A peek into our daily life
About 4,5 months we have been on the road now, and these have been our first 4,5 months ‘living together’ in our house called Bushi. Some of you asked us how it is: how we live and how we organize things around here. Let’s give you a little peek into our daily small victories and major challenges that we face here, in African surroundings.
Living on 8 square meters
Sharing the small van has actually worked out better as expected, it seems that the sudden change from long-distance relationship to no-distance relationship hasn’t posed any problems. We asked each other in the beginning wheter we would have gone on this adventure when we didn’t have a strong believe that it would work out. We wouldn’t have, we were both convinced that we would return to the northern hemisphere as a happy camper couple. So far, we are still on track.
Needless to say, there are some minor details, starting with our sleeping arrangements. We are on a 1,15 m wide mattrass. Wide enough in itself, but it becomes fun when one of us has to go to the bathroom. How it works: we lie with our heads in driving direction, but to climb out, you have to climb backwards from the bed, via the front seats, to the middle of the car to the sliding side door. This requires some flexibility and I admire Herr H., the car pre-owner who is a bit closer to retirement age as we are, he also still did the climb every night. Respect.
So when you wake up at night you have to turn on your belly, pull your knees under you, get to your feet, then sit on your buttock and stretch your legs, slide forward, punt your feet on the drivers seat, turn around and slide down to the floor. And trying to do so without waking the other half.
Can imagine that for Cornelius, this is annoyance number 1. Why? Since my bladder is the size of a walnut, I have to go to the toilet twice every night. And when I open the zipper of the mosquito net, albeit with love & care, it makes noise. So he wakes up. Which is not the biggest problem. But sometimes I’m so groggy, that when I pull my feet under me and my butt is still hanging in the air, I lose my balance and tip over, landing with my full weight, butt first, on sleeping Conny. Meine Güte was that man screaming the first time that happend! Then again, that was indeed in one of the carb-heavy countries and perhaps my behind was also a bit carb-heavy.
Luckily, he has 2 favorite ways of getting back to me, but he didn´t allow me to disclose them to you. So for those who are curious: you can stalk him for that individually via email. Hehe.
Apart from that, we have optimised space, know our way around the kitchen and storage, it really feels like home.
Toilet blues
To continue a bit in the toilet area: visiting African toilets can be an absolute lowlight. When we are on the road, we just do it ‘in the wild’. We mostly find a quiet spot for a quick pit stop, but sometimes when you just crouched, a bunch of kids comes running up to watch the muzungu show. In the beginning we tried our best to wrap it up, get back in the car and find a new spot, but after a while we figured ‘well, what the heck’ and have accepted the audience and lost some of our embarassment.
Also animals can be interesting. Animal-lover Cornelius made his pitstop in the wild one time. A herd of goats walked up and one of the animals seized the opportunity to quench its thirst: it walked up to Conny, lifted its head and started to drink from Connies pee. Conny, who felt his personal space invaded, made 2 steps to the side to disencourage the goat, but that animal was determined! It also shuffeled to the left and kept on drinking, enjoying the treat. Conny looked disturbed but surrendered to the goat, I cracked up laughing. It was a hilarious sight, Conny and the drinking goat.
Africans and Europeans understandings of what is clean, are miles apart. I had to pay for a public toilet one day. From the odeur 3 meters away, I got a sneak presmell of what was about to come, so I said to the toilet man ‘I’ll only pay if the toilet is clean, if not, I keep the coins in my pocket’. ‘OK, deal’, he said, ‘it is clean’. I’ll spare you the details, but upon coming out I had an honest vomit reflex. When the toilet man stuck out his hand for the money, I yelled ‘you call that clean?!’ He responded stoic, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, ‘yes, the toilet is clean, African clean! Now give me 100 Shilling’.
Nightwatch or nightmare?
Most guesthouses or campsites have a nightwatch to provide extra security. These are without exception older men, dressed in ragged clothes, often with thick jacket and hat. Not the nicest job, because mostly these men also have dayjobs and they have to stay awake all night. The nightwatches have a nasty habit of sneaking around very silently, you never see or hear them coming. They keep their flashlights switched off, only to be turned on when they suspect intrusion.
Often there is a significant distance between our car and the toilets. If we wake up in the middle of the night, we don´t feel like walking those 300 meters. So sometimes, when it is dark, we just make ourselves comfortable next to the bus and quickly hop back in, hoping to keep that sleepiness so that we fall asleep again immediately.
