Embracing Simplicity - 38 Days on the Camino de Santiago

For more than 1,000 years, pilgrims from as far away as Zagreb, Budapest and Bergen have made their way to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Spain to stand in the church that holds the relics of St. James and pay homage. For many, the walk on the Camino de Santiago (The Way of St. James) alone is reason enough for the journey. Today’s pilgrims embrace the Camino trek not only as a time for self- reflection but also for a way to embrace a simpler way of life.
The Way of St. James is one of the great pilgrimages of the world. The entire Route of Santiago de Compostela is designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and that, alone, inspires many to explore it on foot.

Beginning in Pamplona

Traditionally, the pilgrimage would begin from your front stoop and it might take years before the pilgrim reached Santiago. These days, most pilgrims fly to France and begin their hike on one of the more popular routes, the Camino Francés.
The charming town of St. Jean Pied de Port, at the base of the Pyrénées, is the traditional starting point for the Camino Francés. Due to time constraints, my husband Scott and I began our pilgrimage in Pamplona, Spain, 40 miles from St. Jean.
An occasional hangout for the late Ernest Hemingway, Pamplona is dotted with signs proclaiming, “Hemingway wrote here” or “Hemingway slept here” along with random shops each simply called “The Hemingway.”

We would have loved to stay at the Gran Hotel La Perla, where Hemingway slept after he took in a bullfight at the municipal ring nearby, but rooms started at $500. However, if you travel on a budget, as we do, you won’t have to wait long before a friendly Spaniard will direct you to the nearest albergue, or refugio.
As we stood in La Perla’s lobby soaking in the ambiance, a hotel employee, noting our hiking apparel, asked, “Are you peregrinos (pilgrims)? You must stay at the refugio!” He walked us there pointing out places where Hemingway had a cigar or took a lover along the way.
Refugios, or albergues, are where most pilgrims on the Camino rest their heads each night. In Pamplona, for €6 (around $9) apiece, we were assigned a bunk in the beautifully designed 100-bed dormitory Municipal Albergue (Church of Jesus and Maria, C/ Compañía 4), located in what had previously been a 17th-century church.

We were able to buy our Camino credenciales, or Pilgrim Records (pilgrim passports), at the same time we checked in. These passports are required in order to stay in the refugios along the Camino and must be presented each day to be stamped as proof that you are making the pilgrimage.
At the credential office in Santiago your passport will be carefully examined before you are awarded your Compostela, a beautiful certificate that proclaims your accomplishment.

Provided you have enough room in your passport or have bought a supplement with extra pages, you may acquire as many stamps as you would like each day. Sometimes shopkeepers or villagers hosting informal way stations have made up their own unique stamps, and they will offer to add theirs to your passport. Historic churches along The Way have particularly beautiful stamps.
Most refugios on the Camino have between 10 and 30 beds in one room. “Sounds smelly!” you might be thinking, and in the old days you would have been right.
Hundreds of years ago, a monk or priest would walk through the refugio swinging a smoking incense ball to dull the odiferous funk of the pilgrims as they slept. Fortunately, modern-day refugios have hot showers, laundry machines, Internet access and kitchens. I had a hot shower on each of my 38 days on the Camino.

The search for simplicity

It is said that one’s pilgrimage on the Camino should be a spiritual journey, but there are as many reasons to do the Camino as there are people on it. It could be a cultural quest, a physical challenge, a meditative walk for nature lovers or a time to get to know your spouse or partner a little better.
More often than not, it is undertaken as a search for an answer to the age-old question, “Who am I?”

For me, it was a walk of gratitude. I woke up every day feeling grateful — for my husband, for my family and for good friends and, especially, for my parents. Someone once said that the greatest gift one can give another is a happy childhood, and I’m really grateful for the one my parents gave me. Walking the Camino seemed a good way to say ‘Thank you.’
Whatever the reason for making the almost-500-mile trek (and they all are perfectly acceptable), it provides a rare opportunity to slow down life’s hectic pace to a rhythmic three kilometers per hour and ponder the basics of living simply.
For five weeks, the biggest decisions one has to make on the Camino each day are ‘Where will I eat,?’ ‘How far will I walk?’ and ‘Where will I sleep?’ Eat, walk, sleep. Simple. There is something revitalizing about embracing this simplicity.
Add to that what I call the blessings of the Camino — the people you meet from all walks of life and from all over the world — and you have an experience that is hard to duplicate anywhere else.

Doctors, lawyers, students, teachers, actors, widows, newlyweds, inspiring couples in their 80s, cancer survivors (some who were still undergoing treatment) and even the homeless are just some of the people we met on the Camino. But while on the pilgrimage, we all became a community of people with one common goal.

Accommodations

You absolutely don’t need a guide for this journey, but if you prefer a guided option or like to stay in hotels every night, there are tour companies that can show you the way and book your hotel rooms ahead of time. For the independent traveler, numerous books, blogs and online forums where you can find all you need to know about the Camino are available. We arrived without a guide book but once we located the first yellow arrow to point us on our way, the rest was easy.

