around (and boy can they fly)  and generally misbehaving in a way that would make even the most laid back life guard throw us out of any UK pool in seconds.

The end result of all this dangerous and foolhardy behaviour is that the baby Arkkila kids can swim much better than other kids their age, as we found out when invited to a swimming gala at their school. Please do not get me wrong, I am not condoning school galas in anyway. Watching small children fall off the side of the pool and proceeding to drown for 25 meters before banging their heads on the other side and bursting into tears 50 times in a row ain’t fun (well, the banging of the heads did prompt a wee guffaw). What was great was the pushy parent whose pride and joy was ranged against Sarella (the older daughter) in each race she swam in. She started off following her wondrous daughter down the pool bellowing encouragement (no one else did this, probably because no one else was watching). She soon stopped as Sarella wiped the floor. Great.

We have also visited the national museum here, an imposing and impressive building built with UN money. I know we gave the Nairobi museum fairly short shrift, but I am afraid it is better. The first floor was basically an art gallery and had some astonishingly brilliant paintings  - that part was okay. The second floor had some exhibits on the chachacha and culture here. It was entirely non-biased, with big paintings of soldiers shooting down unarmed and heroic protesters beside displays of rifles used by the rioters… It also had a sign basically saying that Lusaka deserved a truly brilliant museum, they’re just waiting for more UN funding…  Meanwhile, the present exhibits slowly yellow with age, having had no attention for a while. It struck us that no one could be bothered to keep the current museum good as they would be getting a spanking new one… Underwhelmed.

So what are we doing for our voluntary work? Well, one of my tasks has been to find out if the church properties have proper title, and so down to the council office we went. Scarily, no ID was requested (or offered) beyond asking for a Certificate of Incorporation, and no one could understand a word I was saying. Even so they did offer to start filling in paper work to transfer title. In case anyone wishes to acquire land in Zambia, you can get copies of Certificates of Incorporation from the Register of Societies here in Lusaka. Crazy.

Jo has been much more productive, painting pictures of Moomin on Joanna’s bedroom wall(smallest Arkkila, called Joanna 1. The Joanna we know is Joanna 2. But it might be the other way round, I am not sure). Moomins are very popular with the Finns, and so this has created tremendous excitement with family and visitors alike.

So a question. Would any African blog post be complete without a lion? We went to the Safari Retreat hotel, primarily to go swimming. But they did have an enclosure with four lions where you could walk right up to the fence and try, from two meters away, to stare down an animal to whom one is no more than a snack.  Lions are truly terrifying animals, there is nothing cute or cuddly about them. You only have to look at them to know they are killers. At one point, the male got up and moved toward the fence, and everyone recoiled about six feet (me the most, proves I am the most wimpy – I mean sensible). Let me just say that the fight or flight reflex is purely flight when you see them that close.

  

The hotel was populated by more friendly animals as well, with sitatunga (a small semi aquatic antelope, very elusive and seldom seen apparently) and kudu (yummy). I have to say I am more comfortable with a kudu thinking of how to joint and smoke it (to make biltong) than with a lion knowing it is not even bothering to think of the jointing and the smoking.

Finally, a joke. A missionary arrives in deepest darkest Africa, and on his first Sunday he is on his way to church when he sees a pride of lions in the distance. He gets down on his knees and prays ‘Father, please let these lions disappear. Amen’. On opening his eyes the lions are closer – and coming in his direction. So down he gets again and prays ‘Father, please make these lions pass me by. Amen.’ When he opens his eyes the lions are clearly coming to get him. Desperate now he once again kneels.’ Father, please don’t let these lions eat me without me converting anything to Christianity. If they eat me then me being here will be pointless. Amen.’ He looks up again and sees the lions gathered in a circle around him. The biggest takes a step forward, kneels down, crosses his paws and begins ‘For what we are about to receive…’

Windhoek to Lusaka

So we made it. We are in Lusaka, after a mammoth journey marked by both discomfort and tragedy. Let me warn you now, this blog will leave you reeling.

