Turkmenistan visas are not for the faint of heart. With the exception of a few intrepid overlanders who take advantage of an oddly liberal three-day transit visa, getting into the country is not easy. Either one comes in a very expensive tourist visa package or one comes sponsored by an international business or organization. As a result, nearly everyone flies into the capital, Ashgabat, and gets the well-manicured drive from the airport into the city.

I came to Ashgabat in winter just a few days after a snowstorm blanketed this desert city. The snow and ice does not detract from the route into the city. The road is lined with pine trees which have been enthusiastically planted around the capital. They stay green all year and there is little cleaning up of leaves and debris required. These positives clearly were laid out in some bureaucrat’s memo to plant them in every available public space. Unfortunately, bureaucrats do not always communicate aesthetics well so the pines are planted in tree form formation, giving them an odd and artificial feel. I will admit that were very pretty with the snow laden boughs in January, though.

The main road from the airport to the center is lined with white marble clad buildings, all feeling out of place and out of proportion. Roads are built for a much greater traffic load than Ashgabatians currently have to worry about. The state-owned bus company has constructed stations on the main streets that are like mini-airport terminals, complete with indoor waiting areas and LED tickers listing the bus lines and the current temperature. This should make for an impressive display of what a centrally planned government can do with lots of foreign reserves and little check on executive power. However, the buses crammed full of people taking subsidized fares and the empty, unrented kiosks in each of these stations speak more to the economic realities here than do the vanity projects.

All this is fairly par for the course in terms of gas-rich authoritarian countries. Nothing too surprising, especially not when compared to the construction projects of the petro-states in the Middle East. What really took me back were the ice covered fountains at every intersection. In the depth of winter and in spite of six inches of snow on the ground, they were all spraying full blast with ice volcanoes building up around the spouts. Burst pipe risks or not, someone important decreed that the water will flow in this desert country.

This post has been written by an expatriate currently working in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan. 

By Jett Thomason

I like Djibouti in the morning.

I wake up early in the US, so jetlag throws my natural tendency into overdrive with a 3:15, 4:30, or if I’m lucky, 5:00 am wake-up call. I have spent the past week in Djibouti at a training conference for our new Somalia program. US Government restrictions on official travel to Somalia (and Puntland and Somaliland) have channeled a large number of donor conferences and foreign involvement in the Horn of Africa to Djibouti. Arriving on business, working all day and a large part of the night, I have sadly not been able to see much of the city, to say nothing of the country.

However, the ridiculous hour that my body insists is time to get up also makes it easy to be the early morning jogger. I do not normally like these people. And in fact, I do not normally like to run.  But as a good friend says about writing, I like having run. And so, after ten minutes of forcing the eyelids closed, knowing that the battle was lost, I roll out of bed and by 5 am have my tennis shoes on the quiet morning streets of Djibouti. I start my run.

There is, as with all colonial experiences, a foreign sector. The hotels used for official business are always in this zone. At this hour, though, I am the only international around. Guards laze back on their cheap plastic chairs, bored and letting their rifles droop on the ground. A few women are bent straight over at the waist, whisking the road clean of dust. They turn at the sound of my feet on the beaten asphalt. Unlike the daylight hours, our eyes meet for a moment. Whether they are more emboldened with no one watching or too tired to pretend not to see me I cannot say.

The guard at the end of the barricaded street is a worker at the hotel. I am a paying guest and there are vast gulfs of space between our two worlds. However, at this hour I get a nod as I pass by. We are both among the few awake and that is some shared bond.

In Africa, local athletes rally at city stadiums or school yard fields to run. Streets in the developing world are among the worst places for exercise – normally. Taxis and diesel fumes and vendors spreading their wares out to the edge of rushing traffic make road running impossible during the day. In the morning stillness I pad down the center of the street luxuriating in the space.

Djibouti is an old French outpost on the Indian Ocean. Strategic only for its location, the country has continued to mine its sovereignty rather than build any real industry. It is easy to get a feel for the city just a few minutes into my run. The avenues are straight and angled to the cross streets. The expat sector is on a jutting peninsula of land so I run out from this zone down the wide boulevards. Returning along residential streets is easy with the confidence of knowing my hotel is at land’s end.

I raise a hand to the small merchants in each of the roundabouts I pass on my jog. There is an inevitable clustering of these small stores lit with white fluorescents and hawking dry goods, browning bananas and cylinders of propane. They wave back. Taxis tend to coagulate at odd corners and I do not greet them for fear they will think I am a fare and fire up the cars. Most of the drivers are sleeping on a piece of cardboard next to their cars with thin cloth scarves covering them as some defense against the mosquitos.