Except during the summer months, when the Camino is at its busiest, finding a place to sleep each night is not difficult. Ask for a list of refugios where you start your walk or refer to your guidebook for recommendations, but there are always signs pointing to accommodation in each town or village. There are often at least two albergues from which to choose. The usual cost is €5-€8 per person.
We began our trek on Easter Sunday in April of 2010 and had no difficulty obtaining a bed for all but one night out of 38. (We ended up that night up in a private room in an annex — it might have even been the albergue owner’s home — so it was fine by us that the dorm was full.)

The newer albergues on the Camino are purpose built and well insulated. Many others are in stone buildings, old drafty monasteries or farmhouses. Occasionally, the floors were so icy that we could keep our morning yogurt chilled by placing the container on the tile under the bed overnight.
To help keep pilgrims warm and cozy at night, there was often a stack of heavy wool blankets available. Usually, these were free of charge.
To save on carrying too much weight, some pilgrims forgo toting a sleeping bag and rely on there being blankets and pillows available at the refugios. I concluded this was too risky and was very glad I had brought my own down sleeping bag, camp pillow and earplugs. (Bring plenty of earplugs!)
Each year, more and more hotels are cropping up on the Camino, but 40 straight nights in hotels can get expensive. Besides, staying in an albergue is part of the peregrino experience — sharing the day’s events with new friends.
One rainy evening, Tia from Finland sat on a top bunk in a crowded dorm room tending to her many blisters. A Frenchman in the bunk across from her who seemed to know everything there was to know about blisters began offering advice. Then an Italian girl crossed the room, putting in her two cents while gesturing passionately toward Tia’s foot.

Soon, Tia was the center of an animated debate in Spanish, French, German, Finnish, Slovenian, Korean, Italian and English. (I listened intently to the advice, since I had a large blister the size of a cherry tomato brewing on my own big toe.)
It was usually perfectly comfortable — and always entertaining — staying in what the Spanish call a dormitorio, but occasionally, if available, we asked for a matrimonio, the quaint term for a double room, or un cuarto con dos camas solamente, a small room with only two beds.

Is it difficult?

Anyone can walk the Camino. Each pilgrim walks at his or her own pace, soon developing a unique rhythm. We discovered that our packs were too big and too heavy. (I had a 25-pound backpack and my husband carried 35 pounds.) Though we still managed to walk 12 to 15 miles each day, I would recommend much smaller packs. This can be achieved by taking efficient, lightweight clothing and a compressible sleeping bag.
It’s 778 kilometers from St. Jean Pied de Port to Santiago on the Camino Francés, so unless you are a speed walker it will take a month to six weeks to complete. You will never regret traveling as lightly as possible. Anything you have forgotten at home can be bought at shops along the way or done without.

We did zero training for this walk, something I would not recommend, as you will ache less if you train more, yet it took us only two days to adopt a comfortable pace. We walked fast enough to get to the next albergue before dark but slow enough to stop to pet a dog or cat or calf along the way.

The landscape and scenery varied by the hour and no two days were alike. One day we trod up and down gentle rolling hills of newly planted wheat fields so green, they looked like jade rivers swirling through the valley. The next morning a vineyard kept us company for a while and then an olive grove. After lunch there might have been a steep climb to dense forest. The day after, perhaps a visit to a Romanesque church and a nap in the sun.
One day we walked on a straight-as-an-arrow Roman road, the Vía Trajana, with not one tree in sight for 12 kilometers. Sometimes we had to walk on concrete next to a main road, and those were our least favorite days because, while it was flat, the pavement turned our feet to mush.
We moved from village to village on country roads, but more often we walked on muddy, rocky or cobbled footpaths, just the way pilgrims did 1,000 years ago — except we were powered more by café con leche and chocolate croissants than by gruel.

Our daily walk took us six to eight hours per day, depending on the terrain and how frequently we stopped for coffee or how long we lingered over our picnic lunch.

A typical day

When staying in an albergue, it is considerate to follow Camino etiquette. There is an understanding that everyone must clear out of the albergue by 8 a.m. There is also an informal “no stirring before 6 a.m.” rule, which is routinely ignored. Most of the early birds — those walking 30 kilometers or more a day — are chomping at the bit to be out the door by 5:30 each morning, so rustling usually begins well before dawn.
At 7 a.m., those still asleep (an incredible feat!) are jolted into consciousness with a recording of Gregorian chants, traditional pilgrim songs or, in one case, Bob Marley tunes. Soon the room is vibrating with steady conversation.

Shoes are usually neatly stacked on shelves near the front door for airing overnight, so it can be a tight squeeze in the entryway as everyone laces up their boots.
Occasionally, the albergue will offer a breakfast of bread, jam and coffee or orange juice, and sometimes a pilgrim meal will be provided at night. In the teeny village of San Juan de Ortega, the community served us surprisingly delicious garlic soup after evening Mass.
If the refugio hasn’t provided breakfast and you don’t have your own supply of bananas or yogurt, you’ll start the trail on an empty stomach. Cafés are few and far between and they don’t open before 9:30 a.m., so it is a good idea to have purchased something the day before for the morning.
As you walk out of the albergue, look for the yellow arrow, usually painted on the road or on a building, which indicates the way to go. Kilometer after kilometer, you follow the symbols of the Camino: scallop shells, which are imbedded in the walkways like crumbs dropped by Hansel, or yellow arrows that appear on trees, benches, stop signs, buildings, overpasses or dedicated Camino steles.

