Happy Birthday, Marques Johnson. Love, Egypt.

A few months ago our friend, Marques Johnson, mentioned that he would like to meet up with us on our trip. We told him the dates that we would be in Egypt (apparently the dates that I told him were a few days off...oops!) and he booked his flight.

Three weeks ago, we received an email from Marques detailing his vision for his time in Egypt: he wanted to hit up every Hard Rock Cafe in the country. He invited us along. (We would be insane to not take up that challenge. Who wouldn't want to visit expensive American chain restaurants while traveling through foreign lands with rich culinary traditions?) Needless to say, we were up to the challenge.

Our first day in Cairo we set off to find a post office. While roaming the streets in search of an English speaker, or an expert at the game of charades, we ran into Hesham. We asked Hesham, a middle-aged watchmaker smoking on the side of the street, if he could direct us to the nearest post office. He then insisted on walking us to the post office and paying for Marques' international post stamps. He spent the rest of the day making our dreams come true: arranging for us to get motorcycle rides around the city (okay, that was just me), taking us out for a delicious lunch of falafel and chicken schwarma, and showing us where we could get the best (and cheapest) fresh-squeezed orange juice. We then parted ways for dinner. I guess he did not want to join us at the Hard Rock Cafe on the Nile. Weird.

After dinner, we called our friend that we met on the airplane (a lively Egyptian woman who insisted on having us stay with her family). We packed our bags and checked out of the hotel. After they saw Marques, however, we discovered that our overnight option was no longer possible (apparently her broken English and our limited Arabic left a lot of room for confusion). Mama Ebtesam has a 22 year old daughter and, in Islamic culture (according to her) it would be highly inappropriate for her daughter to sleep in the same household as a single man of Marques' caliber. Instead we dined with the family until the wee hours of the morning. (Egyptians are WILD: They eat lunch around 7 pm and dinner around 1 or 2 am. Children play on the streets far past midnight. Business people receive personal calls up to 3 am in the morning.)

The eldest daughter, Sara, insisted on giving Tessa and me an Egyptian make-over.

Around 3 am, we mentioned that we should probably head back to the hostel. The next day we had big plans: visit the pyramids of Giza and then head off for Dahab, a town on the Aqaba Channel (off of the Red Sea), where we could easily visit the Hard Rock Cafe.

We took the metro out to Giza and then caught a bus to the pyramids. On our bus ride, we ended up striking a conversation with the man next to us. This man told us that he knew a cheaper and more adventuresome way to view the pyramids. (Not until later did we learn that one is to NEVER, ever- according to Lonely Planet- let a local on the bus convince you to take an alternative route). He guided us to a few stables behind the pyramids. We sat down and participated in what is termed 'Egyptian hospitality'. We drank some tea (the Egyptians drink it with anywhere from 4-8 spoonfuls of sugar) and planned our pyramid viewing experience.

Here Marques and I are on our camels, Micheal Jackson and Mickey Mouse respectively, trekking through the desert. Tessa is a little further back listenting to our Egyptian guide share about how he is trying to get a third wife. Apparently, it is the same price to get an additional marriage as it is to get divorced. Our guide also informed us that the pyramids were constructed around 4600 BC. We double-checked that and the 25th century BC seems to be a little more accurate.

We were some of the few out there. Visiting the pyramids during the hottest time of the year- at the hottest time of the day- does have some perks.

We all decided to go for a sunset canter through the Sahara desert. Here Marques and I are kissing our trusty companion.

Late that night we set out for the Dahab (read Hard Rock Cafe). We arrived in Dahab to discover that it was a wonderful little Egyptian tourist town just 35 km or so from Saudi Arabia (we could see Saudi Arabia out across the water). We spent a few minutes locating the cheapest possible lodging: The Auski Hotel (under $5 a night for all three of us).

So, Marques may have fallen through the bed and Alisa may have had two or three troops of ants occupying her bed...either way, we were thankful for the cheap and friendly accommodations.

