Entries by Ali C.

It's getting hard to know what to write, because it's been so long since I have.

The travels have taken on a less frenetic pace and we're holed up in Capetown, making the best of some very rainy weather and looking forward to India in less than a week.

When we arrived to Capetown on Wednesday (I think it was Wednesday; just a few weeks into this adventure and I've absolutely lost all sense of time), we were met by Murray's mum, proudly holding a Mercy Ships flag. We drove through the dark to his house and spent a night feeling like family with the family of one of our long-time Mercy Ships friends. I'm coming to realize more and more just what an incredible network we're building living on the ship, so much so that I can just walk into a strange house in Cape Town and feel perfectly comfortable poking through cupboards to find myself some tea, just because the house belongs to the parents of a ship friend.

Early the next morning Murray's dad led us to the highway and we headed up towards George on the Garden Route, an absolutely beautiful stretch of road here on the cape of South Africa.

We wound through mountain passes and past patchwork fields, the crops undulating like waves in the wind and sun. My eyes drank in the colours in long, greedy gulps; greens in every shade interlaced with grey and blue mountains and the flourescent yellow and deep purple of flowers growing in fields and along the roadside. This, I kept thinking, is why the South Africans on the ship differentiate between South Africa and the rest of the continent. It's like nothing I've ever experienced in West Africa, all the lush scenery and pastoral little villages that wouldn't have looked out of place in the German Alps. (We thought we might have taken a wrong turn somewhere when we came across signs for Heidelberg!)

Our destination was George, a little town nestled in the mountains of the Western Cape that's home to another ship friend. Lourens. We met up with him and he took us to a little guest house, run by a friend from his small group, where we'd be staying. Binks, the owner, made us feel right at home in the little cottage, and if you're ever in George, I can definitely recommend a place to stay!

There were two big things we wanted to do in George; caving and ostrich riding. Both had me slightly nervous, but for very different reasons. Thankfully, we started off with a beginner's introduction, a standard tour in the Cango Caves that was full of vast, open chambers and no hint of claustrophobia.

Honestly, if it wasn't for the whole irrational fear of enclosed spaces that seems to plague me, I think I might want to live in a cave. It was one of the most incredible things I've ever seen. It was full of soaring stalagmites and perilously-hanging stalagtites. In the second chamber, when the lights were turned on, I had to blink away tears to see it all clearly. It's incredible to think that there are probably hundreds and thousands of places like that around the world that no one has ever seen, incredible pockets of beauty that exist in the secret places, just to glorify God.

That day, we were too late to do something called the Adventure Tour, for which I was openly grateful. I needed a little time to get used to the idea that I was going to be crawling through places named The Devil's Chimney and The Letterbox. The next day, with the HoJ, Lourens and Jelliot (Julle and Elliot just takes too long to type) there to bolster my courage, we headed back into the dark for some adventures.

I surprised myself, honestly. Most of the places we were crawling through had an end in sight, and so I was able to hang onto that and not get too scared. The first smallish place we squeezed through had me feeling shaky and near tears by the end, but I'm far too stubborn to give in that easily. (Plus, I knew I had to crawl back through there on the way out, and having a breakdown on the first go-round wasn't going to help anything!) I'm glad I did it, if only to prove myself that I'm stronger than I thought, but I was much more excited for the next item on the agenda: ostrich riding at Cango Ostrich Farm.

One of our goals on this trip is to ride as many animals in as many countries as possible. We ticked elephants off our list in Zimbabwe, and I even pretended to ride a lion there, but ostriches was one I hadn't even considered until Lourens told us about it.

The HoJ and I were taken on a tour around the farm by Shane, a guide who seemed bent on pushing the limits of my gullibility as far as possible. To his delight, that was pretty far, and he had me convinced of several absolutely ridiculous ostrich facts before relenting and owning up to his jokes.

It was good enough getting to pet Dusty, a dwarf ostrich, and feed Betsey, her neck all wrapped around us, but the real fun came when we were shown to the corral. Phil graciously let me go first, probably more to see whether I'd meet a swift and inglorious end, but I was more than happy to get on that bird.

Riding an ostrich, it turns out, is like nothing else in the world. You're sitting on this massive bird, feet clenched around its chest, hanging onto the wings for dear life while they push it out of the stall and take the hood off its head. (While the hood's on, they're completely docile, stupid enough to believe that if they can't see you, you're not on their back, getting ready to take them for a ride.) And then, all of a sudden, you are absolutely flying around the paddock (and no, I don't fail to see the irony in that choice of term), the ostrich seemingly trying to get you off its back by dint of the sheer speed it's running at. I think the look on HoJ's face in the second photo kind of sums up the entire experience.