Some people prefer to walk alone, solitario, while others walk in community. Other permitted modes of travel are bicycle, horse and donkey.
By 10 a.m. it was time for a croissant or a coffee break with new friends.
If lucky, the first town you come to might have a shop where you can buy supplies for a picnic lunch. Everything closes in the middle of the day, so you have to time this carefully or you can go the day without eating.

The daily walk was broken every three, six or 13 kilometers by another village with a church — always a church — and a bar or café. Bars serve coffee, croissants, beer and sandwiches in smoke-filled environments, but they’re the best places for a cup of coffee in the morning or a cold San Miguel for an afternoon pick-me-up.
In almost every town, an enormous stork nest or two topped the towers of tall churches. Long before we could see them, we could hear the storks clacking their beaks as they built their nests. This became our favorite symbol of the Camino.
Some days, frogs serenaded us, sounding just like the tribbles from “Star Trek,” and it seemed there was never a single moment without birdsong. We loved that part.

The villages were so charming and the clouds so exceptionally fluffy and white that we usually forgot all about our inflamed blisters, sore feet, aching backs, screaming calves, burning thighs, noisy knees and tight shoulders until we lay down for the night.
An advantage of a springtime trek over a summer one was that there was more color in nature. Sometimes the scenery was so vivid, it felt as if we were walking through an image that had been enhanced in Photoshop.
We drank lots of water throughout the day. Refills were available from spouts in the villages’ main plazas or we could always refill at a café. A few peregrinos experienced diarrhea from suspect water sources, but the tap water in the albergues was always reliable.
By 3 o’clock in the afternoon we were ready to stop for the day — our feet were killing us and I was ready to throw my pack into a ditch — but usually there wasn’t a church steeple in sight, so we would have to keep going.
This was the time of day that I became most “spiritual.” I would pray for soft soil and no steep ascents (or any change in elevation at all) before getting to our destination for the day. It didn’t matter if we walked 13 kilometers or 22, the last four kilometers were always the hardest.
Finally, we would reach a village and follow the yellow arrows to the albergue.

At 7:30 or 8 p.m. a “pilgrim meal” would be served, usually at the one bar or restaurant in town or sometimes at the albergue. There was usually a first course of soup, salad or paella, then a second course of stew, pork, fish, rabbit, octopus or chicken, ending with a dessert. Every meal came with water, bread and a bottle of wine, all for €8-€10. I loved the pilgrim menu.

All in and lights out in the al­bergue was usually at 10 p.m.

Cruz de Ferro

About 200 kilometers from Santiago we climbed to the highest elevation on the route. Here, a major milestone on the Camino, La Cruz de Ferro, a small iron cross, is affixed to the top of a tall wooden pole.
It is tradition to bring a stone or pebble from home and carry it with you on your pilgrimage as a symbol of any heaviness in your heart. Into the stone you put all your sorrows, disappointments and regrets. When you get to Cruz de Ferro, you are supposed to leave the stone — and all your sorrows — behind. For some, the time there is even more meaningful than arriving at Santiago.
I didn’t know about the custom of bringing a rock from home. A German woman told me, “Just pick one up along the way!” I did but promptly lost it down a sink drain while doing laundry one night. On Cruz de Ferro day, I found a small red rock and laid it at the base of the cross as a prayer for Africa.

The journey is the goal

After 38 days and almost 500 miles we arrived at Santiago de Compostela. My one desire was that the sun would be shining when we arrived at the cathedral. I got my wish. After a week of hiking in dreary rain, heavy fog and even snow, the sun shone brightly.

Unlike in other cities along the Camino, once a pilgrim enters the city limits of Santiago, there is no stopping for café con leche or a beer or even to empty boots of pebbles that have settled uncomfortably between toes. After loading my backpack from a top bunk one last time, lacing up my boots and crossing one last Roman bridge, I had a strong drive to just get there.
There was a conspicuous sense of urgency amongst our fellow pilgrims. Few stopped for a break on the way to the goal line that day.
When we finally arrived in the city of Santiago, the route to the cathedral was perfect, winding up and down and around, the cathedral spires hidden from view until we were practically standing beneath them.

Serendipity was with us that day in Santiago. We took a wrong turn near the cathedral and ended up at a little-used entrance. No backpacks are allowed inside, so I said to Scott, “Why don’t you go in first while I watch the bags.” After a few moments he hurried back out, saying, “You have to see this!”

