The trip so far…

Rumour has it the “resort” next door to my “lodge” has internet at certain hours – namely, when the generator is on. So I’m writing this post in faith that when I hike over there in an hour, the electricity will, indeed, be there, and the internet, too, will be there. For $2 for each 30 minutes, I figure I can afford to spend 30 minutes on the internet every couple of days.

There have been ever so many bloggable moments in the past few days!

First, because of some certain situations, we really weren’t sure how we were going to get to this town in the first place. Thankfully, some budget was found so that we could pay for a flight on MAF – a wonderful Christian organization that flies all over the world. I happen to be quite good friends with a lot of the MAF folks in town, so it was pretty easy to arrange the flights. It ended up that we arranged to charter the entire plane – meaning we could take up to 13 people and something like 900 kg of cargo  It ended up that we had 4 of us who were going for the actual workshop, then someone else from our compound who just wanted to go along for the ride, as well as a new administrator from MAF who wanted to go along for the ride… since we had rather a lot of space!

I was so wonderfully surprised on Saturday morning when we showed up at the MAF compound to go together with them to the airport. There was a woman there from MSF who needed to go to a town near where we were headed to. So it turns out that MSF paid for half the flight, and we only had to pay for half! What a surprise blessing, and a nice little confirmation that we made the right decision about flying with MAF. With only 4 of us going, it was actually slightly more expensive than flying on a commercial airline. But in the end, with the shared cost, it turned out to be much cheaper – and certainly safer and definitely much more fun!

The flight was great – because it’s rainy season, the landscape below was greener than I’d ever seen it. It was truly beautiful. I was so amazed to see, too, how the River branches and really does turn into a gigantic swamp just before the town where we were headed to. I’m so glad we didn’t end up taking the road, because it looked rather flooded down there!

The airstrip was just that. An airstrip in the middle of what appeared to be nowhere. Just a few people waiting for a plane under the trees. Thankfully, my colleagues have all sorts of relatives around, and there was someone waiting under a tree for us in his landcruiser from the olden days.

He deposited us at a hotel called the “Standhope Hotel”. Not sure what the name means, but it was quite a new building, and the rooms and even the bathrooms were pretty clean! I had high hopes for the place. But then they told us the price per person, which was much higher than what the relatives had told us it would be. And then I realized just how far it was from the actual town centre and the venue where we thought the workshop would be held. The only transport we could find was a rickshaw who wouldn’t accept less than $10 to take us from the guesthouse to the town! A little quick mental math told me that I was going to run out of cash at this rate. And, well, there certainly aren’t any bank machines in this town!

Anyway, we started off to town to see what we could find, to check out the progress on the preparations that the organizers here had said they would do.

Alas. We found no one and nothing. And no one was even picking up their phones! It was actually rather disheartening, and a little worrying! But instead of worrying too much (because really, what could we do at that point?!), we just wandered around the town a bit, making a stop at the port to watch onions get unloaded, clothes get washed and bodies get bathed. Well, I tried not to dwell for TOO long on that last one!

By this time, it was definitely past lunch time, and definitely time for a cold drink. It was so terribly hot and humid. We were all just dripping. Drenched, in fact, in our own sweat. My little sweat hankie was soaked. I have a feeling I was a pretty sorry sight. At least I was wearing my sun hat, so didn’t get too baked and burned… just really sweaty!

We had lunch at a place that we thought perhaps we would “hire” to cater for the participants. It was a bit of a walk from the venue… something I didn’t relish. Walking that distance every day in the noon-day sun (or the pouring rain and mud!) was not a thought I was relishing. But that seemed to be the only option.

Anyway, feeling a bit disheartened, we wandered through the market, picked up some bread and bananas, and went back to the guesthouse in time for a shower and supper.

Then a horrible night began. If I ever go into architecture and design a hotel, remind me NOT to design it like the Standhope Hotel. All of the rooms opened into the main dining/bar/lounge area. The only window in each room also opened into the main dining/bar/lounge area. Now that would be one thing if this town had electricity and each room had an A/C so the window could be closed and the room would stay cool. But this town has no electricity. And the generator at the Standhope Hotel goes on twice a day: from 7pm – midnight and from noon – 2pm when the Nigerian soap opera is on the Satellite TV (in the main dining/bar/lounge area.

Other than that, the rooms are completely pitch black. And stuffy. I mean, absolutely not a breath of air moving through the rooms. Nothing. So you can imagine hot the rooms got – a tin roof, a very hot African sun, concrete walls to seal in the heat, and no windows. It’s like putting a bed with a mosquito net in a shipping container!