Turning into the side street the crackle of an intercom flares up and the recorded call to prayer begins from the side mosque. A group of guards eating from a large platter of rice call out in French, “Bon Courage!” I respond with “Merci” and turn sharply down another street to avoid the stray dog that suddenly jumped to attention at the sight of me. Courage is needed indeed.

The chewed leaf stimulat khat is as prevalent here as in Yemen just across the water. Evenings on the street in Djibouti are always marked by men sitting on a stoop and feeding sprigs of khat into their mouths. The effect of each leaf fades fast so users clasp their bunch of leaves in their left, preparing the next bunch of leaves with their right. Those who are already heavily into the chew grab you on the street and try to pull you in to look at their cheap trinkets that one finds from Senegal to Kenya and that are probably made en masse in southern China. Spraying bits of green leaf and their khat eyes crazed by the prospect of tourist dollars, it’s a side of Djibouti I have come to dislike within just a few days.

Running up the side streets I can see gnawed stems of the khat and wisps of micro-thin cheap plastic used to wrap the bunches. These are always found in piles where the users stood together the day before. Sure enough, I turn a corner and see a big sign for “Khat Awady”, or “Evening Khat”. It is 5:30 am now, and instead of the huddled groups of drugged men, I am greeted by several older men passing me on their way to mosque.

Sun licks at the sky while a woman coaxes a fire into life near the taxi stand. She sells rice and meat to drivers and there are a few women like her on this street. Squat, dusty trees shelter the place and improve her stand’s marketability. She is either too busy to acknowledge me or I have crossed some time limit when foreign men are not allowed to directly into women’s eyes.

The end of the run is the hardest. The fatigue sets in and the exoticness of the place wear off and it is tough to stay motivated. I approach the end of the street and can see the hotel lights. They are preternaturally bright and speak to foreign currency establishments with generators and razor wire enclosures. This is not generally how I want to see another country but this is the job and the reality of Africa.

Sweat rolling off me in the humid air and feet beginning to hurt as much as my sides, I see someone coming down the road. He has a bag packed and the look of a night watchman coming off duty. The lilt in his step is does not fit with the other laborers I see packed onto mini-buses, driven into the foreigner zone for their menial jobs.

“Courage!” he says as I run by with a great smile and nod. I smile, nod back.

This is Jett Thomason’s 14 post at GoMad Nomad. Over the past decade his travels and work have taken him throughout the former Soviet Republics, Europe, and Africa to Afghanistan and Iraq. He blogs for GoMad Nomad at the No Leave Travel Blog.

By Beau Miller

“It’s governed by a council/ All good souls and wise./ They’ve only $5 for armaments/ And the rest for cakes and pies.” -Pete Seeger, “Andorra”

As your attorney, I advise you to rent a fuel-efficient automobile and drive at top speed to Andorra, but before you start packing the trunk with ether, Wild Turkey, and limes—stop. And think. Absinthe in Andorra is as abundant as the mountains, and at 3 Euro a liter for a bottle of the Green Fairy, you have more room for the Acapulco shirts and handguns. Now for the gory details. You have to go through France or Spain to get there. No public airports in Andorra, just curving stretches of finely-manicured highway being skillfully navigated upon by peace-loving Andorrans. Here I take the risk of coming off as some pretentious jackass, and I invite you to do the same. Because somewhere, in gritty Williamsburg, Austin, and Portland bars fair-skinned hands will tremble around their cans of PBR and filterless Luckies with borderline-uncontrollable desire as you utter one of the most powerful combination of words in modern English, “When I was in Andorra…”