I walked in to find the Botafumeiro, the huge incense burner, flying just over the heads of the congregation and continuing through the entire transept. Whoosh! The sound as the burner passed just feet from me was incredible.
Historically, the Botafumeiro, which hangs from ropes and an elaborate pulley system near the ceiling 150 feet above, was used to exterminate the aromas produced by all the heavily clothed pilgrims, some of whom had taken a year to reach Santiago. Seeing the incense burner in action and feeling it as it flew by moved me to tears.

For those who hike the Camino in a Holy Year, as we did (the next will be 2021), the Catholic Church awards pilgrims an indulgence, meaning, in the eyes of the Church, all sins are forgiven. Raised as a Catholic, I would be leaving Santiago with a “clean slate,” so to speak.
At the pilgrims’ office adjoining the cathedral, one of 10 officials checked our credentials, carefully examining the many stamps we received along the way, and issued us Compostela certificates. Our certificates are different. My husband, a history buff, had decided to earn a “cultural” certificate. No indulgence for him!
“How was your journey?” asked the church official as she filled in my name in Latin. “It was wonderful,” I replied, wiping my tears, “and we arrived at the cathedral in time to see the Botafumeiro fly.
“You are very fortunate!” she said. “The Botafumeiro only makes an appearance during special Feast Days or if a group has made a large donation.”
I walked out feeling like one lucky pilgrim.

To top it off, as we walked away from the cathedral, a jazz musician sitting in the square began to play “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” the song played at my mom’s funeral. Mom had been gone over two years, but she had been with me every day on the Camino. It was a perfect end to a perfect journey. Our celebratory dinner consisted of things that reminded us of the Camino: potato chips, (picnics) champagne (joy), and chocolate (sweetness).

Camino resources:

General information: The Confraternity of St. James, London; phone +44 (0) 20 7928 9988

Online forum: www.caminodesantiago.me

Animals along the way.

One day, we hiked in snow.

Blessings along the Camino.

Always enough to share.

Pulpo! Octopus

Pilgrim Meal

Sample chapter from Safari Jema, A Journey of Love and Adventure from Casablanca to Cape Town

Meat is Meat

Victoria Falls roared nearby while Scott watched a tourist leap
from the bridge between Zimbabwe and Zambia and disappear
into the abyss over the Zambezi River. He couldn’t bring himself to actually lean over the railing because he has a fear of heights. Just standing on the bridge was enough to make his knees buckle. While he waited for the next bungee jumper to vanish from sight, he became an instant trillionaire when he bought a stack of Zimbabwean one hundred billion dollar notes from a man on the bridge. A trillion Zimbabwe dollars didn’t buy much. Inflation had topped 500 million percent and a single one-hundred-billion dollar note would buy little more than a loaf of bread or a few eggs. But the billion-dollar notes had become a commodity. While President Mugabe continued to ruin an entire country, he had inadvertently created a market for Zimbabwe
dollars on eBay. Unfortunately many months later, in Thailand, our backpack was relieved of eight hundred billion dollars along with our beloved Swiss Army Knife. The knife wasn’t your run-of-the-mill gadget with a blade and screwdriver. It was one I had purchased direct from the source in Switzerland. It was called The Superchamp and it had dozens of tools incased within its only-available-in-Switzerland black body. Not
only that, engraved on its side was a personalized mushy dedication to Scott. More than a portable toolbox, its knife and corkscrew alone represented romantic picnics in the Alps and glasses of Riesling along the Rhine. Somehow I think I would have mourned the loss a little less if the Superchamp were being put to use building a bridge in Africa instead of opening a can of beans in some communal kitchen of a backpacker hostel in Thailand.

Billion dollar notes aside, it was tragic what was going on in Zimbabwe. People desperately waited for something to change. There were fuel shortages, grocery store shelves were empty, and farms sat derelict. Those who were able would cross the border into Zambia each day to work—or to sell stacks of Zimbabwe dollars to travelers— before returning at night to a ruined Zimbabwe. Most Zimbabweans seemed to accept their lot with something closer to pragmatism than bitterness. We asked a taxi driver waiting for fares near the bridge how he felt about what was happening in his country and if he thought Mugabe should step down or be thrown out. He answered with a resigned shrug, “It’s better to have the devil we know than one we don’t.”
It wasn’t always like that in Zimbabwe. Until recently it was our favorite African nation. It is a physically beautiful country and we had always admired the resourcefulness of her people. As recently as 1999, Zimbabwe was still considered a breadbasket of Africa, the economy was relatively healthy, and inflation was not yet a major headline. On two previous visits we had been able to travel anywhere in the country in relative comfort and security.

During one such trip we noticed a billboard advertising “Business Days, Zimbabwe Trade Zone,” from our seats on a crowded long-distance bus. As we entered the colonial city of Bulawayo, we decided it might be interesting to see how a trade show in Zimbabwe might differ from one in Silicon Valley and we made a plan to attend. I am sure we were the only tourists there. When we arrived at the entrance they couldn’t decide under what category to admit us. Finally someone handed us badges that read, “Foreign Guest,” and we entered the trade show floor. Salesmen hawked furniture, crafts, and import-export opportunities from within hundreds of tents and booths. In lesser number were agents representing safari and game lodges. One lodge, located in Hwange National Park, offered trade show attendees a full board package including game drives at a place called Ganda Lodge for a price almost too good to believe. Scott gave me a look that said, “What have we got to lose?” We purchased two nights and received an official-looking voucher.