I think the whole thing lasted about twenty seconds, but I couldn't stop laughing for a least twenty minutes afterwards. If you ever get the chance, go ride an ostrich.

When it came time to leave George, we took our time getting home, stopping off at the southernmost tip of Africa, Cape Agulhas, probably the furthest south I'll be in my life, since Antarctica doesn't hold much pull for me.

There is still much to tell about what we've been up to in Cape Town, but we're heading out to go find something fun to do inside in the rain, so that'll have to wait for another day.

Just a quick note to let you know that I'm alive and well, just been out of contact with civilization for a while. There's loads of stories to be shared and photos too, if I can ever convince another internet cafe to let me plug in my camera. It seems that so far only Zimbabwe was a fan of that.

Short version? We spent four days canoeing down the Zambezi River, flew to Cape Town where we spent a night with our friend Muray's parents and are now up the coast in George hanging out with another old Mercy Ships friend. We're about to go on some sort of cave adventure in Cango Caves. I don't know if this is really a good idea, because did you know I'm absolutely, terribly claustrophobic?

Yeah. This is probably the first time I've been properly scared on this trip, and I've crawled on hands and knees through the grass to within thirty metres of where two huge hippos were fighting. But that's a story for another day...

Edited to add:

I've gone back to catch up on some stories. They're posted in a bit more of a chronological order, so they're showing up below this one. I'm not sure what will be happening for those of you who have me in a reader, since I'm all over the place. It might be worth just clicking through to make sure you're not missing anything. I'm also going to be going back through old entires over the next few days and posting photos, since the place we're staying right now has free internet. Stay tuned!

(Pioneer Lodge, outside Lusaka, Zambia)

I haven't written much about life over the last few days because I've been far too busy living it, the breaking bones and sucking out the marrow kind of living.

Causemore told us that you haven't experienced Africa until you've canoed the Zambezi. I think he might be right.

Day One:

We dropped in around 10:30, moving slowly away from the lodge where we'd stayed the night before. The sky was, typically, a cloudless blue and the current carried us along. We took most of the day just to get accustomed to paddling and steering, learning how to avoid tree stu8mps and swirling eddies in the water. This is not as easy as it sounds, especially when neither one in your canoe has any experience. (I am not counting the three days I spent on the Delaware when I was fourteen. There in no comparison even remotely possible.)

When it was time for lunch, we pulled our canoes up a sandy beach and Causemore directed us through the untying of tarpaulins and collecting of water and chopping of vegetables since our canoes turned out to be carrying crates filled with utensils and food and folding stools and even a small metal table. In what would become a routine over the next days, we all busied ourselves at whatever tasks Causemore alloted to us. I think that was the best sandwich I've ever eaten, sitting in the bright sunshine on the bank of the Zambezi River.

After lunch, we pushed off again and it wasn't long before we began to encounter wildlife of the larger variety, birds having already been our constant companions. The most memorable of these encounters (at least for this first day; things got better later on) was when we came upon a herd of about tn or so bull elephants. I would have been content watching them munch on the tall grass from the far side of the river, but Causmore directed us into the shore, not thirty feet from where they were. We could hear them chewing, the water splashing and the grass being ripped out by their agile trunks.

We watched them for a while, feeling incredibly small next to their massive bulk and then Causemore direted us to paddle up a small channel, putting us face to face with a young bull about twenty feet away. He looked up from his meal, flapping his ears in warning and then started to charge, water spraying everywhere as Causemore relaxed in his canoe and I seriously considered jumping ship and swimming away through croc-infected waters.

Causemore, it turned out, had the right reaction. A young bull isn't tough enough to charge for real and, in true form, the one stampeding towards us pulled up short after a few steps and shook his trunk once more before turning and ambling off.

That experience set the tone for the rest of the trip.

That night, we camped on a tiny island in the middle of the river, all sand and reeds and hippos surrounding us in the water. We made a fire and Causemore cooked us some dinner and we relaxed while the moon rose, throwing our shadows across the sand.

It was a good day.

