Blog hampered by lack of electricity.

I've still got stories to tell from my misadventures to Trt, but my blogging has been severely hampered by a lack of electricity :( Actually, there's a story that goes along with the lack of electricity too... but I can't quite think of a way to tell the story that won't get me kicked out of the country if this post falls into the wrong hands :) The long and short of it, is that our electricity meter was changed to a different system... and due to a series of unfortunately events, it doesn't work. So the electricity is there, we just can't use it! So we're back to generator and are plunged into the darkness at 10:30 every evening.

However, since I decided to take the day off today (the first Saturday I've had off in a long time!), I'm sitting in my verandah, in front of the fan, listening to a little country music and playing on the internet (the generator will be on for another 30 minutes... just long enough to charge my cell phones and my computer battery).

So, where was I? Oh right, munching on poached bush buck... So yes, after a lovely dinner, we crashed in my bed, which was lovely! It's quite a bit cooler there, so I slept well, though there were lots of flies that somehow made their way into my mosquito net :( At least they were just flies, and not malaria carrying mossies!

The next morning, I woke up early (since I'd gone to bed early!), and packed everything up, waiting for my colleagues to come fetch me to take me to the market to find some transport up to the village. At least we all had cell phones, which made communication so much easier! I love cell phones! And they're relatively new in these parts, so I still remember when we first came here and there weren't any cell networks. Now you have your choice of 4 networks! Amazing how quickly things change... but I digress again.

Anyways, my people came for me, and we loaded up everything into the LandCruiser that was taking us to the market to meet the big lorry that had been arranged for us to travel with. Since we were in the market and I was already feeling rather conspicuous as the white girl with all the boxes of books, I didn't want to take out my camera and flash it around taking photos of everything. So I relied on my camera phone to get a few photos of the scene:

It's not very good, and I think I moved the phone before the picture was fully "captured" (I'm still learning how to get the best photos from the little thing!), but it gives a little idea of what the truck looked like that we were planning to take. When all was said and done, there would have been about 20 people piled on top of all the stuff in the back of the truck, plus me and the driver and who knows how many others inside the cab of the truck. My colleagues made sure to secure a spot inside the truck for me - I don't think they wanted to risk watching me bounce off the top of the truck! I appreciated their concern for me!

So while Peter and Adelino went off to make the arrangements, as well as to buy some things like some flour (for the staple porridge we would eat all week), as well as some beans and tea etc., to bring to the village with us, I was installed on a plastic chair in the shade of the tin roof of a little tea shop. I was quite happy to sit quietly in a corner, watching the frenzied activity of people chucking plastic buckets, cartons of washing soap, sacks of grains and sugar, beans and onions, tins of cooking oil, lumber, bamboo poles... all manner of things into the back of the truck. I was absolutely amazed at the nimbleness of some of the stooped old ladies as they swing themselves up onto the back of the truck! I was glad I didn't have to climb up there - everyone would have had a good laugh to see how the uncoordinated white girl hauled herself into the truck like a beached whale!

However, I was not to experience the joys of long-distance travel by lorry :(

As soon as everyone had packed the truck with their various bags, boxes and containers, the heavens let loose. And I mean, let loose with a vengeance! Lightening, thunder, and enough water to fill the Nile started coming down! I've not seen a storm like that in an awfully long time, and it came up SO incredibly fast! I was quickly ushered into the tea shop proper, along with our boxes of books, which we had, thankfully, had the foresight to wrap in plastic before we left Jb. And there I sat, for the next several hours.

Yes, hours. Adelino and Peter came back from where they had been, and we all huddled in the tea shop, making friends with all the others who had huddled there, taking shelter from the rain. While we were in there, the ladies were cooking some stew, serving tea and coffee to everyone huddled there, and keeping the charcoal going in the hubbly bubbly shisha pipes that people were smoking! It was quite the crowd! I was fearful that someone was going to fall into the charcoal stoves burning away in the middle of the jostling crowd. Thankfully, once again, as the white girl, I was given a chair in the corner to huddle on, whilst trying to stay away from the drips coming from the tin roof! Eventually, we had to hold things on our laps, since the water was coming into the tin shack, turning the dirt floor into a bit of a mud pit, as well!