The next day we took another bus to Hwange National Park where we met Happiness, Cuthbert, Fortunate, and Boniface, all part of the Ganda Lodge staff. I wondered who they thought we were because we received the royal treatment. Soon we learned we were the first guests they had had in weeks and that we would have Ganda Lodge to ourselves. After a welcome drink of something orange and cool, we were shown a selection of two-story cottages to pick from. We quickly chose one fronting both the water hole and the swimming pool. This in turn overlooked a grassy savannah shaded by acacia and mahogany trees. In a branch of a thorn tree overhanging a second-story viewing platform, a lilac-breasted roller came to rest not two feet from where we sat. The spectacularly colored bird preened its feathers like an actress preparing for a close-up. It was
the dry season at Hwange and most of the water in the holes had evaporated. Fortunately there was still water in the pond near our cottage and that was what brought thirsty animals practically to our front door.
After we settled in, the head ranger David took us on a game drive. We stopped briefly to watch zebra and giraffe grazing near the lodge, and then headed out into the bush. One hour into the game drive we stopped near a herd of some two hundred elephants. One juvenile elephant immediately performed an impressive mock charge, running at our vehicle with his ears flared out and his little trunk flailing wildly. Then while I held my breath, another young female elephant walked directly over to where I sat in the backseat of our open-topped Land Cruiser and calmly draped her trunk over my shoulder. My heart was beating so hard I thought it would leap from my chest. I sat like a statue even though my insides tingled with excitement. There was nothing I could do to stop the happy tears that ran down my cheeks.
After a few minutes of close-encounter bliss, we continued through the game park stopping again to watch a group of slow-moving impala and giraffe. The air was so hot and parched that the grasses crackled under the hooves of the animals. I felt nearly on the verge of heatstroke.I’ve never been one to handle the heat well anyway, and the temperature out on the savannah was pushing me to my limit. Evidently it showed
because David glanced at my clammy, flushed face and asked, “Would you like to go back now?” As much as I wanted to have another close encounter with an elephant, I knew that driving around in one-hundred-
degree heat in an open-top vehicle might do me in. Reluctantly I nodded at David and said, “Yes, please.”

Back at the lodge we changed into swimsuits and chilled down in the icy cold pool. As we hung on to the pool’s edge feeling our body temperature return to normal, we watched zebra come to the water hole and drink. Boniface brought us cold beers. It was heaven. Though attending a trade show is not something most travelers usually do, it paid off big for us. The price for the all-inclusive stay at Ganda Lodge was only fourteen dollars per person, per night. Total. For everything. At lunch a tall and dapper African named Cuthbert whose every move conveyed style and grace served us a plentiful meal and more cold drinks on a covered terrace. Watching Cuthbert move around the terrace, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the elegant giraffe we had encountered during our game drive that morning. When we finished eating, he cleared the table so effortlessly that it was as if he had just waved his hand over it and made the dishes disappear. He smiled at us more like we were guests in his home than visitors to a game lodge. “Which meat would like to have for dinner?” he asked.
“You mean we get to pick?” I asked. “What are our choices?”
“Chicken, or beef, or pork,” replied Cuthbert.
“Well, chicken sounds good. We’ll have the chicken,” Scott answered for both of us. Cuthbert seemed a little disappointed at our choice.

After lunch David drove us back to a water hole located about forty minutes from the lodge. During our game drive we had noticed a ladder leading to an enclosed platform in a tall tree near the water and asked if we could spend the afternoon alone there. David parked the vehicle directly under the tree so that we could
safely and quickly climb to the platform. Before leaving, he handed us a small box of cold drinks and said, “Be careful, and try not to become overheated.” We climbed the ladder and spent the next three hours
well hidden in the leafy tree spying on elephant and antelope as they came to the water to drink.

Game viewing that afternoon was a vastly more rewarding experience because the animals were completely unaware of our presence. Perhaps they were under the influence of the heat as well, but I have never seen African animals so relaxed. Some even napped. Without half a dozen safari vehicles filled with excited tourists destroying the calmness of nature (“Marge! Did you see that? Look over there. No, over there! Oh, you missed it! He’s gone now.”), we were able to see antelope just being antelope. It was just Scott, the African bush, and me. Because it was so hot and dry at Hwange, animals naturally gravitated to the water hole so it bustled with activity. Some animals drank from the water’s edge then rested in shade nearby before returning for another drink. Adult elephants stood in the pool and cooled their bodies with showers of water from their trunks while baby elephants rolled in the mud or playfully charged one another. The one behavior all the animals had in common was that they seemed reluctant to leave.
So were we. When Happiness and Fortunate arrived to take us back to the lodge, it struck me that their names expressed our emotions of the day perfectly.