Day Two:

Today was a day for hippos. They're Julle's favourite animal, and the one we were guaranteed to see on the river. This stretch is wide enough that you really do have to pick sides; either stick to the Zambian side and canoe past villages or brave the Zimbabwean side, where you'll have to paddle through a place Causemore has named Hippo City. He explained to us later that he doesn't take everyone through Hippo City; if he can't be sure they'll stay safe, he stays on the Zambian side. But we had somehow proved ourselves yesterday (maybe it was staying in the canoes while being charged by an elephant, I'm not sure) and so we steered towards the right bank, heading for Hippo City.

This, I have to admit, was nerve-wracking. It's one thing to steer a canoe when there's no danger. It's quite another to do the same when Causemore's voice takes on a note of real urgency and you know that there are hippos lurking in the water, some that have been described as "naughty" because they like to chase canoes and tip them." Needless to say, I spent much of the day not breathing, since something in my brain told me that holding my breath would protect me. (As a side note, this doesn't work and makes it much harder to paddle fast when told to do so; it's not a technique I recommend.)

Since one day on the river is much like another (breaking camp, paddling, stopping for meals and naps under shady trees, paddling some more and then making camp again and waiting for the moon to rise), there's no point in my explaining those part of each day. I'll skip on to the excitement, which came at lunchtime.

We had pulled out on the side of the river just across from a large male hippo basking in the sun. A little further downstream, on the same side as us, a whole school of them were in various stages of relaxing, half in, half out of the water. We ate our lunch and then I looked over and realized that two of the hippos were fighting. Causemore took this as a challenge, and told us to put on our shoes.

Like I said before, I had no idea what I was getting myself into on this trip.

I found myself creeping across the grass towards these two massive animals, close enough that I could hear their teeth cracking against each other and see the blood inside their mouths. When we were far closer than I thought was safe, Causemore dropped to his hands and knees and we followed suit, crawling through the dry grass until the only thing that separated us from the action was a small channel and a few more feet of grass.

The power of those two animals was incredible. At one point, one of the hippos had been driven into the water while the other was still on land. The one in the water hooked his teeth into the other's and pushed hard, driving up onto the bank, lifting the second hippo up on his back legs. I have no photos of this because I was crawling towards them while it happened, wondering whether or not I'd gone completely crazy and coming to the conclusion that I was probably just having a good time.

Once the fight was over and both hippos had splashed into the water, we stood up and strolled casually away, grinning like idiots since Causemore, a guide who's been on the river for twelve years, had never even seen something like that before. It was par for the course for us, really. Almost every day, someone told us. You don't see that every day!

Day Three:

The last day on the river, we decided to canoe the rest of the 65 kilometres to the pull-out point, something we weren't supposed to do until the following morning, so that we could wake up in time to go on a small walking safari on our final morning. The day was relaxed; after the excitement of the elephants and the hippo fight, just canoing past schools of them wasn't causing us much stress. We went for a wander through the woods a lunch, but didn't see much in the way of wildlife. In a way I'm glad; it leaves something for me to look forward to if I ever get to have an experience like this again!

Day Four:

We were supposed to be canoing today, but since we had pulled out early, we went for a game walk in the morning and saw some baboons and monkeys and impala grazing in the golden light of sunrise. The drive back to where we had left our luggage was long and dusty and had me wishing I was still on the river, paddling through the cool water and stopping for siestas under acacia trees. When we pulled back into the lodge, I felt like an entirely different person than the one that had left just four days before.

It's hard to explain, really, but I felt bigger, somehow. I fee like I've learned more about the world over the past two weeks than I have in the first twenty-seven years of my life, and it's like I've had to expand in some intangible way to hold it all. I never had a place in me for storing the beauty I've been witness to, never needed a compartment for the sound of elephant tusks crashing together as they fight in the water, never worried about whether or not I'd forget the way the Southern Cross looks in the night sky.

But now all this is mine to hold, and hold it I will, with all my tenuous strength. And when I grow old, I pray there's someone there to sit at my feet at hear the stories about how granny crawled through the grass to watch hippos fight, paddled away from charging elephants and sat under the light of a moon so bright she almost couldn't sleep at night.



Up next: South Africa.

(Chiawa Communal Camp, Zambia)

We've reached the end of the journey.

I don't want to leave this river.

(second night on the Zambezi River)

I'm writing thisby the light of the moon, somewhere on the middle of the Zambezi, on a little sandy island surrounded by hippos calling to each other in the night. From across the water, a hyena is screaming and Jupiter is rising over our tents while Mars sets over the river.

I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I signed up for all this. I certainly didn't expect to be camping on a tiny island along with a school of hippos who splash into the water unexpectedly about a hundred yards from where I sit at the fire.

