'are you John?' incredibly the response was 'yes'!
It turns out John is a missionary who has been in Africa a long time
and in Rakops for the last eighteen years. In retrospect, had I known
of his pastoral status, I should really have said 'John, I presume?'
He asked if I'd found a place to stay yet and offered me a bed, shower
and dinner. I explained my situation at the Lodge and accepted without
hesitation, dashing back to the lodge to collect my kit. There was no
one about, I did consider searching for someone to ask for my money
back (about £5) but was pretty sure the answer would be a firm 'no'
and they'd more than likely demand money for the dinner I'd not yet
eaten. So instead I just grabbed everthing and sped off across the
darkening savannah. I wonder what they made of the crazy white man who
turned up out of the desert on a bike, paid for the night, did nothing
for hours except drink lots of water and then disappeared?
John had to lead a bible study group for an hour or so with some local
children, but meanwhile offered me the use of his Internet. This was
amazing, to be suddenly transported from sitting alone in the
unfriendly 'cocktail bar' weak from the combined effects of the sun
and wind, having to pursuade the staff to give me each glass of water.
I'd considered this afternoon the only time felt anything approaching
Conrad's so called 'Heart of Darkness' which if you've ever read it
(and if you haven't you really should, it's not very long) is nothing
about Africa being either dark or full of black skinned peoples, but
is instead about slavery and how it makes lives cheap and futile and
has a lot of people just sitting lying around, a bit like Rakops. So
anyway I'd gone from feeling like that to sitting with a nice coffee
happily typing away at the blog listening to the sounds of children
singing songs from down the corridor. I was a happy man.
John soon finished up and I was done blogging. We walked round to the
bakery he ran (in addition to the leather shop and a primary school -
busy man, certainly I'd bet the busiest in Rakops!). We made coffee
and ate apricot jam sandwiches all evening whilst sitting round John's
table discussing all sorts of things (including maps of course). It
was a great evening.
John was also English and had been at Cambridge studying medicine and
then Engineering before deciding many years ago to head south to
Africa to work as a missionary. He had travelled all over the
continent including times in a number of war zones such as the Angolan
border war. He was a missionary in the truest sense of the word. He
lived in a mud hut with just twenty eight pounds in a bank back in
England.
I mentioned the feelings of unease I'd had at the lodge, John agreed.
Apparently a large part of their income comes from people going there
to use the rooms for sex. Though it's not actually a brothel it is
pretty much used that way. I was glad I'd left. Whilst on the subject
we discussed the HIV situation in Botswana. In common with most of
Southern Africa prevalence of the infection is extremely high. Around
thirty percent! Hard to imagine eh! Thirty percent is a lot. If you
try to think of something thirty percent of the UK population do I'd
guess you're talking on the order of things like watching Coronation
Street or Eastenders or world cup finals, it's a lot. What was the
explanation for this? After all contary to what many many assume to be
the case it's not really a Pan-Sub-Saharan African phenomenon. West
Africa for example has much lower rates.
I mentioned I'd once attended a lecture given by a speaker from the
WHO. His hypothesis involved the Southern African mines. This whole
region is rich in valuable minerals such as gold, uranium, diamonds
and platinum. These employ large numbers of people, almost entirely
men, who travel from rural villages to the mines only returning home
once or twice a year. Large numbers of men living away from their
wives equals a thriving sex industry. Whether this was correct I don't
know. But there are plenty of regions of the world with large
unskilled male labour forces. Even using the example of West Africa,
Ghana was formerly known as the Gold Coast and has massive goldmines
and the Niger delta is swimming in Oil second only to the Middle East
in reserves.
John felt the reason was cultural and relatively recent and due to the
structure of society and poverty. Marriage (at least in Rakops) was
rare and where it did happen it didn't tend to count for much. If
there was money it was usually the men who had it and the women, who
had the children to support, that needed it. With few skills to fall
back on women have little option, but to use sex to make ends meet.
With the high levels of poverty this translates effectively to a
culture of normality towards infidelity and sleeping around.
He also mentioned what he saw as the seemingly ingrained lack of
motivation to see things through or finish off projects as part of a
wider pernicious problem. This explained many of the half built houses
I'd seen around the village.
This connection between poverty, the disempowerment of women and HIV
also seemed to make sense, but then the question comes back, why
should Southern Africa be any different form other parts of the world,
or even other regions of Africa? There's plenty of poverty elsewhere,
Africa may be worse in places, but Botswana itself is relatively
stable and well off compared with places such as DRC or Rwanda.
We talked for houn and not just about HIV and laziness, but I'm not
going to go on and on boring you with everything we discussed, suffice
it to say it was a very interesting evening. My early starts and long
days in the saddle soon caught up with me though and I was forced to
retire to bed with lots to think about.
