O Canada!

Hey ya hoser. In Tribute to Bob and Doug Mackenzie, and in honour (do they use the British spelling of honor with the u in there up in Canada?) of the Vancouver 2010 Olympics proving to be a huge success, I wanted to give some credit to the neighbor to the North of the US. And, with one of the best things to come from the country being a movie called 'Strange Brew', is it any wonder the women's hockey team celebrated the way they did? And is it really that big an issue that they did?

Like Dunkin Donuts only better

Congratulations to all you Canadians out there. You've got something to celebrate for quite a while. As the winter olympics finish at the end of February, you're able to hold the spotlight for awhile as there's not much else to do in February and early March but watch TV and read the news. And the World Cup isn't for another couple of months. So revel in the glory as long as you can, because we all know that while Canada may be good in the snow, they're not so well known for things which take place on grass.

Both very much Canadian




Near, Far, Wherever You Are!

Rain!!!

Today was the first time I saw rain here in Somaliland since early October. It was wonderful!! A whole 15 minutes of rain!! Sure, it didn’t last long, but it doesn’t take much to bring joy to everyone. And the way it looks, it might even just pick back up again and add a little more excitement to things around here. I was at the gate with our security guards when it started. It had been cloudy all day – this has only happened a few times in the past 5 months – and they’d become a darker shade all around. Consequently, all we were talking about was rain. (I had my English-Somali dictionary with me, otherwise we wouldn’t have even been talking but rather grunting, gesturing and trying to communicate using a conglomeration of my poor attempts at Juba Arabic, their poor attempts at English, and the 15 or 20 Somali words that I know).

Before the rain started, we could see several miles away that it was already raining. There was all kinds of dust in the horizon which they were saying (I only understood because of the sign language, though I’m sure they were saying it with their words also) is a sign of rain. Sure enough, about 20 minutes later, the wind picked up and sand was blowing everywhere. It wasn’t a sandstorm, and I don’t really know if they have those here or not, but the sand was blowing at least a hundred feet in the air in a not too thick cloud, and so came the rain. No one was concerned to retreat under cover at first. We were all relishing the liquid falling from the sky as it brought at least a temporary relief to the dry, parched earth. But, wetness does result in discomfort, and especially as the sun was low on the horizon, no one really wanted to get soaked. So, we did hide under a small shelter with big smiles and a light-hearted atmosphere that persisted.

Praise the Lord for the rain! I welcome it as a break from the monotony, a relief to the heat, and a hope that it will ease suffering of all around me who struggle to survive with its absence. It has been 5 months without rain in Somaliland, but I got completely drenched in a downpour in Nairobi only 3 weeks ago. For those I interact with daily, it has been a lifetime of going months without seeing a drop of rain. No escape to a foreign land where it is common. Nothing but brown, sandy earth with little thorny plants here and there that spring to life for a short time whenever the few drops of rain do come. I know that tomorrow I’ll begin to see a little bit of growth and maybe even a little bit of green will spring forth in the next day or two. The roots are shallow, and things will inevitably be scorched and die again. But, these are the things that are just beyond my and anyone else’s control. People grow up in different areas and have different experiences. It’s not for me to determine what takes root and what doesn’t. I can do no more than trust that the Author has a purpose for creating things the way they are. I rejoice in my experiences. I rejoice with my neighbours today for the little rain that fell. And I rejoice that life is not in the big things, but in the small things to be enjoyed moment by moment.

What's so Great about the Plains?

From Camp Bighorn, the next place I really had any intentions or desire to stop was Minneapolis. (While there were other places I had some desire to stop at, I didn’t think it was worth the several hundred extra miles and consequently hours on the bike that I would’ve had to drive to get to any of them). So, I left early in the morning on September 11 and headed East on US Highway 12 across Montana. And I continued driving across Montana. Eventually I stopped at Sulphur Springs Montana, right in the middle of the state for a bowl of clam chowder. And then I continued further along the highway. Western Montana: beautiful. Eastern Montana: not so much. At sometime past 6pm, after 600 miles travelled and almost 11 hours on the road, the sun was beginning to set and it started raining. I was still 40 miles from any type of civilization. I was cold and uncomfortable. I considered stopping and putting up the tent for the night, but as I was already miserable, I decided to push on ahead to the next town and stay in a motel for only the second and final night on the trip that I would pay for lodging. 650 miles and 11+ hours from when I’d started the day, I was still in Montana. How can the state really be that long?

Saw some of these, and not much else (not my photo though)

After a night’s sleep in a bed to rest my stiff, sore body, I woke up to find that the rain hadn’t stopped overnight, so I was thankful I’d stayed in the hotel. With nothing but the Great Plains of North and South Dakota between me and Minneapolis, I knew it was going to be another long day. I continued the journey with the trusty overalls and rain jacket that Alex had graciously let me borrow. The rain let up by midday so I was at least able to dry out for the afternoon while soaking up some sun. I covered a total of 600+ miles going across parts of the Dakotas and Western Minnesota, but finally reached Nick and Christy’s place with an extremely sore bum sometime after 8pm (lost an hour due to time zone change). The 1300 miles I’d covered the previous 2 days had worn me out and while I was glad to see Nick and Christy again, I was asleep by 10pm even though it was a Saturday night.