Undoubtedly there will be those who, while able to identify the finer points of bicycle restoration, are unable to locate Andorra on a map or think it would be a great name for a band nobody’s heard of yet. Therefore you must arm yourself to the teeth with information. Skip the CIA Factbook because I’m supremely confident that they got their information from Pete Seeger’s 1960s love ballad about Andorra. However, recent developments must be taken into account in order to rightly appreciate the evolution of Andorran sagacity. Since the 1960s, it would appear that Andorra’s approximately $5 defense budget has been decreased. By approximately $5. It now delegates responsibility for the protection of its people, cakes, and pies to Spain and France. Though, the French, it would seem, are envious enough of their Catalonian neighbors and the unrivaled quality of their queso-induced siestas, that they keep a jab at Andorra holstered and at the ready for whenever mention of this tiny Pyrenean utopia is mentioned. “What does one do in Andorra?” the joke-teller will inquire. When met with a shrug of the shoulder or the oral imitation of the sounds of quick, satisfying flatulence (the preferred method by which many French exclaim their befuddlement), the joke-teller will go for the throat: “On dort!” In English, the punch-line translates to “One sleeps,” but in French it is a clever play on words, as it is pronounced exactly as locals pronounce the name of their nation in Catalan (Andorre). Yes, one sleeps, but only after one has had their fill of outdoor activity, paella, and strong drink.

Make for the campsite of your choice. In a country 176 square miles, it’s hard to get too far out of an Andorran city, but what it lacks in seclusion, it makes up for with its ability to provide a perfect cocktail of European caravanners. Anywhere is close to the capital city of Andorra la Vella and its tax-free shopping, and if not traveling solo, “bungalows” offer cheap accommodation, with separate bedrooms, shower, and a kitchen/absinthe-drinking arena perfect for discussing the social commentary of Celentano’s “Yuppi Du” (Youtube it). Though as the propietari of the Camping Pla confessed to me, the shower is not quite big enough to fit all your friends in at once. It can be hard to find a “cheap” plate of local grub, but you get what you pay for, and a plate of local paella and a bottle of house wine split with a camarada will leave one immensely satisfied. For keeping to a budget hit up the Andorra 2000, the bastard step-child of Walmart and a medieval public market, for its cheap and affordable selection of any type of alcohol under the sun, the legs of any standard livestock you might desire, and a tremendous array of cheeses. Nutella comes in buckets.
Initially drawn to Andorra as part of the search for either a setting for a setting for workplace team-building exercises or mass destruction, the US State Department, in 2003, estimated the average daily cost of a stay in Andorra to be $226. This raises significant questions. How could four exuberant young go-getters in a brand-spanking-new Ford Fiesta make the 1,500 km, round-trip journey from Lyon, France to the illustrious Camping Pla in Canillo, Andorra, spend two nights in a bungalow, and return with a trunk full of Absinthe, Andorra-stenciled lighters, pens, fridge magnets, and the country’s Euro-style, ovular, white “AND” stickers (which identify the owner of the property upon which said sticker is affixed, as a pacifist pastry eater who will survive both nuclear holocaust and the subsequent zombie apocalypse thanks solely to Andorra’s “under the radar” status) all for the low, low price of approximately 120 €, for transportation, food, lodging, and party favors? What kicks were State Department henchmen getting in Andorra? Maybe they should be writing this article.

All in all, Andorra offers an affordable feast for the soul and all senses. It takes a special kind of person to reach this Shangri-la of the Pyrenees, an even more special person to throw the proverbial boulder in the figurative pond of its quiet mountain towns, and a rare breed of animal to successfully arouse the (wander) lust of those susceptible to stories of raucous adventures in countries they weren’t quite sure existed.

To do it right, go in June, just before the tourist season picks up. By beating the rush, you guarantee yourself a wide berth to roam about Andorra spontaneously and irrationally, and you are more likely to succeed in finding lodging only a short stumble away from local bars and restaurants. July and August bring in the summer hordes before the short fall and the ski season. Accommodations and other information are easily found on Andorra’s tourism website. Andorra is perfect for a weekend experience, but its mountain walls start to close in and the rental car will get restless for any time longer than that. And for God’s sake, don’t go during ski season.

Beau Miller holds a Master’s degree in International Relations from Syracuse University and is America’s greatest long-distance driver, having recently learned to drive manual, at 29 years young, on the way to Andorra. This is his third article for GoMad Nomad. His previous dispatches have been from Nepal and Oman.

Entering Andorra le Vella, Andorra's capital.

The view from an alleyway in the bustling metropolis of Canillo, Andorra

Stopping to enjoy the great Andorran past-time- hitting snowballs with a stick

Bungalows often include wifi, kitchen, and showers

Andorra's reduction in defense spending has allowed it to increase its budget for the arts

All the comforts of home...

I did not expect to see so much street art in Portugal. Especially in Porto, I was impressed with the sheer volume of exciting, creative, and intellectual graffiti. Granted, much of it is stenciling, either Bansky or Bansky inspired, but still, it’s fun to look at and sometimes thought provoking.

