Friday, August 24, 2007 

See Ya!

As I type this, I'm relaxing in a posh hotel lobby using their wireless internet after just getting back from my second hike of the day, with two American buddies playing Street Fighter on an NES emulator across the table. That's right, folks, it's General Meeting time.

In this wonderful time of year, the company pays for all of the workers in the country to come to some posh hotel in the middle of nowhere and basically goof off for a week. It's a time to see guys I haven't seen in months, catch up on everybody's business, hike, play basketball, eat buffets, stay up too late playing cards, and generally have a good time. Yeah, there's some meetings in the mornings and stuff, but honestly, I came for the "fellowship", i.e. fun. See ya when I get back!

6:51 AM | |

Sunday, August 19, 2007 

Backpacking Again

I thought I was done with the whole backpacking thing when I got back into town a few weeks ago.

But, thinking a morning stroll would be a nice way to start the day, I called a friend and scheduled for us to meet at 8am for a 30-minute walk. Expecting a peaceful tromp through a mildly scenic path, I show up and wait for (let's call him) Mark to show up.

He shows up a little later and tells me he knows of a better place to walk. So, we hit the trail. It was a nice trail, we walked 10 minutes out of the way and you couldn't tell you were in a city at all. I felt like I was back home at a state park or something. We followed the trail as it wound around a big hill or a small mountain, depending on how you define "big hill" and "small mountain". We were having fun, talking and enjoying the scenery and the weather. We continued on...and on...and on some more. The trail kept going with no end in sight, and at one bend we passed a sign telling us we had walked 10 kilometers. Figuring we now had to walk back 10 kilometers in the now-overhead sun, we decided to sit down for a minute and start back down. So, we sat down, enjoyed the scenery and the herd of goats passing by us, and started back down to civilization.

Thinking this was just going to be a short stroll, I didn't bother to carry any water with me, and neither did Mark. As we walked the 10k back to town, our conversation turned more and more to water, the lack of water, and how good some water would be if we had it. I felt worse walking down that trail than I did during the entire backpacking trip. At least during the real backpacking trip I made sure to drink enough water. Honestly, I don't think I've ever wanted water more than I did then. I kind of liked it, actually.

Finally, after several false hopes, we reached the beginning of the trail. Glad to be back in civilization, we found the first market we could and then went to his place to escape the sun. I drank 1.5 liters of water, fell asleep on his couch, then woke up and drank another 1.5 liters. I was out of it the rest of the day, but what do you expect? I just walked 20 stinkin' kilometers in the noon-day sun with no water! Next time I'm inviting the guy to a game of cards, in my house, right next to the fridge stocked with cold, cold water.

10:06 AM | |

Sunday, August 12, 2007 

Backpacking Part 3 (The Last Part)

After hours and hours of walking, we finally came upon our campsite for the night: the beach! It was nice to see a whole lot of water in one place, especially after we'd been clutching our half-liter bottles of water like they were going out of style the whole day.


We set up camp and then hit the lake. I didn't have any soap on me, but getting in the water had to help a little. We were dog-tired that night, and it turns out we walked most of the trail that one day. So, we celebrated with some macaroni and cheese and hit the sack. The next day wouldn't be nearly as long.


Here's a pic of my sea-side villa


After a good night's sleep on the beach, we packed up and hit the trail for what would be the last day. The trail actually followed a sea-side road, which made the walking easy and the view beautiful.

As we traveled along, someone spotted a deadly snake. Naturally, we picked it up and messed with it as much as we could.



And with that, we made it back to town. The last day was pretty easy and uneventful compared to the day before, but it was a nice walk nonetheless. The best part of the trip? Getting back into town and heading straight to the bath house.

11:10 AM | |

Sunday, August 05, 2007 

Backpacking Part 2

After making camp that night and chowing down on some cajun chicken, we retired to our tents. I woke up the next morning around 6 to the sound of the bells and shadows rolling across my tent. I unzipped the flap and looked out to see a herd of goats walking through our camp. After taking it all in for a few minutes, I found the shepherd and had the normal conversation, this time without Psalm 23 quoted since my partner was still sawing some logs in his tent.