In these parts, when it starts to rain, people don't move. You just don't go anywhere in the rain, whether you've got an umbrella or not, you just don't go anywhere in the rain. People here don't like to get wet and cold, and I can see why, since they don't really have nice weather proof houses to go back to, where they can change into dry clothes and be comfortable and dry. The trick to being comfortable and dry is to just not get wet in the first place!

Anyways, we eventually did have to move, but the rain was still coming down. The truck driver decided he wasn't going to go anywhere anymore that day - it was already past 1pm and the rain was still coming down in buckets. The road was not going to be a pretty sight, with all that rain. The road to the village, by all reports, isn't a pretty sight at the best of times, but directly following a massive downpour... it was most likely pretty much impassable :( So the truck went off to whereever he went off to spend the night.

So, we called the commissioner to see if we could use his car to take us back to our places again. We stopped for lunch on the way at a little restaurant. Adelino ate a lovely dish of intestines swimming in tomato paste, while I opted for the boring but more sure friend meat. It was actually quite tender, and there were little goat ribs to munch on! And it was all served with a starter of lentil soup! Not bad for $2.50 each, I'd say!

The Commissioner's driver dropped me back at the home of my friends in Trt. They weren't surprised to see me coming back, as they assumed the truck wouldn't be moving in the rain.

I spent the rest of the afternoon talking about literacy programs with my friends, and poking around their garden with them. I also had a chance to chat and visit with the folks who work on that compound - which was encouraging as it helped me realize how much of the local Arabic I'm starting to pick up, without really too much concentrated study on my part!

Just so you have another picture to break the monotony of this long, drawn out post, here's a photo of one of the literacy books that my friends use in their programs. They have an ABC book in the language that they're teaching in, and they've printed it on big paper, laminated it (they brought in their own laminating machine and go to one of the big NGOs in town to use their generator when they want to laminate something), and bound it with key rings, making quite a nice durable teaching aid for the teachers, which is big enough to be seen by most of the 60 students in the class!

That evening, my friends had been invited to a birthday party for someone who works for their mission organization, so I was also invited along! What fun it was! It was at the home of the white guy who had come to meet the plane we flew in on at the airstrip. So we had a good visit with some folks from that organization, got to eat some wonderful American food (steak, baked potatoes, tons of salad, chocolate cake and carrot cake!), and play some American style party games! A very relaxing evening with some new friends!

The next morning, we were set to try to go with the truck again. But again, it was raining. Sigh. Anyways, Adelino had told me to be ready, because they were coming to get me. So I packed my stuff and said goodbye to my friends again as they went off to their church service. And I sat in the house, at the ready to leave on a moment's notice. Yet no one came for me. Then I saw the truck that we had been planning to clamour onto drive by, loaded to the hilt with all sorts of stuff and people.

But still no Adelino or Peter. So I waited some more. I tried to relax a little, but it was hard to do when I was so uncertain as to whether or not I would start an epic voyage at any moment!

Finally, Adelino showed up. I gave him a cup of tea, as he looked a little haggard, and he reported the news that the truck driver decided he didn't want to attempt the last bit of road that he would have had to use to take us to the village. The final destination of the truck was a different town than where we wanted to go, but the previous day, he had agreed to do a short diversion to get us to where we needed to go. But considering the rain and the likely state of the roads, he was no longer willing to take the diversion. So that's why I saw the truck leaving without us.

So, by that time, the church service was over, and Adelino decided to go over to find some people that he knew to see if there were any other vehicles from any other NGOs or other organizations or businesses going up that road. I also went over to do some "networking" to see if I could find out any more information.