For four days, I walked all over Porto—in the daytime, at night, with a camera, with open eyes. There is something quite elegant and yet at the same time rundown about Porto’s city center. It is without a doubt my favorite European city for its size. If I returned again, I would do the same, walk and walk again—stop for coffees, join the massive street gatherings of youth in the late evening and stay out until dawn. Drink plenty of Super Bock. Soak up every bit of this city.

So here is a graffiti tour of Portugal’s most beautiful city:

Text and photos by: Stephen Bugno

Have you been to Porto? Know of any other cities with good street art? Comment below.

By Jett Thomason

I recently had my first month-long work trip to Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi. The trip represented a number of firsts. First time to Africa. First time to be jetting around for quick site visits rather than long-term job assignments. And first time to be representing the US government in the field with the official passport and all.

Rwanda was the first country to visit on my tour. In pre-trip reading up on the country, it was impossible to find a travel narrative that doesn’t wax poetic at the sight of small villages nestled in the misty hills and tilled plots stretching up on all sides of volcanic soil-laden slopes. And for good reason, the place is postcard bucolic beautiful. It was also impossible to find an English-language book that doesn’t also drift into commentary on “the unimaginable horror of the 1994 genocide and the subsequent re-birth of the country in an ethnicity-blind, forward-looking example of an African success story”. More on that later.

My first outing beyond the capital was to western Rwanda. In a steep mountain village several hours off the nearest paved roads, my agency has been financing a cooperative of pineapple growers that are trying to produce and sell juice for the local market. Seeing them for the first time, I marveled at the precision engineering imparted from years of selective planting. The plants rise up straight with a single pineapple resting on a short stalk. The long leaves on the top provide the perfect handle for plucking the fruit. The eyes on the side of the pineapple start to get dry just as it is at its ripest, avoiding any question about the best time to harvest, and when ripe the skin slices off easily enough but prevents birds and other animals from getting to the crop before you do.

So far, the cooperative has been making juice by laboriously slicing pieces of pineapple into small chunks and then hand-squeezing the pieces between two cutting boards. Our grant is financing a proper juicer that should dramatically decrease the amount of time and physical exertion needed for this stage. The cooperative has been incredibly productive even with this strictly manual effort, juicing, pasteurizing, and selling thousands of bottles of juice. When I saw the stockroom, the bottles had slightly misspelled English labels, but were fairly professional in appearance. It took me a minute to realize that the cooperative has recovered empty Heineken bottles for re-use. Since the beer company is one of the few in Rwanda to not recycle, it’s the first choice for a locally sustainable and affordable juice company like our grantee.

I thought that my few years of French would carry me far in Rwanda, but English is the dominant non-native language and has been ever since 1994. The genocide that started then ended when rebels, formerly based in English-speaking Uganda, swept over the country and seized control. While this linguistic heritage has served me conveniently in the capital city, out in the countryside I have to rely on the translations of our staff for communication. The Rwandan groups I have met are invariably warm and welcoming, but the intermediary translation has definitely affected my impressions of their culture.

There is a tendency for Rwandans to make a deep “mmmmm” sound as part of conversation. The sound is not a rising-then-falling “mmmmm” voicing of satisfaction. It’s much more a starts-high-then-goes-low murmur that I have decided is a mix of basic acknowledgement, indication of understanding, polite demonstration of the listener’s attention, and sometimes agreement. I have to admit I was startled the first time when the entire room filled up with this sound at exactly the same time.

“We’re very happy to see your strong progress and improvements to the facility as we begin this grant’s disbursement”, I say.

My colleague translates and then suddenly the room fills with the first “mmmmm”.

“My role in Washington is to compile the financial data and memorandums to help get projects funds to you as quickly as we can.”

Translation in Kinyarwanda, then “MMMMMM”. Increased volumes always coincided with statements related to getting funds out quickly.

photo credit: Shared Interest

I then launch into my carefully crafted statement, likening the grant process to the current preparations for the coming rainy season. They have plowed the fields and readied the grain; we are assisting with outside monies that will, like the rain, allow their work to yield a strong harvest. It is fitting, respectful, and I smugly reflect on how well the metaphor applies to the role of a rich donor country in development.

Once the translator is finished, I’m met with a quiet, fairly polite “mmm”. Not quite the rousing murmur response I had been hoping for. As we discuss some grant paperwork, the translator explains one of the first forms to be signed. A commitment to a drug-free workplace, slightly ridiculous in a country and in a village where subsistence agriculture effectively prices everyone out of a market for recreational drug use, is one of the first standard items we have to cover. It is, after all, US government money being used for the project.