I just don't know how to describe all this. We went from seeing animals from far away while we sat in a motorboat to tracking them through a park in an open safari car. And now we're sitting at water level, paddling up to them (and, more often than not, away from them), with nothing to protect us but our guide, Causemore.

---

Favourite Parts of Today

Elliot: sneaking up to hippos having a fight
Phil: using an elephant print for a toilet; saved digging a hole!
Julle: seeing a baby hippo that was only three weeks old
Ali: seeing colours by moonlight - even red!

Least Favourite Parts of Today

Ali: burning the backs of my hands
Julle: arguing about where to go while creeping around an island to avoid hippos
Phil: being confused about instructions while paddling through Hippo City
Elliot: the fact that today has to end

(A small island on the Zambezi River, Zambia

Just a note: the next few entries will be jumbled and not necessarily on chronological order. I wrote all higgelty-piggelty in fits and starts during this part of the adventure, and I'm just going to copy and date things as they appear in my journal. Good luck sorting it all out.)

Yesterday we crossed over from Botswana to Zambia in a small speednoat. Yet another first. Our driver gave me his hand and I stepped onto land. Welcome to Zambia.

We flew from Livingstone to Lusaka on a tiny place. Julle, somehow, wasn't 'in the system' (TIA!) so she and Elliot took the next flight. It was so strange, in the middle of this whole adventure, to be back on familiar ground. Granted, it was just he airpoer, but in a funny way it felt like coming home.

All our other lodges have been less than twenty minutes' drive, so we were more than a little surprised when our driver thistime told us to settle in for a three hour journey.

---

Pause: list animals (a list that I added to as the canoe trip went on, but which I'll type in its entirety now)

- elephant
- hippo
- crocodile
- water buck
- side-striped jackal
- cane rat
- eland
- bush buck
- impala
- samango monkeys
- water buffalo
- baboon
- warthog

Birds we saw (a list kept with my old roommate, Amber, in mind, since she's the one who taught me to love birds)

- white-fronted bee eater
- saddle-billed stork
- butler eagle (short tailed)
- maribou stork
- grey heron
- great white heron
- white egret
- kingfisher
- african jacana
- pied kingfisher
- malachite kingfisher
- osprey
- sacred ibis
- african skimmer
- marshal eagle
- camine bee eater
- white crowned plover
- african spoonbill
- hammer kopp (endangered bird)
- round hornbill
- black-winged stilt

Heard but not seen:

- lions
- hyenas
- black creek (a bird)

Chobe Safari Lodge, Botswana

We stay at the Chobe Safari Lodge tonight, probably the starkest contrast to the last two days I could dream up if I tried. I've been sleeping in a canvas tent on the sandy ground, using toilets that are no more than holes in another canvas enclosure. Here, the french doors in my room open out onto a deck with a view of the river, and the bathtub is so deep I could have easily drowned. (I did not let this fact deter me and took the first bath I've had in nearly eight months.)

I feel out of place here, and I think it has more to do with the last two and a half years than the last two and a half days.

I find I've become uncomfortable with luxury. When given the opportunity, like tonight, I will enjoy it; don't get me wrong. It's just that, underneath my joy at being able to have a bath, I've got an undercurrent of hesitation, of awareness. Is it okay that I use this much water when there are so many on this continent who die because they don't have access to it? Is it okay for me to stay at a place where they change the centrepieces on the tables for every meal when I know people who don't know where their next meal is coming from?

It's not the first time I've felt this disconnect, and I pray it won't be the last, but coming out of the bush and into the middle of all this throws the contrast into such sharp relief that if I don't move slowly, I'm afraid I'll cut myself.

But everything is still right in my world. One of the women who works here just passed by with a wide smile. So, she said, you are an African lady now. It took me a heartbeat to realize she was referring to the lappa I have wound around my body, but in that moment my soul agreed, and I remembered where my allegiance lies.

Tomorrow we leave for Zambia, and I will finally be back in the first African country I saw, the one that changed everything for me.

Chobe National Park, Botswana

I'm sitting on a canvas chair in front of the ashes of last night's fire. Off to the right, not so far from camp, the vultures are circling over a dead giraffe. My hair is still damp from the shower I just took, water trickling from a canvas bag slung up over a tree branch.

You're probably already getting tired of hearing me say this, but I can't believe this is my life.

