Sealy Saturday

Oceanside in Swakopmund, Namibia, Robyn and I took to the chilly seas atop a kayak to visit seals and dolphins.  Spectacular visibility awaited us at the end of Pelican Point in a sheltered bay.  A quick lesson from Leonard from Namibia Kayak Tours and we were on the glassy bay as seals young and old played in the water and on the sandbanks.  At Leonard's urging we paddle sprinted to the dorsal fins of dolphins and were rewarded as they popped up to breathe a handful of boat lengths away.  

We're approximately halfway through an overland tour of Namibia with Nomads bound for Cape Town, South Africa.  Our tourmateys have actually been a treat, our one (out of two) guides lacklustre and we've collectively been blown away by the scenery, animals and diversity of this African gem.  

Curious marine friends

Chillin on the beach

My favourite bow bitch

Namibian flora has some spectacular adaptations to its dry climate

Typical tentscapes

TIA

There's no shit shy in Africa.

"How's your bowels?" is a common greeting as meds are swapped on the advice of the coincidentally on-board Aussie nurse and pharmacist.  When not popping Cipro or "stoppers" for the travel days, any lingering reservations of pooping in public washrooms has literally disappeared down the toilet for our Commonwealth-citizened truck bound for Johannesburg.

With public washrooms a generous term, I have yet to encounter Thea's Malian "trous" or Risa's poo-bombed cement pads in Ghana but have been blessed with my fair share of filthy squat toilets where your and, more often, other's waste could not be more confronting.

While beach strolling in Essaouira, Morocco, I happened on a two-child couple engaged in the most compelling birth control: the father suspending a defecating toddler while the mother collected it from the sand in a plastic baggie.

As Dan was throwing his bag into his airport taxi - after his nth visit to the hostel's clean, private toilets - to start on his journey back to Chetwynd, I was dispensing his second course of Cipro.  Fingers crossed he lands an aisle seat for his 23-hour journey...

Morocco meanders

 

England calling

As the flags from the various embassies rimming London's Trafalgar Square clapped alongside a gathered crowd listening to an R&B group belt out Mariah Carey, Michael Jackson and jazzed up Christmas carols, I had a moderate twinge of homesickness and a too-familiar sinking guilt at being away for yet another holiday.  Lured to Trafalgar Square on the promise of lights and a Christmas tree, I was simultaneously disappointed by the lack of lit objects and delighted to stumble upon a live performance that was to last "only as long as the rain holds off" their conductor quipped.

Prior to wandering around London's early evening, I visited a recovering cousin and her husband and later popped into a girlfriend's wedding, where a night of free-flowing white wine and dancing cured my lingering jetlag.  Likely haunted, the reception venue was as enchanting as it was full of friends I hadn't met yet.  

My third time in London, I've been prowling around to former favourites while discovering new gems and checking off what I deem to be very British things - walking in the pouring rain, Eucharist at St. Paul's Cathedral, eating curry and riding the train - whether it's the tube in London or longer hauls, it continues to be my favourite mode of transport.  

I'm meeting a friend I met in Vietnam tonight, followed by an airport sleepover, then on to Morocco tomorrow!  Wish me luck, I'm nervous as hell for the latter!

Essential in any year

I started this in 2010, and it is still rings true as I pack again for another winter away. Passing through Edmonton, Red Deer and Calgary, I am once again blown away by the generosity of my friends. Spare rooms, entire houses! even, opened, vehicles and novels loaned, meals and beer gifted, rides offered, time given. To acquire such a debt is humbling and reminiscent of Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros "home is wherever I'm with you" so a hugely insufficient thank you is overdue.

2010 Bare Essentials (and any year since) 

• Valid passport
• Orange work caulk (pronounced cork) boots
• Word processor
• Credit card of my choosing – and I am spoiled for choice.  I hold all three major cards in my wallet. 

I imagine these items are indicative of the year I want to have.  Passport to travel, work boots to trudge through the boreal with, a word processor to write about it, and a credit card to make up the difference where the struggling B.C. forest industry falls short. 

All of these are some sort of ID.  Government issued, industry standard, future aspirations of amateur writer and a financial institution that happily finances my pursuits for an exorbitant interest rate. 