That night, we discovered that we were really close to Mt. Sinai (the alleged mountain in which Moses received the Ten Commandments from God). We decided we would hike it. We left the hotel at 11 pm in the evening and started hiking at 1 am.

Marques and Tessa made it to the top around 4 am. Alisa, took it a little slower, and made it up just in time to greet the rising sun (about 2 hours later). Here we all are together, with the moon in the background.

Our friend Heimen, who sat at the top of Mount Sinai, on the steps of the church, drinking beer and selling fossils. He gave us each a free fossil before we left. We gave him our hearts.


While atop Mt. Sinai we met a friend, Diaa el Din. He lives in Sharm el Sheik (the actual city in which the Hard Rock Cafe resides) and gave us a little tour of his town. He is really knowledgeable, and funny.



Marques' Birthday Dinner! Marques insisted that we all wear the same colors. Luckily, Tessa and I had our black dresses. We had to borrow a black shirt for Marques.



We feel like we have to take part in as many cultural activities as we can. The hookah is one of the staples of Egyptian society. Many Muslims do not drink but, according to an Egyptian friend, about 70% of Egyptians smoke. Any and every time of the day you can walk out and see little coffee shops filled with men (and sometimes a few women) smoking hookah. This trip was Marques' first time smoking hookah. As you can tell by my expression, he is a really good hookah smoker.



On our last day, we all visited the Egyptian Museum. Marques was interviewed before entering. The whole interview was conducted in Arabic! We entered the museum and were immediately overwhelmed. The Egyptian Museum is essentially a huge warehouse stocked with piles and piles (yes, piles) of ancient Egyptian artifacts. Tombs, sarcophogus', mummies, and travelers sitting on top of Pharaonic antiquities- oh my!

Ethiopia: They Do Things Differently There

We flew into Ethiopia with no clue as to what to expect. Thankfully, we realized a few days before arriving that Alisa has four Krista friends living in Addis Ababa. To our surprise, Josh was waiting for us at the airport when we finally got through customs (3 hours after Josh first arrived!). We were immediately welcomed into their home and with their help, we had an altogether incredible adventure in Ethiopia.

Left to Right: Sarah, Maren, Josh, and Bethany

These four are living in Addis for one year teaching English at the Hope Enterprise School. (Interesting bit about them...as we set off for our explorations, they took a 4x4 in the opposite direction where they met up with a hyena man. They each placed a stick of meat in their mouth and had a pack of hyenas run by and eat the meat off of the end of their stick! Only in Ethiopia!)

One of the many butcheries found on the streets of Ethiopia. They are all painted red and white and have either a cross or a crescent to tell you whether it is a Christian butcher or a Muslim butcher. For the most part, Ethiopians are either Muslims or Orthodox Christians. Mosques and churches are everywhere and there are almost constant calls to worship (or so it seems, at least, at 5am!) issuing forth from one or the other.

Ethiopia is unlike anywhere else. They are even on a different calendar. In Ethiopia, this year is in fact 2000 and the evidence of the new millenium, in the form of lights, streamers, and signs, is everywhere. In Ethiopia time is also told differently -- our 6 am is their 12 pm.

Ethiopia was interesting because while on the one hand it was sensory overload - colorful clothes and headscarves, intense smells, people everywhere, and crazy energy, there were many striking things about Ethiopia that just jumped out at us.

Everyone sits at streetside cafes and drinks coffee. Our favorites were the beautiful and tiny macchiatos. Every young man seems to play street foosball (no joke, foosball tables wherever you look). The fresh juice is like nowhere else and delicious. The streets are full of goats and donkeys. The paper currency is incredibly worn out. The electricity was working about half the time. The roads in the capital city abruptly changed from paved to dirt and throughout the areas we traveled most of the roads were under construction (apparently by Chinese companies). Also, more people asked things of us here than anywhere else - be it help getting to the United States, money, or the shirts off our backs. Part of the reason for this, and for the electricity being in and out, is that Ethiopia is in the middle of a drought. Nearly every river we passed was dry. Our ultimate impression of Ethiopia, however, was that the people are incredibly, incredibly kind and friendly.