This part of the trip has been the biggest adventure so far, since I had no idea what to expect. We were originally supposed to be staying at a lodge just outside the park, but they had overbooked, and so our travel agent substituted the trip we're on now. Mark, we owe you one.

It started with a mid-morning cruise on the Chobe River between Botswana and Namibia after which we had lunch at the Safari Lodge, a place far too posh for the four of us. We climbed into an open safari Land Cruiser and headed into the park where we met the other people staying at our campsite and went on a sunset game drive. This morning, we were up with the dawn for another drive, and we're just relaxing now before we head out again.

Those are the facts, the bare bones of what we've done. What we've experienced is so much more.

I watched a herd of bachelor elephants, sixteen of them, cross slowly over the river to the greener grass on the island. The smallest ones used their trunks as snorkels, just their eyes and the tip of their long noses visible above the water. When they stepped out onto the land, their wrinkled skin was two-toned, like they'd been half-dipped in dark paint.

I saw a baby hippo throw his mouth open, showing all his teeth while his mama looked on indulgently.

I saw zebras, far off across a plain and right near my car, shy and frightened, darting away through the bush.

I watched a leopard lie languidly along a tree branch, fur like velvet in the late-afternoon light.

I held my breath as out car was surrounded by elephants, one fierce mama flapping her ears at us as her baby scuttled for cover under her body.

I looked out across a wide open island where elephants, giraffes, zebras, impala, warthogs, baboons and water buffalo all shared space under the light of a setting sun.

I saw two giraffes fight, their movements graceful, almost in slow motion as they intertwined their necks and butted each other with their furry horns.

I laid awake at night, listening to hyenas scream as they fought over the body of the dead giraffe, not a kilometer away from our camp, their laughter maniacal in the darkness. I saw them in the morning, slinking around in the cold grey light, ugly as sin.

I locked eyes with a lioness, no more than ten feet from my car.

I watched a baby baboon, no more than a couple of weeks old, sitting in the shade of his mama's body, sucking his thumb and looking for all the world like a little old man.

I watched the setting sun sink behind the long neck of a giraffe as the rest of the journey bent forward to drink from the river.

I tracked a male lion through the cold morning, holding my breath as he stalked past our car, his mane golden in the sun.

I heard a herd of impala gather and make short barking sounds to warn off a leopard who was slinking through the trees, not daring to come too close in the face of such an overwhelming crowd.

How have I been blessed like this? I'm sitting here in the middle of the bush and all I can hear is birds chirping and the wind rustling in the leaves. This morning as I brushed my teeth, a herd of kudu walked slowly past, and just a few minutes before that I heard the low rumbling of an elephant calling to his friends.

I'm overwhelmed by creation. God, it seems, spared no expense when He created this part of the world. The animals and birds are so incredibly varied and vibrant, the landscape stunning in its beauty.

The thing is, all this would exist whether I was here to see it or not. For as long as I'll be on this earth, and, I should imagine, quite a while after that, the world will be filled with breathtaking beauty.

I plan to bear witness to as much of it as I possibly can.

My own life astonishes me these days. We arrived in Zimbabwe on Saturday at 11. It's Monday at mearly 9PM and in that span of time I have had so many experiences I never dreamed I'd really get to have.

Today, I walked with lions and rode an elephant.

That is a sentence the likes of which I will not often get to write.

It was cold enough that I could see my breath this morning as we huddled together and signed our waivers. (Everything I do these days seems to carry the risk of death or dismemberment. I'm not complaining.) The sun was still low, the sky starting to turn blue after the pastel rainbow sunrise had spent itself in a blaze of orange and gold. Sticks in hand, out weapons against the king of the jungle, we walked quietly through the bush, dry grass rustling under our feet as we circimnavigated big piles of elephant poo.

We came upon them suddenly. Mbote and Monday are brother and sister, only nine months old but big enough to set my heart skipping. Walking alongside them, my hand on Monday's back, was like a dream. Nine months old, and her musles rippled under her coarse fur. Her eyes were golden, her paws still too big for her body. Mbote stalked ahead. We didn't pet hium because, according to our guide, he doesn't know how to play. If you stand near him he will turn around and bite your leg. No need for that.

After some time we left them and went off to find the others, two males both eighteen months old, their manes just starting to grow in tufts around their heads. They were perched on an outcropping of rock, and Phil and I sat down to have our photo taken.

The lion in front of us was quiet, almost bored, but as we sat there I felt a rumbling growl from behind me. I froze as Julle, from a little ways away, let me know that the lion behind me was turning his head and moving towards my back as he growled.