After the good start to the morning, we all packed up camp and headed out. Surprisingly, it was pretty chilly. Never mind the fact that it's the dead of summer, I guess our elevation was high enough for us to be pretty cold. The wind was biting. Not to worry, though, since I had stolen a jacket from another team guy before hitting the trail.




The second day went a lot like the first. We walked a lot, talked to shepherds, then walked a lot more.



As the day dragged on, though, we started running into a pretty serious problem: we didn't have any water. We hadn't passed any natural fountains, and nobody was carrying much water. I had half a liter left on me, but I wasn't about to drink it. For all I knew, that half liter was going to have to get me through the next 3 days.

With no other option, we stopped trekking and split into search parties to find some water. Finally we found a small creek, and after chasing it for a kilometer or so, we found the source, another natural fountain. We pumped out some clean water and headed on.

The trail took us next to a dry creek bed, which we ended up following for most of the day. We didn't see many shepherds along the creek bed, but it was a lot more fun walking there than up and down mountains.


Nothing too eventful happened, we passed through some beautiful countryside after coming up out of the creek bed. We were all getting used to our packs, and they didn't seem as heavy as they did the day before. We continued on, covering a lot of ground.

11:33 AM | |

 

Backpacking

Yeah, I'm finally back. I've been all over the place the past few weeks, but I'm finally back home for a while. Where have I been? I'm glad you asked.



When most volunteer teams come, they want to hang out in a big city, stay at a posh hotel, and enjoy the finest cuisine this country has to offer. Not this group. They wanted to drive to the middle of nowhere, walk the kilometers and kilometers back to civilization under the hot sun, sleep outside on the rocks, and eat whatever they could find or carry. Sorry girls, this one's just for the men.

The plan was to hike an old trail people used to walk in Biblical times and witness to whatever people or villages we came across, and also to not die in the process.


I had never been backpacking before, but I had been wanting to try it. Plus, it's not every day you can call a backpacking trip "work". So with that in mind, I went to the market and bought a bunch of camping gear and stuffed my pack with peanuts, raisins, peanut butter, ramen noodles, plenty of water, and a few Bibles.


Since we would basically be risking our lives, we thought it'd be a good idea to pray first.

The Boss Man had a GPS, and after a few false starts we finally hit on the right direction. Unfortunately, that direction was straight up a mountain. Not a hill, not a bluff, a stinking mountain. After a good hour of climbing up with giant packs on our backs, we began to reconsider the value of backpacking for Jesus. But since no one wanted to go back down the mountain, we decided to press on.


Fortunately, the terrain got a lot more forgiving after that first mountain. We even found a natural fountain, which turned out to be fairly common in the area. We made good time walking through rocky valleys, and met our first shepherd after a couple of hours.


Since we didn't have a lot of time with each shepherd, we had to get to the point pretty quickly. The conversations usually went like this:

Me - "Hey, God sent us to you."
Shepherd - "Of course."
My partner - "[He quotes Psalm 23 in the local language by heart. Yeah, he's hardcore.]"
Me - "You know, according to the Bible you're going to hell."
Shepherd - "Of course."
Me - "[I give the gospel story, using the Romans Road as an outline.]"
Shepherd - "Of course."
Me - "Here, you should read this." [I hand him a Bible]
Shepherd - "Of course."
Me - "Well, we're gonna go walk over there now, have a good day..."

For whatever reason, the shepherds always said "of course." It didn't matter what we said. Literally, I told them they were going to hell, and they said "of course." They heard the gospel, they have the Word of God in their hands, but a different response would've been a little more encouraging. But, the response is not up to us, we're just responsible to share.

So the first day passed pretty much like that. We walked, talked to some shepherds, and walked some more. That night we found a nice grassy area between some mountains and made camp. Fortunately for me, the guys from the states brought these backpacker food pack things, and after boiling some water, we were eating beef stew and cajun chicken. It was a good night.

10:24 AM | |