I took it easy for a couple days choosing to mostly walk rather than explore much of the Twin Cities on wheels. My hosts live in a diverse community where there are dozens of ethnicities heavily represented, including a large Somali population. It was wonderful to eat some great food, meet some new folks, visit my old roommate and his wife, some other friends I hadn’t seen in years, and some cousins that had grown up way too much since I’d last spent any time with them. But, the date of my interview, which was the only thing that put a limit to the time I had for this cross-country expedition, was approaching too quickly. So I couldn’t stay long enough to help Nick and Christy move into or fix up the house they’d just bought and settled on the day I left… and it did need quite a lot of work. (At least that’s the excuse I gave to get out of helping.) Even though it took a lot of effort and all their extra time for awhile, I’ve seen pictures that show just how much they were able to do to turn the place into a nice, comfortable home.

My tour of Minneapolis

As I left Minneapolis, I headed towards Chicago which I’ll pick up with in the next instalment. But a couple of hour visit in Rochester on the way allowed me to meet the newest addition to Sarah’s family as she, Kyle, and Josiah had recently welcomed beautiful baby Briella into the world. Josiah loved the motorcycle, so even though he’s only 3 years old, I let him take it for a spin while I played with his Fisher Price toys. Ok, so his mom decided that it wasn’t a good idea to let him drive as it didn’t have training wheels. But we did get to play ball in the yard and I pushed him around in his Fisher Price racer. And that is where this edition of the Blue Mamba Trail will end.

South and East

Blue Mamba Trail (Part 7 I think)

Having reached the northern and western extremes for the trip, I was now headed towards the rising sun and away from the Great White North. But, enjoying cross-cultural experiences as I do, and not wanting to backtrack over roads I’d already travelled, I headed east across British Columbia instead of back down to Seattle when I left Chad’s house on the morning of day number 20 of the expedition. Heading across Canada’s Highway 1 I waved at Chilliwack and Langley as the friends I have from there weren’t around, and realized from the smell that this was an agricultural and livestock dominated area. It reminded me of home.

Going east across BC, I was amazed at the mountains and how they kept opening up before me. A two-lane road (Highway 3B... why the B, I don't know) that twisted and turned was a great way to get back into the routine of driving after a 7 day stretch of riding only 670 miles. The road meandered beside rivers, twisted and turned through valleys, and led me across unspoilt landscapes. I passed large fields of crops, virgin forests, and orchards full of fruits. After several hundred miles, sometime in the early afternoon, I crossed back into the land of Chevrolet, hot dogs, and apple pie in Northeastern Washington. The journey down towards Spokane was nearly as scenic as BC, but it didn’t take long to hit suburbs and places that showed I was clearly not in Canada anymore. From there I tried to push it and make it to Western Montana before too late in the night as I was hoping to meet up with my friend Josh from TU who works with Camp Bighorn.

Osooyos, Canada

Camp Bighorn facilitates a group of students every year from Prairie Bible College in Alberta in which they Explore and Discover God in nature. It provides a Scriptural foundation to leadership and wilderness training. The day I was hoping to arrive was the last of a 4 day camping excursion which Josh was helping to lead. They were camping somewhere in the middle of the woods, and I intended to find them. I had been enjoying my ride during the day, but knew that it was far to get to the campsite, so while I didn’t delay, with the loss of an hour through entering into the mountain time zone, and taking some time to enjoy the beauty of the creation around me on the motorcycle, it looked like I was going to be getting to the area Josh explained they’d be around 8:30pm. He had a cell phone, but it didn’t get reception at the campsite itself, and the site was 20 miles down a forestry service road. But, with Josh’s directions, in spite of the realization I’d be arriving after dark, I was confident it wouldn’t be a problem.

So, what I thought would be an arrival of around 8:30 turned into just getting to the Montana border around that time and off the exit that would lead to the campsite at around 9pm. The forestry service roads aren’t really all that well labelled either. And after about 40 minutes of back and forth to the exit and up and back a few random dirt roads near the exit and to the gas station right at the exit, I settled on a road that the kind lady at the station convinced me was the one I wanted. After about 45 minutes of driving in complete darkness through a single lane gravel road up and down through the mountains of Western Montana, I arrived at the campsite sometime shortly after 10pm. It was actually quite a fun ride that reminded me at times of driving the little Yamaha AG 100 motorbike across the much worse dirt roads of Liberia. In this instance, however, I only slid the back end of the bike a few times when locking the brakes as I realized I was coming too fast into turns that I couldn’t tell at all how sharp they were in the utter darkness. It was a thrilling end to the 600+ miles I travelled this day, though, and it was such a joy to get to see Josh again after 3 years or so of only sporadic emails.

Although it was early in September, I learned when I arrived that the morning of the night I had arrived Josh and the others all awoke to find the ground covered in white. It had snowed that morning. And here I am camping outside in the woods. I wasn’t prepared for such cold weather, but thankfully Josh had an extra sleeping bag, blanket, and jacket that I was able to use. The next morning we travelled to Camp Bighorn where I relaxed for the rest of the afternoon, floating on the river through some small rapids, and then enjoyed a trip to “town” which was the tiny village of maybe 1,500 people of Plains, Montana. There was a grocery store, a gas station, and a casino. I think that was it. But the camp was tucked away at the base of a rocky cliff and on the banks of a sinewy river. It was a fabulous place to spend a day, cook some steaks, and relax with an old and several new friends. And, as I was to realize the following day, it was the last place to really enjoy the beauty of the mountains and take in the most dramatic of the scenery I was to experience for the journey. For Eastern Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Minnesota are 1,300 miles of empty, open nothingness. But even that couldn’t take away from what I’d already experienced thus far on the journey.

Above Bighorn