I woke early, well before first light. I tried once again to get the
stove working and failed once again. John had warned me Botswanan
petrol is notoriously bad and infact said he usually filters it before
use. Perhaps that was the problem. Luckily he had a kettle and I found
I could rustle up a pretty decent porridge just using boiled water
(with plenty of sugar and cocoa) useful tip for the future.
I managed to be on the road just after six. It was already light, but
there was little sign of the sun just yet, merely a hint of a red
beginning to spill along the horizon. The air was cool. As I passed
the last huts and moved out onto the vast open savannah I was in a
strange mood. My time in Rakops had given me a lot to think about.
I've thought twice about putting this next part in the blog. It's
pretty personal, but as you will see central for my journey. If I was
back home I'd probably be to embarrassed to do it (most of my friends
believe, with good reason, that I'm some way along the autistic
spectrum as it is). Hope you don't mind. Fear thee not there will be
more classic tales of adventure to come futher down the road.
Mostly (perhaps selfishly) most of my thoughts kept becoming centred
about myself. I've long felt plagued with never finishing things off
properly. Sometimes to the extent I'll be afraid to attempt things I
know I could achieve for fear of failure (this trip was almost one of
those). In Rakops I'd observed the effects of this at a community
level. I'd seem that its often the little bits which make the
difference. From getting round to putting a roof on your house or just
getting up and onto the road early where a couple of hours can make
all the difference. Similarly there's no way I could just have just
sat around in Swakupmond contemplating my journey, planning to leave
most of it to the last minute and then make a rush job of it to
Maputo. That would be impossible. I had to cover a certain amount of
distance each day or I'd never get there. Here was a valuable (and I'm
sure to most, obvious) lesson for life.
My mind was on a roll. Churning out ideas and bringing up long buried
fears and questions. I guess back home it's easier to bottle things
up, or put them off for another day. This is the difference when
travelling, especially when it gets tough, these things begin to
surface and won't just go away so easily. You can experience a
cathartic cleansing. This was happening to me out on the savannahs of
Rakops.
I read quite a few books. Always did as a boy. Many of these are about
adventures and far off places. This is great, but does tend one toward
a feeling of almost unquenchable wanderlust. I'd been particularly
badly bitten by the Africa bug many years before ever setting foot
south of the Sahara and often wondered where this would lead me. Could
I ever get it sufficiently out of my system to be tuely content with a
life in Britain, to settle down and have a house, a family, grow
vegetables in the garden? Having spent time with John discussing the
things we had and the experiences I'd had over the last weeks I no
longer felt I could be happy to actually live out here and call it
home. I liked this.
Perhaps it had been something as simple and vain as merely needing to
prove to myself (and I guess my friends) that I could do these things
I could take on adventure, but in my heart I didn't really want to
live my life that way. I belonged In England, in fact probably in
Oxfordshire. It felt great to finally know this. It meant I could make
plans in a way I'd never felt before.
True it was great to have exotic friends from all over the world and
to travel and experience the world, but though I'd never really felt
any really fervent nationalistic identity like some of the Scots (and
one Englishman, you know who you are) I know, I did now know I was an
Englishman who loved his country. I was very lucky, unlike all the
people I'd met in these beautiful but barren lands, when I got back I
could look forward to the bellowing rut, autumn mists and Guy Fawlkes
night, not the heat of the coming rains. It felt great to finally know
and accept this. I would certainly travel again but I'd always love
England. (in case you're wondering Tom I did and I was).
Without realising it I'd passed my halfway point yesterday. I was now
at my centre of the continent. The furthest I would be get from the
oceans. I still had a long journey ahead, but this pilgrim of the road
was on his way home. I'd reached my Santiago de Compostela, I'd
reached my goal. It wasn't a white sandy beach in Mozambique. I'd
found it here in the middle of the desert and it hadn't really ever
been a place or location after all.
The hardships of the journey now seemed neccesary and I almost
welcomed them. I only felt grateful my journey of self discovery had
allowed me to include jewels such as the Okavango and the Namib, but
it was the Kalahari which had really counted in the end.
The fear I'd sometimes felt about traveling alone (fear I'd in fact
experienced almost entirely before actually setting out, travelling
can be tough, but not half as frightening as you may imagine) now
seemed a required part of things. Sure at times it would have been
great to have had someone to talk to during the dark days of Ghanzi,
but then I'd never have had the time alone just me and my mind. I'd
have been too easily distracted from the monotony. Certainly I woudn't
be where I was now and I was very glad I was here.
Fear not (or hope not) my friends, reading this knowing I've just
spent the evening with a man of god. I remain a far atheist agnostic I
don't even believe in the hippy version of Gaia, but that doesn't mean
you can't have a spirituality.
By now the sun was up. It had completed it's daily transformation from
thin red stain, to cool orange globe to glaring yellow/white ball. I
was heading due east straight towards the heat. I was ready.
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