I suppose I should get the disaster out of the way first. The first rule of disasters is that you should not talk about disasters, but this one is so disastrous I can’t help my self. Simply appalling. It is my sad duty to report to you the death of Nigel, the Nikon lens – he found a name (much like Bob Lebowsky) in death, an opportunity cruelly denied him in life. Upon arrival at Victoria Falls I tripped over an uneven paving slab. Nigel was undone by his own awesomeness, the torque produced by hitting the ground being enough to break the mount. He is otherwise unmarked. I hereby open ‘Edd’s orphan children missionary camera lens replacement fund’ (disturbingly, the money would be better spent than most ‘aid’). Nigel would have wanted it that way.

So we said goodbye to the Millwards (with much blubbing by the lassies – us men are far too tough for such sentimentality) and travelled from Windhoek to Livingstone, on the Zambian side of the Victoria Falls. We had picked the Intercape bus, a South African company which was reputed to be brilliant. It wasn’t. The bus stopped the first time with the warning ‘10 minutes, and if you are late we go without you’. After that the bus stopped with monotonous regularity, at which point the conductor and driver would disappear with us being left to wonder ‘do we have time to go to the toilet?’ And even though there was no traffic on the road whatsoever we were 5 hours late! This meant that (irritatingly), the Millwards arrived in London before we arrived in Livingstone. We were very grumpy by the time we reached our destination.

We had a very happy time pottering around the Falls,  which are remarkable. Apparently there was a large volcanic eruption which laid down a huge, massive, beast of a slab of basalt (wouldn’t be allowed these days due to global warming). This cracked as it cooled, just like the Giants Causeway in Ireland – but don’t think for a moment that the Giants causeway even compares because these cracks are 100m deep, 100m wide, and a kilometre or two long. So, as cracks do, they eventually got filled in by mud/sand/other rock, and it is the length of one of these cracks that makes the falls (the river runs perpendicular to them). As all the cracks are linked by other cracks, a whole series of zigzagging and nearly parallel 100m wide gorges have been carved out over the years through which the river, which you should remember is 1km across above the falls, runs (and yes, it really runs, boils, etc – in fact whatever adjective you care to use). To add to all this, the narrowness, height, and just sheer volume of water flowing over the falls creates clouds of spray which ascend many meters into the air and restrict visibility to a few hundred metres along the  falls, making them disappear into the distance and adding to the cracks general awesomeness (and this is the dry season, in the wet season there is 10 times as much water). In case you are wondering, the Zimbabwe side is better, having more water (but no monkeys or baboons – have they all been eaten?).

And I know you are all dying to ask me - ‘what is better, Iguacu or Victoria Falls?’ Well let me answer you now – and my answer is that they are both different and so both amazing in their own right.

But Iguacu has toucans. QED.

We also went for a cruise on the Zambezi. And I am sorry but we went for the more refined sunset cruise as opposed to the booze cruise. It is complimentary drinks on both, but the description we were given of the booze cruise rather put us off (‘it’s brilliant. Everyone got so drunk that we couldn’t find our way home and we all got lost’). This is a simile for ‘we are getting old’ – and on the same token we didn’t do all the exciting activities, such as bungee jumping, white water rafting, or helicopter rides that were on offer. That and general poverty (I mean $145 for 2 hours rafting – are you kidding?). As befits our geriatric status, we found the cruise ‘relaxing’.

And so (regretfully – Jo stated after we booked the bus tickets that she would have gone rafting if we had stayed for another day) we travelled to Lusaka and to a warm welcome from the Arkillas, another Finnish family, but this time with only two children. Jorma (dad) gets unreasonably excited over remote controlled helicopters - just like me. We also get to cook for ourselves (!), and we find we have forgotten what to do.

But the really telling difference between Namibia and Zambia is the toilets. Now this might sound a strange thing to say but the toilets are almost a metaphor for both countries identities in their entireties.  In Namibia, an old German colony and a desert with permanent rivers only on the borders, the toilets are utilitarian and functional and dispense the barest minimum of water with a startling and parsimonious efficiency . The Zambian toilets on the other hand – wooah. Chaos and profligacy. The flush flushes with such force and power that one is obliged to leap out of the way in order to maintain podiatory dryness. It’s good to be back in ‘the real Africa’.