It turns out that my natural response to intense dear is to freeze solid with a look of terror on my face. I sat there, hoping Phil would have time to get away while I was being chewed and wishing one of the guides would give me some kind of instructions.

A few taps with a stick later and it was safe for me to get up and get away, which I did willingly. That was enough of an encounter for me! After we'd finished with the lions and enjoyed a picnic-style English breakfast, it was back down the road to meet the elephants.


Our guide, Wellington, helped us onto Lundi's back; she's too picky to use the platform provided, so she knelt down in the dirt and we clambered aboard. Gracefully, of course.

Sitting there on her back, wandering through the bush at a leisurely pace while Wellington pushed back thorn trees and pointed out impala and warthogs among the trees was surreal. I leaned forward and pressed my palm to Lundi's shoulder, feeling the massive, solid bulk of her under my hand. As she walked, her trunk curled around branches, tearing them off and chomping them up for a snack. Every so often she's pull her trunk up over her head, the tip of it moving like lips, waiting for the treats Wellington let Phil and I pour into her nostrils so she could shoot them into her mouth.

I find myself in awe of God's creation, surrounded as I have been by parts of it so new to me. I marvel at the creativity that gave us lions and elephants, dry bush and thundering falls, rushing rivers and a million stars overhead. What must He be like to have spoken all this? How can I understand His glory if I'm floored by a fallen creation?

Tomorrow we drive to Botswana to camp out under a sky full of stars, somewhere in the bush.

We arrived at Victoria Falls Airport yesterday morning and stepped off the plane into perfect weather. I forgot what the air feels like when it's not saturated with exhaust-laden humidity. Our driver was named Lucky, and Julle tried to get into his seat, forgetting, as we all did, that Zimbabwe drives on the left.

My first impression of Lorrie's B&B wasn't a great one. Tucked away from the worn on a secluded back road, it seemed like a rundown, ramshackle mess. The lounge area smelled of smoke and dust and dog, and the paint was peeling off the ceiling above our bed.

The caretaker, George, called us a taxi and we got dropped off in town, making our way down Livingstone Drive towards the falls. Along the road we bought some defunct Zimbabwean currency off a street hawker, something like a hundred billion for two US dollars. A little further along, another seller, probably hoping to sweeten me up for a sale, handed me a ten-million note. It's for free. Really?!

We hesitated for a moment at the entrance to the falls. The admission price was thirty US dollars per person, and, trying to be wise with out money, we questioned whether it was worth such a steep fee.

The first view alone made us turn to each other, laughing at our foolishness.

How can I use words to tell you about Victoria Falls? How can anything I say come close to capturing it?

They are massive, carving a wide swath between Zambia and Zimbabwe. The water thunders and churns in a way I've never seen. Rainbows are everywhere, the children of the cool, ever-present mist and the perfectly blue sky of dry season. Ever corner we turned took our breath away again. More rainbows, more beauty, the most falling over us like rain, drenching us to the ski as we stood, mouths open, marveling.

I'm sitting here, absolutely lost for words as I try to write about this. I get the feeling this will not be the last time this happens over the course of the next four months.

As we walked back towards the entrance, the sun was lower, casting that late-afternoon glow over everything. The spray stood out like gold and the mist floated down between the trees, highlighted in wide bands of light.

We ate dinner at Mama Africa's Eating House in town. Little cast iron pots filled with beef soup, peanut chicken and antelope stew. Rice and sadza, the closest thing to nshima I've eaten since Zambia. Washing my right hand and rolling the sticky maize-meal paste between my fingers before dipping it into the soup felt more right than anything has in a while.

The sun set and we headed back to Lorrie's where I killed a scorpion in the shower and headed to bed under a pile of blankets because it actually gets cold here at night. The silence is deafening without the constant hum of the generators.

---

Today started early. Breakfast, I think, is what started to change my mind about Lorrie's. It honestly felt like we were staying at a friend's house, sitting down in the kitchen for some food.

We were picked up at 7:30 and the adventure began: whitewater rafting on the Zambezi. Simon, our guide, introduced himself and had us sign waiver forms stating that if we died, it wasn't his fault. He explained what we should do when (he did not say if) we flipped the raft, and introduced us to Kosta, our safety kayaker. I have never taken part in an activity that requires a safety kayaker, and began to feel slightly nervous.