At 7:00 p.m, we were called to dinner . Again it was a buffet with copious amounts of food, way too much for just the two of us. And there was plenty of chicken. I said to Cuthbert, “There’s so much
food!” and he responded, “If you eat more, you worry less.” It didn’t take too long for us to realize that the staff of Ganda Lodge and their families would be eating what we couldn’t finish. We also understood
that when there are no guests at the lodge, there are no leftovers to eat. We took small but sufficient portions of food to our table and ate while the staff watched at a distance.
From the terrace we could see impala, warthog, and giraffe come to drink. Gesturing towards the animals at the water hole, I remarked to Cuthbert, “It’s so beautiful! It would be wonderful to have a meal closer to the water hole.”
From the comfort of our bed the next morning, we watched more than eight hundred buffalo cross the savannah before we headed to the terrace for breakfast. Cuthbert met us at the step and swept his arm
around until it pointed down to the water hole. There on the bank was a table for two beautifully set with white linen, china, and a small vase of wildflowers. “Today, you will eat breakfast at the water hole.”
I burst into tears. To this day it is the most spectacular place I have ever dined.
As we finished our eggs, Cuthbert came to our table and asked,
“Which meat would you like for lunch today?”
“Which meat do you recommend, Cuthbert?” Scott asked.
“Well,” he said slowly. “Meat is meat.” He shrugged as if it did not matter which meat was chosen. “But,” he added quickly, “I don’t think you care much for the chicken. I think you prefer the beef.”
Scott looked over at me and smiled. “I think we prefer the beef too,” he said to Cuthbert.
And that is what we all had for lunch that afternoon. There was enough beef on the luncheon buffet table to feed twenty.

After lunch Cuthbert again approached us with, “Which meat
would you like for dinner?”
We smiled at him and asked, “Do we still like the beef?”
Cuthbert smiled back. “Yes, I think you like the beef most of all.”
Two days later when we left Hwange, we stopped back in Bulawayo
and traded facemasks and snorkels (I honestly can’t remember why in
the world we had facemasks and snorkels with us) and a little money
for a graceful wooden giraffe. Almost six feet tall and hand carved by
the seller, I named him Cuthbert.

Safari Jema , A Journey of Love and Adventure From Casablanca to Cape Town

 Safari Jema, A Journey of Love and Adventure From Casablanca to Cape Town, is now available on Amazon.com. 

http://www.amazon.com/Safari-Jema-Journey-Adventure-Casablanca/dp/1463741790/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1326331315&sr=1-1

I wrote it for Scott. He loved it and encouraged me to share it with everyone who said, "You should write a book about this!" I hope you enjoy reading about our ten month overland adventure in Africa.

An Evening With Mr. Sky, The Kamunjoma School Fete

It’s amazing what a set of gloves can do. Scott and I made the six hour trek by bush taxi and bus to Chipata to buy gloves, levels and whatever else we could find that looked like it would be helpful in constructing a bridge, which meant we also bought a lot more wine.

We planned to stay only one night in Chipata but the rumor of a Mexican restaurant proved true. In the lush garden of Msamwa’s Descanso Guest House and Restaurant we ate home made tortillas filled with chicken, beef, rice and beans, dipped warm chips into freshly prepared spicy salsa, and drooled over soft tacos.

SOFT TACOS! At happy hour we treated Msamwa’s husband Steve, a former Peace Corps volunteer, and Abe, who refers to himself as a “Peace Corps Boma Volunteer”, to beers. (It is a tradition of ours to buy beer for Peace Corps volunteers and we’re celebrating our tenth year in Africa alone!) Abe had just married Mildred a local girl.

It was love at first sight in Chipata over the New Accounts desk at Barclays Bank where she worked. Abe and Mildred were about to move to Indiana. When I asked Mildred what she would miss most she didn’t hesitate. “Sheema!” Sheema is the starchy mashed maze that is the staple of every Zambian’s daily diet. “I have eaten sheema everyday of my life!” she added. “Will I be able to get sheema in America?”
“No,” I said. “But there is this place called Costco where you can buy Creamy Mash that you might find an acceptable substitute.” But really, there is nothing like sheema but sheema.

Scott and I returned to Kamunjoma in separate vehicles, which brought the total of vehicles driven to Kamunjoma that week to two. I came back with 50 bags of cement in a Council vehicle, a new-ish Chinese truck. The driver got so lost that I’m sure we were in Mozambique for part of the journey. It took four hours to get to Kamunjoma but I still beat Scott by several hours. He was on another new-ish Chinese truck with Manson (former Zambian national soccer star) along with roofing materials and a dozen villagers who were hitching a ride in the back. What does roofing material have to do with building a bridge? Nothing! Scott being Scott had noticed an unfinished brick house behind the school at Kamunjoma and asked headmistress Diana about it. “It’s meant to be a teacher house but we will never have the funds to complete it,” she explained. In Zambia rural communities must provide a dwelling before the government will assign a teacher to the school. Scott asked Diana what would be needed to finish the 600 square foot house and that led to a trip to Petauke to buy materials. I’m really proud of the bridge but I am most proud of Scott. Because of him, Kamunjoma will be able to get one more teacher.