In Ethiopia, they eat a bread called injera 3 times a day. Here we are at the Hope Feeding Center folding stacks upon stacks on injera.

We visited ALERT Hospital where people who have recovered from leprosy are hard at work making and selling Ethiopian handicrafts. Tessa is trying, and failing, to spin cotton.

We had great luck randomly meeting college students who showed us around their respective cities and taught us a lot about modern Ethiopian culture. We met Tilahun in Addis and he actually taught us a lot about Ethiopian history. He took us to a cultural museum and then showed us the traditional religious art he makes and sells at the Merkato, arguably Africa's largest market. One of our favorite pieces is of the Last Supper where everyone is dressed in traditional Ethiopian clothing and eating injera.

In Bahir Dar, we were walking down the street trying to find a cultural show. We asked two strangers for directions and couldn't have had better luck. The two university students broke curfew to take us to the show and then, since they couldn't get back into their dorms, stayed with us at our hotel. The cultural show involved men playing guitar-like instrument and women doing traditional dancing (lots of isolated shoulder movements - really hard to do), while both performers did improv comedy/rhyming that essentially consisted of making fun of the audience. Alisa and I, being the foreigners, of course got the brunt of it. Thankfully, Bethlehem and Encozar could translate so we at least knew why people were laughing at us. For an example of the type of jokes: the jokes directed to other audience members often had to do with balding heads, and one of the ones that was directed to us had to do with Mike Tyson biting ears and how, at least, Ethiopians had not stooped to that level . . .

We also had the fortune to meet this wonderful Indian-Ethiopian family on the streets of Bahir Dar. Together we visited the waterfall where the Blue Nile starts (it joins the White Nile in Khartoum and becomes the NILE) and also visited the Orthodox Christian monasteries hidden among the islands of Lake Tana. This was the family's first trip on a boat and they put safety first. Rightly so.

A priest at one of the monasteries showing us reeeeaaaally old religious texts. Just look at the pages. It was old.


The juice! This particular concoction is layered with papaya, avocado, guava, and mango. Heaven in a glass mug.

Lalibela is a city named after the King Lalibela (born 1101 AD). In the center of town are 10 rock-hewn churches, which according to legend or fact (you decide) were built by the chisel and hammer of Lalibela himself (with the help of God and angels) over a period of 23 years. Some "historians" say 2,000 other people helped . . . but let's not quibble over the details. These churches are awesome. Every one is very different from the next and all are connected by underground tunnels. The art on the outside and the paintings on the inside are stunning. All done by Lalibela himself.

The churches are all still in active use. Here is an orthodox priest showing us two examples of the many ornate crosses found in Ethiopia.


Tessa and Alisa mastering the church drums.

At a rock-hewn church outside the city we attended a ceremony. We had to wake up at 4:30am so we could make the 7 km walk in time for the event. After a couple hours of chanting and reading of sacred texts, hundreds crowded into the small space to collect into their plastic water bottles the holy water that drips from the ceiling of the church. At the end we received a beautiful blessing in which the priest touched his palm to our foreheads and then to our lips. Another common blessing is the touching of the cross to the forehead and the lips.

To get back to Addis from Lalibela we had two back to back days of 12+ hour bus riding. And these aren't just any bus rides. These are rides in hot, hot weather, on gravel roads that are mostly under construction, and in crowded buses in which no one opens the windows. Thankfully we met lots of good people and, despite our protests, found every meal and, even hotel rooms, paid for. Here we are with three of our bus buddies: the driver, the farmer, and the hotel owner.