Upon translation, “MMMMMM” breaks out immediately and then strong, enthusiastic clapping to this passage. The country representative and I look at each other in surprise.

“I guess they like that one,” he says.

As mentioned, it is literally impossible to find any books in my public library’s system that both discuss Rwanda but omit mention of the 1994 genocide. To broadly summarize, the majority Hutu people, who had until relatively recently been shut out of power and privilege, took up machetes and butchered nearly a million of their minority Tutsi countrymen. In the immediate wake of the genocide, the Tutsi rebel forces swept down into the country from northern strongholds, drove out the genocidaires, and proclaimed the end of ethnicity and a new beginning for the country. They also quietly re-assumed their traditional dominance of the organs of political and military power.

The new arrangement has largely worked with no breakouts of violence for more than a decade and a strong record of economic growth. That being said, for all the discussion of the genocide in the literature and even a Hollywood movie Hotel Rwanda, I have gotten a sense that any actual discussion of the events is something not suited for polite conversation while actually in Rwanda.

Instead, there are subtle clues and hints as to a person’s ethnicity. Many of the persecuted minority spent years in Tanzania and Uganda as refugees. They learned English, were exposed to more modern economies, and they have assumed many positions in international organizations like ours. There is no mention of the word “Tutsi”, but the term “returnee” seems to be an acceptable code word.

During one moment of a heated meeting with a company director on a different project visit, I caught a glimpse of the issue’s weight on the country or at least on how they want to present themselves to outsiders. I had to negotiate access to the director’s financial records by one of our staff members who the director has claimed is out to smear his reputation. As discussion becomes heated, he blurts out, “Do you know about the genocide? Do you know what happened here?”

I have no idea where this came from, we’re communicating in my slow, rusty French, and I am left slightly speechless. His colleagues struggle to jump in at this point.

“No! It’s something that cut to the heart of Rwanda! I won’t back down! I can’t allow this inspection visit from that staff member!”

Five members of his management team alternately plead in their Kinyarwanda language with him, while trying to anxiously steer the conversation away from the whole issue. My staff’s uncomfortable, I can see the managing director is angry and yet also embarrassed at his own outburst, his nearby wife appears mortified. I am more befuddled, trying to understand where this suddenly came from. Maybe a people beaten and subjected to such violence live with the scars under the surface. Or maybe this simply an irrational businessman who is used to getting his way and when pressed decides to claim victimhood so I will back down. There is a vein of truth running below the cultural surface that I won’t understand on this eight-day visit.

After visiting the pineapple growers’ cooperative, my team and I overnight in a small guesthouse.  Rising early, we drive back to the capital on a Sunday morning. The roads are crowded with people, Hutus in this case, who are making their way to Sunday church service. Shorter, darker skinned, and with broader facial features than my Tutsi staff members, there is no way to really believe that the issue of ethnicity and race is behind this country just yet. Rather than talk about the obvious features, I make a simple comment about how these rural people appear to be quite religious and diligent in their observation.

“One hand with the Bible and one hand with the machete,” says a staff member sitting in the car. “That’s the kind of religion these people have.” I say nothing. The other staff member simply murmurs a soft “mmmmm”.

Jett Thomason is now a program analyst managing small grants projects in Africa. The views expressed are entirely his own opinion and in no way are representative of any government or other institution. Over the past decade his travels and work have taken him throughout the former Soviet Republics and Europe to Afghanistan and Iraq.

By Jett Thomason

My alarm clock goes off at five. It’s been about four hours since I fell asleep. I’ve woken up to go to the early-morning festivities for a neighborhood circumcision ceremony which is locally and collectively referred to as one of several Uzbek “weddings”. I have been a Peace Corps Volunteer in a small provincial town in Uzbekistan for more than a year now. The people of my town are exceedingly friendly and known to be the most festive in the country. If there’s a wedding to go to, it will be a neighbor of mine pouring the vodka and cracking jokes for the table.

An Uzbek man can reasonably expect to be the main participant in four “weddings” in his life. There’s the bishek-toi (new baby wedding), the sunnat-toi (circumcision wedding for boys), the niqoh-toi (marriage wedding), and the final funeral celebration. All of these are pretty similar in the arrangement. Neighbors and friends and recent companions and new acquaintances and coworkers and their families all come out for the bash. Part of the wedding which is limited to men only is the morning plov ceremony that I have woken up so early for.