The hike down the gorge to the drop-in was breathtaking. We kept catching glimpses of the river through the trees as we scrambled down through the green of the jungle. I had forgotten how fine the river sand is, how it squeaks under your feet as you walk over it.

Our porters inflated the raft while we dipped our feet into the water and after a quick lesson on how to paddle (which included the instructions paddle or die), we were off. Zambia on our left, Zimbabwe to the right.

The river carves through cliffs that stand straight up on either side, a row of trees like sentries along the top. The water was cool and green under another cloudless blue sky, and a crescent moon, barely visible in the sunlight, hung suspended in a break in the rocks.

We took the first rapids in good form, paddling hard with my heart in my throat. It wasn't until the next set, called the Three Ugly Sisters, that things got really interesting. Simon promised to take us over the toughest part, a Class IV rapid, warning us that the command to 'get down' would be inevitable.

We hit the white water and the raft rushed up a wave like a wall, then down into the valley while Simon shouted at us to get down. What happened next probably took less than two minutes, although it felt like forever.

As I crouched, hanging onto the rope and my paddle, the raft flipped hard, throwing me out. I clawed at the side but a swirl of water wrenched the line from my fingers and I had no time to breathe before I was spinning through the churning waves, no way of knowing which way to swim to get air.

I barely had enough time to be scared before my lifejacket proved its worth and I popped to the surface where I was promptly buffeted by more waves. The raft was close, so I hung on for dear life as roared through another two rapids.

There was no time to right the raft, so we clambered on top and Simon, a note of urgency in his voice, told us to hold on and balance ourselves. Julle's voice came small above the roar of the water. How, and then we were spinning and whirling and hanging on for dear life.

Folks, I survived a Class V rapid on an overturned raft. Not something I thought I would be doing when I woke up this morning.

Once we'd righted our vessel and gotten repositioned, the newly christened Zambezi Swim Team set off again down river. Twice we jumped out of the raft into the cool, clear water and floated through smaller rapids. It was incredible, all of it.

And now I'm sitting on my porch at Lorrie's, a bottle of the most delicious tap water I've ever tasted on the table next to me. The garden is all tangled branches and green grass and the birds are chirping and a ray of sunshine is slanting through the rustling leaves to illuminate my page as I write.

I kind of love this place.

I seem to have missed a day somewhere in all this travel. I don't want to fall behind in writing, because there is so much that will pass me by. Already we are on an adventure. Already I feel so removed from what I've come to know as Africa.

We left Accra at night after sitting in a press of people for more than an hour, straining to hear garbled announcements over a shoddy PA system. We took off, the lights of the city spread out below us, raindrops stretching to thin threads on the windows and then we were through the clouds and heading south in a black sky. Dozing off and waking to Phil nudging me and pointing out the window to a million stars that I don't get to see on my side of the Equator.

Sitting here in the Johannesburg airport waiting for our flight to Zimbabwe, it's finally starting to feel like we've left home. Our bags came off the carousel and I was shocked at how small mine looked. All my life distilled into this one pack. Everything we've left on the ship I could walk away from without looking back,.

So here I am, going back to the Africa I knew first, before the West took hold of me. I'm getting out of the dust and fumes and trash of the cities, exchanging all that for open plains and red dirt roads.

We were talking to a man while we waited to go through security and mentioned how long we'd be traveling. Where are you going, he asked, and I answered, glib. Around the world. I think that may have been the first time it's really hit me, what we're at the start of.

My life is in a bag on my back and I am going around the world. From my seat, dazed after a night spent on a plane and in an airport, it seems crazy to think that this life is mine.

I think what I'll do as we go along in the travels is journal on paper and then blog by the day I wrote whenever we hit up an internet cafe. So expect a few entries at a time once a week or so. This set comes quickly on the heels of us leaving the ship, because we've managed to pack more living into the last four days than I thought was even possible. This first bit is from the day we left and headed for Ghana.

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And so it begins.

The trip started in true African fashion. These are the things I don't want to forget when we've left this continent. Border crossings manned by a surly official at a wooden table, stamping passports mechanically in the cool breeze. Dust on my feet as we walk to the taxi station, a motley assortment of vans. We sat in one for an hour and a half, waiting for the requisite twenty passengers to join to we could go. They never came. We took a private car instead while the man with our money disappeared mysteriously into the crowd.

This is Africa. I'm going to miss it.

Somehow safaris and South Africa don't feel like Africa to me. I need roadside markets, little kids shoving socks and sodas and snails into my window when I stop at a police checkpoint.