My homecoming back at Kamunjoma after three days away couldn’t have been better. “Madam! We missed you!” everyone said as they stopped by to shake my hand. “How was Petauke? How was Chipata?”

The next morning Scott distributed the gloves. Some of the guys had never put on a pair of gloves before and put on two left hand or two right hand gloves. Some didn’t even own a pair of shoes so why should they know how to operate a pair of gloves? Every day after work they locked the gloves away with the wheelbarrow, shovels, and buckets in a storage room. I will never in all my days forget how happy 13 pairs of gloves made them.

Days at Kamunjoma were always filled with lots of interaction with villagers but since we were camped by the school, which was deserted by 5:30, nights were quiet. One afternoon Scott said to the headmistress, “We would love to get to know you and the other teachers better. How about if we arrange to buy a pig so that we can share a meal together?”
“Yes! Let’s do that!” she said. “But,” she added making a face that told us we had made cultural blunder number 23, “we don’t eat pig. When we eat meat we eat chicken or goat.” Our dreams of a Zambian luau vanished. “O.K. Then let’s have a goat and a chicken!” said Scott. The next day to get the ball rolling Scott gave Diana the equivalent of US$20 in Zambian Kwatcha and the live chicken given to him by a headman of the next village. “It’s going to be wonderful!” she said. “The children have been practicing their performances for you and they are very excited. I have already arranged for the goat and my daughters and I will prepare all the food.” Performances?? Scott asked how many people would be there. “Less than 50,” she assured. Scott and I exchanged looks. Fifty? We expressed concern that $20 would not cover the expenses but she assured us it was more than enough. I was also concerned about which goat she had arranged since I had taken quite a liking to a number of them that wondered through our camp every day. I almost said, “Please don’t pick the tawny brown one with the cowlick,” but I knew she would not understand why I would be picky about meat. As they say in Africa, meat is meat.

Over the next two days we could hear the children practicing their skits, singing, and drumming behind the school. This was turning into something a lot bigger than just dinner with a few teachers. On Thursday afternoon, the day of the fete, I found Diana’s daughters and three of the teacher’s wives under a tree chopping vegetables, plucking and cleaning chickens (2), and tending enormous pots of sheema over a wood fire. A large aluminum bowl was practically overflowing with small pieces of cooked goat meat.
Next to that was a pot of discarded chicken parts, feathers and all. I can say with authority that chickens are pretty stupid because the ones that were lucky enough to avoid being fare at the fete repeated tried to climb into the pot that held the dead chickens.

One of the teacher’s wives, Florence, put a few chicken innards and, I don’t know, maybe it was a neck, into a tiny pot with some water. She built another small fire between two bricks on the ground, handed me the pot and said, “This is Treeza’a pot to cook,” just so I could part of the kitchen preparations.
Later when I left to help Joyce (mother of eight) fetch more firewood I was laughingly scolded for leaving my pot. Diana saved me. “We are ready to begin the program,” she said and we walked together over to the sandy crossroads near the soccer field that was to be the stage.

“Less than 50” must mean something else in Zambia because there were well over 100 people gathered. Scott and I were seated at school desks arranged for the best view of the stage, a newly swept patch of the sandy road. The teachers were seated at other desks, two by two.

The dynamic dirt-bike-riding Doreen who runs the clinic two villages away was there too.

“Here is the program for today,” said Diana with a smile as she handed Scott and me a 14 item hand printed agenda; Opening prayer, Introductions, Poems, Skits, Dramas, Rumba, Speech by Mr. Sky… Closing Remarks.

The introductions were in Nsenga so one of the teachers, Mr. Tembo, sat next to us and translated. Mr. Tembo reminds me so much of my brother Sean. He is so kind and considerate. In fact, a lot of the time here, I feel like Dorothy in Oz because there are a number of people who remind me of someone at home. Washington, the new foreman on the job reminds me of my brother Joe because he is funny and loves to get the crowd going. Manson is the Eric Hagquist of Africa because he is an incredibly decent and nice person. And headmistress Diana reminds of my sister-in-law Cyndy because she moves through her day with such patience and grace. Anyway, the tin man, I mean Mr. Tembo translated the prayer and all the opening remarks. Most of what they said made us feel uncomfortable. At the same time, it made our hearts glad. Everyone just seemed so happy we were there. One of the teacher’s said during his introduction that there hadn’t been a “white man here since 1912” and that us coming to build the bridge made them feel good about themselves and their community. He said, “Before you came, we were nothing. Now we are something.” Can you imagine!

The skits performed by the children made me laugh. Some brought me to tears. (In fact, I must have sprung a leak in my tear ducts or something because lots of things in Kamunjoma seem to move me to tears.) They led off the program with original poems on subjects ranging from abstinence, to the hardships of living in Africa, to AIDS, to deforestation. Then four of the older girls lip-synced and danced several numbers from the Zambian top ten. Several boys performed a few short morality plays. One portrayed a student resorting to a life of crime because his father couldn’t afford to pay school fees. An older boy did a Zambian version of SNL’s Weekend Update. Scott got up to dance with the men and I got up to dance with the women.