We can hear the horns before we can see the house. Big bellowing long trumpets announce the opening of the wedding. Guests arrive streaming onto the street. It’s been blocked off to cars and set with plastic tables and chairs. Most everyone is wearing their skullcap with the local evil-eye preventive charms sewn on. The hosts are leading people in, and everyone exchanges head-nods with their hand across their chest in the wonderful Muslim greeting. It expresses piety, modesty, honor and deference all at once.

Once a table is filled, the serving and eating begins. One man pours the tea the requisite three times, another opens the vodka, young boys run around handing out tomato and onion salads. Older boys quickly follow them with plov, the steaming rice, carrot, and meat dish that is ubiquitous in this part of the world. The word is the root for English “rice pilaf”.  Legend states that Alexander the Great’s army chef was puzzled over what to cook with such simple ingredients. Plov, it became, and apparently the soldiers took to it heartily because there’s not a celebration in Central Asia without it. The dish is slightly different every time you have it. Or so I’m told. Plov is like fine French wine, far wiser people than I can detect the subtitles of cooking it in different ways. I just enjoy it and don’t bother with the shades of distinction.

Everyone eats. The plov is packed into spoons or palms and slid into the mouth. Neighbors mutually implore each other to eat. Vodka, tea, soda, and melon are passed from hand to hand to hand and finally to mouth. The plov portion is just finishing up as the young boy of honor is brought out in his turban and robe made of velour and gold trim.

The grandfather holds up his grandchild—today a man. Speeches are made and countless people wish the young lad success, health, and a large family. One of the elders has had a bit more vodka than he should have, and expresses his hope that “what the mullah made short today, may it be much larger in the future!” Great laughs come from the men at the tables, great sighs from the ladies looking out from the doorways.

People begin to finish their meals and work their way into the adjacent park. Today’s wedding is even more noteworthy because there is going to be a ram fight. The hosting family has spent about $10,000 on the prizes for the winning rams.  For perspective this largess is spent in a country where a person pulls down an average monthly salary of $80. All local ram owners have been invited. As such, there’s quite a crowd waiting around the field when we arrive.

As we walk in, we see the rams tied up and waiting for their moment. A few are banging their head against the trunks of trees. These are the berserkers, the ones given their due space. Other rams are congenial enough to be petted. They all have nicknames. Tornado, Gypsy, Super, and several Tysons are all ready to win their masters a rug or maybe the championship prize of a camel.

The park fills up over the course of the hour. The camel is terrified, frothing at the mouth, and difficult to control. Dust piles up around its stamping legs and passersby futilely try to keep their pants clean while inspecting the beast. The musicians have turned the music more upbeat and a costumed girl dances for small notes from the bystanders.

Finally our host comes out and takes the microphone from the band. There are yet more speeches. People are beginning to get tired and are itching to see some action. The rams peacefully look on, grubbing for grass. One man speaks for ten minutes, repeatedly answering his own rhetorical questions. The sun begins to beat down and the vodka fades. I desperately wish for a ram to dash across and butt him off the field. Finally it’s over and the crowd roars relief and satisfaction as the first two rams are brought out.

Someone notices my camera and urges me forward for a better shot.  The aggressive hospitality of the crowd has pushed me right out onto the edge of the field for a front-row view. I’m an honored guest, but having about a thousand people stare at me as I stare at the rams doesn’t feel so honored.  As the rams are squared up, I feel eyes lift from the foreigner to the real sight.

The rams break free of their owners and the heads of the animals smack together.  It sounds like fencing with logs. My unease at watching the fight disappears in the rush of the moment. The rams shake, back up slowly, and run towards each other again for a mighty smack. They back up again, but they’re not walking backwards in perfectly straight lines. They are backing up slowly but surely in my direction. Smack, another shake, another move towards me. I start to look anxiously at the ditches, benches, and speakers blocking me from an easy exit.

Smack, they crash again and one of the rams bows out. The crowd gives its solid approval at the performance, the beaten ram runs back…. towards me. I snap a picture of imminent impact and scramble to get across the ditch. Dust billows up as I try to cross over the side of the field; the shamed loser is scared and looking to get past or through me. I hop up onto a ledge full of people, the ram stops short and nonchalantly strolls in the other direction. I laugh at myself along with the rest and decide that I’ll enjoy the following matches as a local would—on the sidelines.