Alas, even after sitting around with a big group of people and guzzling yet another warm 500 ml of Coke, we were no closer to our goal. We did get an offer of renting someone's car for $300 and driving ourselves up the road. However, if a "professional" truck driver, who has driven the road for years was unwilling to attempt to get up the road, there was no way I was going to risk getting stuck up there! And with just the three of us, a borrowed car, the open bush, and no mechanical expertise among us... it just wasn't a risk I was willing to take. It's not like borrowing a car to drive a little ways up the highway - this is serious 4WD terrain, and no AMA to tow you out when you get stuck or broken down! There's not even a cell phone network once you get 5 km out of the main town. So out there, you're on your own. And all reports of people who had been on that road recently were saying it was taking 2 - 3 days to travel the 50 km! Crazy.

But I did get some contact information for a mission organization, based in N. Kenya, who often fly into that area. So I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to contact the folks who fly, to see if there were any possibilities on that front. Turns out, though, we would have had to charter the whole plane to come from N. Kenya, pick us in Trt, then fly us 15 minutes up the mountain side to the village. The cost of that would have been enormous... and we didn't have that kind of money in our budget. So that option was out, as well.

So back I went to stay with my friends! At that point, we basically decided to pack it in and head back to Jb the next morning. We would try again later.

So I enjoyed the rest of the day with my friends, and took them out for dinner at a little street-side restaurant to thank them for their flexibility and hospitality to me during those days! The food we had there was incredible! They had a little BBQ all set up, and we had the most succulent BBQed chicken, along with ful beans, little chick pea balls (like falafal) and loads of freshly baked pita bread. So yummy.

The next day dawned dark and rainy yet again. Adelino told me that he would arrange transport for us back to Jb. A little while later, he contacted me again and said it was raining too hard, so we couldn't go anywhere that day. So while I waited for news from him, I was put to work, putting together mini-ABC books for my friends. I can proudly say I put together almost 200 little books while waiting to leave Trt!



In the middle of my project, however, I received a phone call from Adelino - get ready to go, because we're going to the village now! Huh?! Seems the Commissioner had offered for us to use his car and driver that day to get to the village! Didn't seem like such a great idea to me... but if Adelino and the driver thought they could get through, then who was I to argue?

So I quickly got myself ready for a long road trip to the village again, including making sure the satellite phone was all charged up and that I had the, um, well, appropriate foundational garments on for a long trip over a very bumpy road.

So I sat and waited. And waited. And waited some more. Thankfully, I had my little book project to do, to keep my mind off the uncertainty of waiting for a few hours. Eventually, at about 2, Adelino showed up once again at the door. The Commissioner's car never showed up to pick us up, and by then, it was much too late in the day to start our journey. So, we made a firm, final decision - once and for all, we would leave the following morning at 8am to go back to Jb.

Finally, I could relax a bit, since I wasn't going to be called on at a moment's notice to go somewhere! Happily, I dragged my stuff back to the room which had quickly become "mine", and continued with my book making project! I also went for a little wander around the town, as I was then free to leave the compound (I had been staying at "home", in case anyone came to fetch me, I didn't want to be somewhere else!). So I spent a lovely few hours wandering down to the bridge, to see the little river where everyone in town washes their clothes and takes baths, I went to the little shop and bought some local yogurt and goat cheese for my hosts, and generally just stretched my legs a bit.

Since the town is much smaller than Jb, it's much nicer to just wander around - not as many cars or motocycles zipping around, people are friendly and are the type of people who will just stop you on the street to say hello and have a little chat, because they're curious what a white person is doing there. Here in Jb, it's not like that at all - people have the "big city" mentality here, where you stay out of people's business (that is, unless you're a young man and you feel the need to call out "hey baby" to every woman who walks down the street!). So it was really nice and relaxing to enjoy the small town of Trt. I think there are only about 20,000 people to live there, so in terms of towns in this country, it's quite big. But compared to Jb, it's tiny!

Anyways, I was getting a little tired of the uncertainty of not really knowing what was going on with our transport, not to mention wondering whether or not we were actually going to manage to pull off the training that we had planned to do! So I was a bit relieved when we made the final decision to just go back home. I think we did what we could to get there - goodness knows we tried various options for 4 days! But the rains just came too soon.

The generator is about to go off, so I'd better get this rambling posted.

I have a few photos from the way back to Jb, but I'll post about that later!