No bus ride is complete, or even satisfying, without a few breakdowns. Luckily we had plenty. Here's Alisa doing her part to entertain the passengers with magic while the flat tire is repaired. (We discovered, a little too late in fact, that many Ethiopians don't actually like magic much because they associate it with black magic and the end of the world . . . oops)

The incredible bus staff of 3 brothers that eventually got us all home safely! One of our favorite moments was at lunch when we asked the driver, "How's the drive?" His response: "Danger." Hmm . . . perfect . . . Some things you just got to write off to language barriers :)

Swaziland, Christian Terrett, and Clowns Without Borders: Just Another Week in the Life

While traveling, one is confronted with constant decisions. Should we stay in this town or move on? Should we sleep at this hostel or that one? Do we dare enter this souvenir shop? And the decisions can be stressful, but more often than not, the stars just seem to align and the decision makes itself. And so when we found ourselves in a hectic bus station, throwing our backpacks into the open trailer, and boarding a minibus to Swaziland with Christian Terrett and Nozizwe, there were no decisions involved. It was simply what had to be done and we were doing it.

For those of you not so lucky to know Christian Terrett, he is a long time friend of ours from Eugene who just happened to be in South Africa at the same time as us, and just happened to have free time exactly when we had the opportunity to go to Swaziland. You can check out the wonderful tales of Christian's travels at http://yankeeshoes.blogspot.com.

You might remember Nozizwe from Cape Town. She is one of the incredible film makers working on The Commandments project. Nozizwe is from Swaziland and all we knew was that we were going to her home. She thought the rest should be a surprise.

We discovered immediately that Nozizwe is not from a typical home. She grew up on the mission of an Italian priest who has dedicated his life to the disabled children of Swaziland. Traditionally, disabled children in Swaziland are abandoned or worse. When the priest arrived as a young man, Nozizwe's mother, then a small girl disabled by polio, was the first child he saved from the streets. Since then the mission has expanded into a boarding school and vocational training program that serves hundreds of children and adults every year. Nozizwe's mother is now the school's principal.

One day we visited a preschool for children affected by HIV/AIDS that is supported by the mission.
Lots of holding hands and duck,duck, goose.

And we taught them about important American traditions like the chicken dance.

The four of us eating delicious Swaziland-roasted corn.

Did you know there was such thing as Clowns Without Borders? Well, there is, and they are hard at work educated the youth of the world about HIV/AIDS through clowning. When he's not making balloon animals, this Clown Without a Border looks after the boys of the mission's boarding school.

This mission is so amazing that they make their own eyeglasses at their own lab. (Former students, now in the vocational programs, also make all the school uniforms, all of the furniture, and even transcribe text books into brail for the blind students) Here we are trying on some of the fine products. Alisa just made a really clever joke that only smart people understand.

Back in Durban, Alisa insisted on buying an ice cream topped donut (which Tessa had to eat), so that she could get the free drinking straw eyeglasses that came with it.

And the people just can't resist.



In another really good purchase, we bought matching vests with pointy hoods.

Durban: Where the Collier Family Resides

We arrived in Durban with absolutely no plan. Just a contact number. We called our contacts and they came to pick us up. Within moments of meeting them, we could tell that we were in for a treat. Tracey and Alec can (and do) do it all...and they let us join in for the fun!

We toured around Durban- visited the beautiful kloofs (little canyons), walked along the boardwalk, and viewed the largest mosque in the Southern hemisphere (according to Durbanites-I think this word might be my own creation).



We then spent a day with the local Lion's Club- Tracey and Alec are active members- cleaning up the river. Tessa and I started with high spirits, but ended (as you can tell) a little discouraged. There really is a lot of trash in our rivers these days. This leads me to think that we need a revival of the Litter Bugs Me Club (the membership requirements are quite easy: Pick up a piece of litter a day. If you forget to pick up one day, just pick up two another day. If you remember to pick up litter one day, the odds are another member may forget....so still try and pick up two, three, or four pieces of litter a day!)



Our host brother, Aidan, is the lead singer of a hard-core Christian rock band, The Rising End. We spent our Saturday night at his concert, amidst all of the moshers. Truly, this scene is WILD! I do not know what all of his fans will do when he moves to Canada to study...