The other rams are brought out in pairs and steadily the rugs and other prizes are passed out. It comes time to give the camel off. A monster is led onto the field. It’s huge, at least waist high on a tall man and I can’t begin to guess how much it weighs. The horns curl back under and over its ears and the gray wool shines in the sun. He’s the reigning champion. The speaker entreats someone to challenge him. Minutes pass as the speaker assures that the loser will also get a consolation prize. It’s still a while before a smaller ram is led out. The excited owner pulls it by the horn; it’s not as willing.

The animals are arranged in the middle of the field. The speaker calls for the American guest to come out and watch. I’m pushed out to the field again. The large and imposing ram is even more so from close up. Suddenly the white challenger makes a dash at the large one. Smack. Perhaps he can pull it off…they back up, the owners, a few feet away, encourage their beasts with clapping and cursing. Smack, and they bounce off each other. Both shake, back even farther up, and run at it again. Smack, the white ram’s legs buckle but he regains.

The champion doesn’t even appear winded. They hit and retreat again. The white ram backs up, backs up, backs up, and people start falling down as he backs into the crowd. The rams start to dash towards each other from sixty feet away. Simultaneously they both dive into the air. The champion has the mass and the advantage and blows down the smaller ram.

It’s over, the white one turns and runs. For added glory the black champion encourages the flight with a hit to the rear of the failed challenger. The crowd heartily approves. The cheers could be from anywhere and from anytime.

As the prize camel is brought onto the field, the owner beams and the host makes generous gestures. He’s too far on to the pitch to speak into the microphone but it’s not needed. We’ve heard the same lines a thousand times today. The proud winner stands by its owner, avowed champion again. The camel suddenly jumps and spits, the startled winning ram turns tail and runs off the field followed by its owner. The crowd enjoys this sight as much as the fight. Old men turn grinning to each other. “There’s always someone bigger!” they mutually confirm.

I pick my way through the crowd, past the spitting camel, and exit the dusty field. Another wedding, another memory, but this isn’t one I’ll soon forget.

Jett Thomason was a TEFL volunteer in Uzbekistan from 2002- 2004 in the United States Peace Corps.  Since then, he’s worked in Afghanistan and Iraq and traveled extensively throughout Asia, Europe, and the countries of the Former Soviet Union. He lives in Washington, DC.

the beach at Lake Tanganyika in Burundi

No Leave Travel Blog

I know I shouldn’t complain about business travel to Africa. It’s always a rewarding experience. But it’s also an exhausting one. For nearly three weeks I had been waking up at 6, cleaning out my work emails, and leaving the hotel by 7. We would be on the road all day seeing projects. With the sun long set, I would return to my hotel room, eat an overpriced and usually mediocre hotel meal, and crash. So when I suddenly found myself with a free afternoon in Burundi, I was thrilled.

To say that post-conflict Burundi doesn’t see many tourists would be a gross understatement. Travel on the highways is banned after 6 pm when the military pulls back to their garrisons. I attended a security briefing at the embassy a few days into my visit where I learned I had been violating protocol for at least three days by such rash measures as taking local taxis and traveling without a radio link to the security station.

The threat to life and limb and the nearly complete lack of tourism infrastructure were obstacles to enjoying my rare bit of leisure time, but the Lonely Planet guide raved about the beaches of Lake Tanganyika where “the waves are strong enough to keep away the parasitic snails that infest most of East African bodies of water.” What had really gotten me excited was the brochure from the swanky hotel, “Club du Lac”, that had quietly been inserted into my passport when it returned from the Burundian Embassy’s visa desk. I guessed the Ambassador’s brother must be an owner. Either way, the lake, the hotel, and its beach sounded great. Even better, the US security officer had actually signed off on the safety of the place. But really, I needed a little downtime.

I was not totally sure that I could just walk into the hotel and onto their stretch of beach, but I have always been a big believer in begging for forgiveness rather than asking for permission. I changed in the hotel bar restroom, slipped on my cheap Chinese mirrored sunglasses, and walked out to the sand as if I knew what I was doing.

Lake Tanganyika

It was a Saturday and one of the rare beautiful days in the middle of the rainy season. Dark green mountains rose up on the Congolese side of the lake crested by white clouds. A pristine beach with ocean-worthy sand lay in front of me. A bored guard with his AK-47 was throwing rocks at a can for want of people to watch. I had the beach almost entirely to myself. A European diplomat and his wife were playing in the shade. Figuring them not to be the bag-snatching type, I asked them to watch my things while I went into the waves. They pleasantly agreed.