And then there’s the noise. It just happened that there was a football (soccer!) game on tv from about 9 – midnight. And the whole neighbourhood came out to watch the game and have a few beverages. So there I am, huddled in my little shipping container, trying to drown out the noise of the football fans, and sweating. And sweating. And sweating some more.

Needless to say, I did NOT sleep well.

I crawled out of my room, still sweating, at about 7am before my colleagues were due to leave for church to beg them to look for somewhere new to stay. I couldn’t bear another night like that.

Off they went to church. And most of the other guests cleared out. The clouds came and the breeze started blowing. After a shower, a cup of Nescafe and a bit of good music on my iPod and a good book, I was feeling much more positive and hopeful about life in general.

When my team came back from church (I didn’t go with them because I knew that it would just be long and hot and all in a language that I know exactly 3 words of), we had some lunch, then went off in their relatives’ car again, which he had so kindly lent to us for the afternoon.

We were off in search of alternative lodgings.

Amazingly enough, the first place we went to check out for us to stay happens to be a place that someone from the organizing team in the town had contracted to accommodate the participants! And, to, boot, they even hired the conference hall at the same compound for the workshop to be held in! Why no one had told us this to begin with, I don’t know. But what an answer to prayer (and I did have a lot of time to pray over it all while I sweated in my bed the previous night!). The only downside was that the place is quite a bit older and a bit run down. But at least there are windows for ventilation, a garden to sit in, instead of just a lounge, and not a satellite tv in sight!

I checked out the latrines before completely agreeing… and I must admit, I was not too pleased. They were pretty disgusting, actually. I will spare you the details. But not nice at all. But I thought, well, if worse comes to worse, I’ll buy some cleaning supplies and take care of it myself.

Since it was a bit too late to check out of the Standhope by then, we told the folks at the new place that we’d return today. We had a wander around the market to search for some bits of things that we needed. We searched for jerry cans and some cups to put drinking water in. I did the math and if we bought bottles of water for everyone (2 bottles per day), we would go through about 600 little plastic bottles in two weeks. That’s ridiculous. I’m just sickened by all the bottles that are thrown around everywhere here, and I’m trying to do what I can to reduce that number. Plus, it’s expensive to buy that much water!

Anyway, back to the Standhope we went. It turned out to be a much better night. There was no football on tv – just a cheesy movie in which Harrison Ford infiltrates an Amish community. Oddly enough, I had just seen part of that movie on tv before I left Canada. I still don’t know what it’s called. If any of you know the movie I’m referring to, please let me know so that I can avoid it in the future!

It had also been a much cooler day, so the rooms were quite as baking hot.

And I had actually moved to a different room for the night. The one I was in was right next door to a member of a large group that was staying at the hotel. They must have been “big men” somewhere. I just couldn’t figure them out, though. There were about 10 of them who came and went together in a very nice Landcruiser. Some of them wore posh suits. Others wore soldiers uniforms, and a couple of them wore pajamas. I kid you not. They climbed into the landcruiser each morning and climbed out again in the evening wearing their striped flannel pajamas. As soon as they came back to the hotel in the evening, everyone, except the pajama clad men, changed into their casual attire – a towel and flip flops. And there they sat, eating their supper and watching tv. In their towels and pajamas. Very odd.

In the meantime, I had asked if there was a cup of tea. Of course, no problem, I was told. So I waited for a little while. And after some time, I was presented with a flask (thermos!) of hot milk, some sugar and some Nescafe. I asked the waitress if there was a tea bag. I was told, “it is finished”. But I ordered tea and was told it was there. Anyway, apparently “tea” means any sort of hot drink… milk, coffee, tea, and any combination of the three.

Anyway, the second night passed much more peacefully. It was a bit cooler. And a bit quieter. So I slept better. And I had hope in my heart that tonight I will sleep better.

So this morning, we had our tea (which, of course, was Nescafe in hot milk), and waited for the landcruiser to come to bring us to the new hotel. We spent quite some time discussing the budget for various things (please pray that there are no surprise bills at the end, because they are charging SO much for things here, and we couldn’t get them to come down any lower, and, like I said, we only have so much cash along with us!). 2/3 of the participants have already come, which is great. We are just waiting for the others to come… hopefully by tomorrow. We did a bit of an intro to the workshop today with the participants after our lunch, and so we’re all ready to begin from tomorrow, hopefully!

Right, the appointed hour for the generator to begin next door has arrived. So I’m gion gto run off there and see what I can find…