Family photo. Richard (the German foreign exchange student), Alisa, Tracey, Alec, Aidan, and Tessa. We took a family road trip through South Africa to the game reserve, where we were able to spot everything from cheetahs to giraffes, wildabeasts, rhinos, hippos, and zebras!



I guess you are not allowed to do this...



Notice how Tessa framed this giraffe. She really has become an excellent photographer.

While we were in Durban, we were fortunate enough to stay with one of Tracey's friends, Mahkosi, in a Luganda township outside of Durban.



While in Luganda, we ate some of the largest meals I have ever ate in my life. Truthfully, we would receive a plate stacked 8 inches high, full of ox liver, potatoes, spinach, and cauliflower. After the meal, we would watch South African soap operas and a dance show. When we were lucky, the family would dance along.



We decided to visit the sangoma, a traditional healer. Tessa met with the sangoma in her private hut. This was where she learned that she will die of a heart attack.



During the days, while Mahkosi was at work, we decided that we should work as well. We were directed to a Kreche (preschool) that was housed in an orphanage.

Day 1. We spent the whole day playing London Bridge is Falling Down, teaching children the chicken dance, and making them do push-ups and jumping jacks (to tire them out). This is them at nap time.

Day 2. Twenty minutes into our time there, the teacher says that she has a meeting and asks if we can manage the kids for the day. Of course...I cannot think of one reason why that would be a less than brilliant idea. Through the course of the day, one boy pooped his pants, Tessa was peed on, children waged war while pinning us to the ground, and at one point we noticed one of the kids running away on the street outside of the gated compound. No worries, I am sure little kids are always running on the streets with no adult supervision...



This kid loved Tessa.



And yogurt.



We finished our time in Durban with a trivia night with the Lion's Club. What more could we ask for?

Johannesburg//Jo'burg/JHB/Jozi...

Don't worry girls, I'll take care of this one.

Do you know the Dervish-whirling, magic-tricking, bungee-jumping, question-asking, no-prisoner-taking, shark-dragging, shoe-losing wonders that are Tessa and Alisa?
I do.
What to do when encountering one, or both, of these unique creatures: First, stay calm. Second, make them show you a traveler's trick and third, answer all their questions - it's usually in your best interests.


This photograph is evidence in order to eliminate any doubt as to whether or not the girls actually were in Africa. I had to work for a few hours on a Sunday and so I decided to leave the girls to their own devices at the Rosebank Flea Market. When I returned they were not ready to leave. One hour later, they still were not ready to leave. Concerned, I decided to try to find them. Walking through the market I wondered what they could possibly still be doing, with stalls everywhere closing up for the day.
I happened upon the young lasses assisting a Sudanese jewelry seller with packing away all of his hundreds of sets of earrings into tiny little plastic bags. In the midst of our Xenophobic crisis we had foreign foreigners helping local foreigners. It's complicated... we know.


This was another result of the Flea Market Quest. Here you will witness true use of mind power.


Did you ever find yourself wondering how they get by, traveling the world with but one pair of sandals? What, pray tell, do they do about cold feet ?(the literal kind). Well here it is.
Now you know.


So well behaved. This image is for the viewing pleasure of nervous parents, worried aunts and other concerned individuals who suffer from constant visual flashes of their darlings jumping off bridges, taking unreliable cross-country taxi rides and other death-defying stunts.
When in doubt, come back to this photograph. Breathe. Count to ten. Resume panic.


Medical experts finding a cure for cancer; Scientists formulating an AIDS vaccine; Environmentalists stumbling upon a simple solution for global warming could not understand the pure joy of the discovery of the juice goggles.

...too much?


A little melodrama never killed anyone.


...did it?


This is a tribute to aunt Judy!
Without whom we would never have met these edgy twirlers in the first place.
Or perhaps we would have... Who knows?
The world is getting smaller - and the truth is getting harder to tell.

With Love

Gilli