I don't even really realize yet that we've left the ship.

We've come to the end, it seems. There are a thousand more stories I wish I had time to tell you, but we leave in the morning and I need to sleep.

Just by way of an update, I got a note on my door that little Balkissa was seen by a cardiologist and may have a sponsor for surgery in Switzerland. I don't know any more than that, but if I happen to hear anything else, I'll be sure to let you know.

I woke up this morning confused, staring at the bare walls beside my bed. It didn't look like my cabin, and for a second I thought I was in the wrong place. Until I pulled back the curtain to be greeted by everything we've accumulated over the past two and a half years, strewn like grass across the floor.

It's taken the better part of the last several days, interrupted by frequent naps to combat the rather nasty sinus infection I've got, to get it all stowed under our bed. I'm sitting here in a nearly-bare cabin, and in the quiet of this evening I can't believe this is happening.

We're leaving tomorrow. We'll each take our packs and a friend will drive us to the Ghana border. We'll walk through the dirt, stand in lines in ramshackle huts to have our passports stamped. We'll change any leftover Cefa to Cedis and then we'll barter for transport to Tema. It will cost extra if we want the air conditioning turned on, and we will not think twice about any of this, because this is the rhythm of our life; this is what we know.

There's a part of me that's so afraid to leave this, afraid that I'll never make it back. We've packed our things under the bed, an anchor pulling us back to this place, but I'm not going to be arrogant enough to assume that I know exactly what God's plan is for us over the next year. There's an entire world of heartbreak and joy just waiting for me on the other side of tonight, and God may just as easily send me to anywhere but back here.

One reader who responded to the call for prayer, Gwen, just recently introduced me to a Hebrew blessing, the Shehecheyanu.

Blessed are you Lord our God, Ruler of the Universe, who has granted us life, sustained us, and enabled us to reach this occasion.

It's a prayer to be spoken over new things; the first time in the year you eat a fruit, seeing a friend you haven't seen in thirty days, the birth of a child.

I'm going to carry it with me as I go, because I'm afraid I'm going to spend too much time looking back. This is the part of me that sends roots, the part that has me crying alone in my empty cabin on the eve of the greatest adventure of my life. I need something to remind me of the sheer beauty of discovering new things, because right now I don't want to go.

I know it doesn't make sense, to be so reluctant to start a new chapter when it promises so much. It's just that I'm so tangled up in this place; my heart is woven deep into the red soil of West Africa, and I don't know if I know who I am outside of it anymore.

But go we will, whether I'm ready or not. The ship will sail without us to South Africa and then on to Sierra Leone in the new year while we search out God's heart in other parts of the world.

First stop: Zimbabwe.

Six hundred.

I just e-mailed the last two names out. All six hundred sheets have a little black dot in the corner. People around the world are praying, and this feels so right.

Thank you, all of you. Thank you for responding, for caring about people you'll never meet and for tangling your lives up in the fabric of this place.

I'm heading down to the OR office right now to give back all the pink sheets.

We don't need them anymore.

Just five days ago, I put out a call, wondering if there was anyone out there who could feel connected enough with strangers a world away to want to pray for someone they would never meet.

Five days. 580 names.

And the thing is, at this point, I'm not even doubting whether or not I'll get twenty more e-mails. I've been sitting here, witness to an absolute outpouring of faith from around the world, and I don't see any reason it'll stop before every single pink sheet has a little black dot in the corner. My faith has been strengthened because I have been on the receiving end of yours. What a sweet way to end this outreach.

We leave for Ghana on Thursday and from there on to the rest of the world. By the time we land back at home, a couple of weeks before Christmas, we'll have traveled almost one and a half times the circumference of the Earth.

I'll be blogging when I can, but I'm not sure how regularly that will be, because I'm taking the four months as something of a fast from the noise and media that usually surround my life. I won't be bringing a computer or an iPod. No books or magazines. Just my Bible, my journal, and my camera.

Before I go, I will have sent out those last twenty names, and when I write the last e-mail I think it'll feel something like closure.

It's hard to think about this season ending, honestly. I know we're planning to come back, but we're holding those plans loosely. I have no idea what this next year is going to hold or where I'll be at the end of it. I know I'm going to see so much, but something in me already misses the place I haven't left yet.

I think this leaving will be hard. Not knowing when I'll be back under the West African sky feels like losing a piece of myself, a piece I've come to hold so dearly over the last two and a half years.

I hope it doesn't slip away when I'm far from here.