And this poses a problem. Sliding the door makes noise. When the nightwatch hears something, they tiptoe over to check it out. And just when you think it´s just you, the stars and the crickets: the nightmare dressed in black comes out of nowhere, turns on his flashlight and puts your privates in the spotlight. Add to that the fact that you are in your underwear: not the best way to get caught. So with an emberassed ‘I’m sorry, will never do it again sir’ you end it as soon as possible and pull back into the bus, heart still stumping and your face blushing.
Eating fine food
The food is mostly good. We try to eat as much local food as possible: beans, spinach, chapatti (savory pancake, exactly like roti), stew, rice and sweet potato. In Uganda and Rwanda buffets are popular: for 1,5 Euro you get one plate of your choice. First time we sat in a corner enjoying the sight: people get one plate, but pile their fries, beans, spaghetti, meat and sauce up to 15 cm high! They build a real kilimanjaro of food. But, still one plate.
When it comes to eating, it looks like people have serious catching up to. Yesterday our neighbour at the table had little money but big hunger: he ate 7 dry buns and 1 plain chapatti. It is good to see that basic food is cheap and even the poorest can afford something to eat.
Despite the good food, we sometime really enjoy some delicacies from home. In Uganda we found a dutch baker selling krentenbollen and pepernoten. In Kigali we discovered a German butchery and Cornelius was happy as a child in a candy store: he bought Leberwurst, Brot aus Sauerteig, Zimtschnecke, Schinken and for me a pack of Haribo Lakritz. (Amelie: Konfekt, genau die Gute, in Pink und mit Kokos!)
Behind the wheel
The driving is shared among us, altough I think it is 65% Cornelius and 35% me. Driving has become more easy after Ethiopia, because the roads are better and there are no million cows, donkeys and sheep crossing at will, so we usually move at a nice grandma pace of 70-80 km/h. We get pulled over by the police regularly, but after Kenya, they only want to check our papers. Yesterday we got pulled over by the police for speeding: we were driving 40 where 30 was allowed. They carried a lasergun showing 49 km/h, but we were 100% sure that we were driving 40 and we were also sure that they weren’t pointing that thing at us when coming around the bent, because they were chitchatting and not looking at us. So, this was not our speed. But still, we were 10 km/h too fast. So we told them our opinion firmly. The officer knodded and asked if we were carrying an extinguisher. Yes, we do! In fact, we have 2 (thanks to our currupt Egyption friends at customs). The officer was satisfied and after half an hour of smalltalk, he let us go through without a fine. Thank you Tanzania!
My driving always comes with feedback. Conny is convinced that he is the most energy-efficient driver in the world, and that I’m on the other end of the spectrum. So, he’s teaching me: here left, shift gear, break, not with the brakes, with the gear box! Turn right, slow slow slow, not in 5 here, 3! etc. etc. On the one hand it annoys me a great deal, on the other hand diesel is our biggest expenditure so I see the economic side of it. But things turn a bit more tense when we drive into a big city where there is a lot going on: my driving gets a bit worse because the attention is shared between shifting gears, breaking on the gear box, dodging motorcycle taxis, avoiding tickets, and driving safely. Or not getting us killed in traffic, that means.
Conny starts to mumble when he doesn’t know the way exactly, I have difficulties to understand mumbling German, we’re both tired from the heat and driving…You’ll probably understand, this is an explosive mix and these are not our best moments.
But, despite all this, we have both managed to drive the first 15.000 kilometers without accidents, without one flat tyre, without one scratch so I guess we are careful enough.
Apart from all of the above, we are also spending considerable time on brainstorming on business ideas and are keeping our eyes open for smart marketing ideas that may be transferable to Europe. We have discussions about the future, about our personal development paths, about branches and companies we see ourselves in. We practice daily with the things we want to learn this year. for example Cornelius has become a master in bargaining, I am gradually becoming better and better in quick decision making, without having doubts and second thoughts afterwards. But there are still a few months of training necessary!
We have been enjoying our time here together, in our tiny home, a great deal. It is not despite of, but precisely because of things like police stopovers, not finding decent food and peeing in company that we have such a good time. We try to see humour in everything that experience. And when there are small annoyances, we smile and cheer each other up by repeating our life motto here: embrace Africa!
To you all at home: we wish you a great Adventszeit and we hope that those celebrating Sinterklaas had good poems. Here the Christmas songs have started, making us looking forward to the end of December, hopefully in Zanzibar, Tanzania.