Collectively, these items do not make me autonomous or even mildly independent.  If anything, they reemphasize my dependence on others.

Passport reminds me I am thankful of the rides to the airport, the bulging address book full of friends, family, acquaintances and strangers who will take me in and shelter, feed or simply entertain me for a few moments and the support of my mother who will promptly answer any phone message I leave her. 

Likewise with my caulk boots.  They remind me of the close-knit forestry community and my ultimate dependence on the Creator to harvest and renew His creation. 

There's a photo somewhere that Robyn took of my daypack while we frantically searched for my passport as my bus to Edmonton idled.  It shows my laptop, a bottle of rum, camera and a handful of novels from Donna.  

Too many cooks

It’s been eight years since I purposely worked in a female dominated domain, and it’s truly a great mystery how I lasted two months (nearly to the day) in the same gender arrangement before giving my notice.

More than fed up with the forest industry, specifically in the role as a contractor, and seeking a, any really, change of employment, I was pleased to land in a lunch bistro committed to providing nutritious, quality lunches for my northern community that doesn’t know quiche from quinoa.     

That delight was short lived as I was reminded of the subtle politics, daily agony, personality wars and unnecessary competiveness that working alongside sisters from another mister holds.  Anti-women I am not.  Non-feminist, no way.  I love my girlfriends, mother, female cousins, aunts, I do! 

I acknowledge it’s entirely possible I have yet to develop the skill set required to navigate the frothy, temperamental waters of all-female coworkers.  Not surprisingly, the forest industry fostered my compassing, cultivated veg ID and deepened my soil typing rather than nurturing those softer people skills. 

While I claim a few new kitchen tips and tricks, my ultimate goal of taking a breather, a sabbatical from primary industry was accomplished.  Fewer hours and demands (physically and mentally), negligible stress and personal time factored in my gainful underemployment. 

Sure, I may use my new-found personal time tooling around on the internet, cleaning the bathroom or visiting girlfriends when really I’d like to be reading novels (non-fiction or otherwise) and walking puppies.  But that’s not the point.  Not since my retail days of high school have I had flexibility and freedom in my schedule, am not falling-over tired from faking another (!) good day in the rain or as truly committed to never asking, “to stay or to go?” in the context of food again. 

Yeah, we roast our pieces of pig, Hutterite turkeys, roast beasts in store, bake our own bread, make outstanding soup and spreads and daily attempt to bake up a storm for the Chetwynd masses.  Yes, I am deeply proud of serving and creating quality food. 

But I am ready and it is time (for me, not the sodding sandwich) to go. 

To Africa.  

Commuting continued

I’m continuing to cycle to work despite daily 10-15 centimeter forecasts of snow in the B.C. Peace.  It’s not pleasant, enjoyable, pleasurable or any other synonym of the aforementioned three kilometer commute.  Chilly; slippery; scary-mask wearing; uphill; dodging pickups spinning out and confused motorists; winter cycling is turning into an extreme sport. 

Would I love to remote start a vehicle and hop into its waiting warmth instead of layering up and taking to two wheels?  A loud YES! But I choose to be car free this summer and am unwilling to pay for the convenience, ahem silliness, of owning a car in a small town.  Pedestrian and bike friendly it is not – there’s an overwhelming lack of sidewalks, never mind bike lanes in Chetwynd – but I maintain it’s better, or at least less bad, than owning a vehicle. 

As the handful of trails paralleling creeks that link schools and subdivisions are better suited for dog walking, nature strolls and midnight meanders than commuting I’m relegated to the road.  A road which, throughout much of the province is a bustling highway that briefly slows to 50 km/h, carries transports, log and coal trucks and motorists baffled at sharing a lane with cyclists.  Add in some concealed-by-the-snow ice and equally hidden holes and it truly is a recipe for a deadly spill. 

Sure, I’ve been offered rides but some lingering sense of pride, stubbornness, or a desire not to be an inconvenience prevents me from accepting.  No longer employed in the vicious, demanding and ultimately unforgiving forest industry, I still feel there’s something to prove and a toughness that can only be cultivated in the boreal to maintain.  I recognize it’s absolutely ridiculous to jump onto an exposed bicycle and slip around alongside one-ton pickups yet I continue to do it – at least twice a day.