So, I should explain about the dancing. It’s very provocative; especially dances performed during the harvest when bellies are full and everyone is happy. One dance is called “the push-push”. I know some of your kids read these updates so I’ll just say, well, it is a little disturbing to see girls so young doing the push-push. Joyce and other grandmother’s got up to show the young ones how it’s really done. Lots more to tell about the push-push but it will have to wait until later when I see you.

After all the acts were done and practically everyone had gotten up to shake their booty the headmistress said, “Now we will have a few words from Mr. Sky,” and she looked directly at Scott. That’s how we found out that Scott was Mr. Sky on the program. Scott, ever quick on his feet, rose to the occasion and gave one of the best speeches I’ve ever heard because he exactly expressed what was in our hearts. I remember the last part was something like, “Though our time here is short, the time spent with you here at Kamunjoma will remain in our hearts forever.” As corny as it sounds, it’s true.
After the performances and speeches we ate. Believe it or not, one goat, two chickens, some tomatoes and onions, and bucket loads of sheema – all bought for less than $20 – is more than enough to feed over 100 people, at least in Kamunjoma.

We had been in Kamunjoma for nearly a month and had completed two foundations and six tiers. The entire experience greatly exceeded our expectations. We wish we could have stayed to the end but because of logistics in the developing world it takes four months to build a bridge and we needed to return to America. Villagers will be finishing the bridge. That’s the whole point anyway. The main aim of B2P is not to build a bridge. It’s to teach locals how to build bridges so they can build more bridges. That’s one of the reasons it can take four months to finish a bridge. We learned a lot about bridges.

Scott enjoyed teaching and I, well, I really enjoyed playing with the children and getting to be a Madam (not in the Heidi Fleiss sense.)

Zoe, The B2P country director, returned from her vacation in Italy and drove Candice out to Kamunjoma to manage the project for the week after we left. All the remaining materials needed to complete the bridge– 1500 feet of cable, rebar, more cement, gravel, wood (and more gloves!) – were delivered and Scott presented Washington with the heavily dog-eared bridge manual and his Leatherman, which is useful not only for opening canned corned beef when the aluminum key provided snaps off –as it inevitably will– but also for wiring rebar.

Zoe said she could use our help before we flew out setting anchors at another bridge site in the Copperbelt and that afterward we could stay in Kafue National Park while she checked progress at a bridge near the Angola border and collected Valentine a volunteer there from Germany. We jumped at the chance to learn how to set anchors and camp in a wildlife area.

We spent two nights in the Copperbelt. It’s a long drive and the bridge there was having more than it’s share of challenges. Workers ran into solid bedrock within 24 inches of digging the second foundation hole so work had come to a standstill while Zoe was in Italy. It took some time to gather the workers and to track down the man who had the key to the latrine where the tools and cement were stored. After that we had to drive to town to buy sheema and tomatoes because the main concern was not who had the key but would they get lunch that day. I spent most of the time driving Zoe’s Toyota TRD (the pickup like the ones Keith Bramer and my nephew Colin have which Scott lusts after) back and forth from a pile of sand to the bridge site.

Two men went with me and loaded sand into the back of the truck while I talked to the children who were there pounding rocks with rocks to make little rocks for mixing with the cement which would surround the rebar cage we made for the anchor. Scott helped Zoe teach the workers how to pull cable over the towers that sat atop two tiers. Compared to Kamanjoma the Copperbelt bridge was a short one so it only needed two tiers.

Rebar was bent to just the right angle using a tree and discarded remnants of cooled charcoal left after sheema preparations was used as chalk to mark where the rebar should be cut.

Zoe left the workers with instructions on how to build the approaches, said she would return in a week and we drove off to Kafue. We learned from Zoe that Candice, Valentine, Scott and I were the only volunteers she had all year to help her build the five bridges in Zambia. Unfortunately, we were flying home in three days, Valentine in four, Candice in five. But Zoe has built over 30 bridges for B2P in South America and Ethiopia. She is a dynamic woman and mother of two girls, age 1 and 3. Seeing her in action in the Copperbelt there is no question she is up to the task.

Our last two nights in Zambia were spent amongst hippo, lots of hippo, camped at Mukambi Lodge in Kafue National Park. We enjoyed sunrise over the Kafue River and watched lions roar. On a late afternoon game drive we came across a big herd of elephant, porcupines, civets, a bush baby and yet more hippo.

We also were attacked by tsetse flies. If you’ve never been bit by a tsetse fly you’ve never experienced frantic self-slapping. They can bite right through a pair of jeans and I had swellings the size of a tennis balls. Ouch!

It has been an amazing five months. First hiking the Camino in Spain then two months spent transiting Africa through Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania. We got lots of exercise and met great people. Kamunjoma was best. There’s no place like home, that’s for sure. But Kamunjoma comes close.

Boots, Bedouins, and A Bridge signing off.

Scott and Tris
Mukambi Lodge, Zambia
http://picasaweb.google.com/scottandtris/TheBridgeAtKamunjomaZambia#