The water was cool and fresh with the wind blowing just hard enough to stir up some surf. It was fantastic. The view was pristine, and I was alone in the water, the only soul taking advantage of the natural peace and tranquility of floating in the lake. It was a Saturday and people in this poor country could only afford to take their Sundays off. I had the water all to myself. Floating on my back, looking at Congo bobbing in and out of my line of sight, I had to admit that while it was not quite adventuring like I used to do, the government-sponsored travel had its moments.

Half an hour later, I strolled out of the waves, glowing with the realization that I was in the heart of Africa, that it was beautiful, that I was loving my job, and that I would get to come back to all this in the near future. I walked back to get my bag from the European couple.

“How was the water?” the man asked.

“Oh fantastic,” I replied. “It really was just the right temperature and so fresh. Like the ocean but without all the salt.”

They nodded politely in agreement. “So you don’t worry about the hippos?”

I looked at them, looked down, then at the mountains as I collected my thoughts.

“Thanks again.” I grabbed my bag, slipped on the sunglasses, and walked over to the bar for a drink.

Posted by Jett Thomason, 20 Jan 2010

By Avery Sumner

My mother crossed the border of the United States for the first time in her life two years ago. It was to visit me during one of my off-season excursions. When I owned the cafe on Chokoloskee Island in Florida, I often traveled in the summer months when my business was closed.

I recall my usually insightful mother saying how she looked out the airplane window for her first glimpse of foreign soil and mused, they have the same dirt. As if dirt would be an entirely different substance over here. I laughed when she marveled at how the baby of foreign speaking people played the same peek-a-boo game as American babies. Not realizing the whole purpose of the game is to play with a child not yet old enough to speak any language.

I laughed at her not because of the foolish thoughts, I mean I’d had those too. My first trip to England led me to Brighton Beach, which wasn’t a sandy beach at all, but a coast with lots and lots of rocks almost like you’d find in a playground. I thought, why, and better yet, how did they put these here? My brain process makes perfect sense to a person who’s only seen natural sandy beaches and man-made rocky playgrounds.

But to the rest of the knowing world, the idea that people would haul enough rocks to cover an entire shoreline is evidently absurd. So I understood my mother’s mindset. It was just funny to see her where I had been years before on my first trip across the ocean.

I’m living in France now, for the next year or two. Since moving here, I’ve found many occasions to throw myself the same condescending smile I gave my mother. It doesn’t matter how much you’ve traveled, when in a new world, you think and regretfully say the craziest things.

I’ve recently been wondering why this is so and I think I can give two pretty good explanations. The first is that, for me at least, traveling represents adventure. I expect everything to be dazzlingly different. So I’m always surprised when the ordinariness of life meets me in my exotic travels. You mean dogs bark here too? Truly, some of the most surprising finds are not the differences, but the similarities, because you’re not expecting things to be the same.

The other instigator of complete foreigner stupidity is the consistent discovery that basic facts are not at all facts. Like the fact that hammers have two sides, the hitting side and the forked extracting side. This is not something I remember learning; it’s just something that Is. Do I know how to put a nail in the wall to hang a picture? Yes. Do I know how to do this in France? No. Here, hammers are missing the forked side, like mini sledge hammers, like pencils without erasers. How do you get the nail out if you make a mistake? I can’t say.

Something as second nature as flushing the toilet now consumes quite a lot of my mental energy, so much so that I get nervous if I have to use a bathroom I don’t know. No two toilets are the same in France. Some have a chain to pull, some have a button to press, some have two buttons to press, some have a foot pedal, some have a button to pull and some flush themselves only after you’ve exited the automatic door. I’m certain there are other varieties I have yet to encounter.

Basic facts about drinking have since been disproved as well. To have a beer does not mean to hold and sip as often as you like. I noticed this when Alain and I were at a small working-class bar where all the tables had been moved outside for the summer solstice festivities. Grilled sausages could be had and beer and cocktails circulated. It was summer, it was outside, we were grilling. Yet every single person sat in a chair with a drink on the table, not even a hand around the glass.

I thought, if I was at Leebo’s in Everglades City there’d be people wandering about all with drinks in hand, some even double fisted. Suddenly the beer glass I had been clinging to became extremely apparent to me and I felt the need to put it on the table. But that felt even stranger so I picked it up again. My lawlessness lasted a mere seconds before I decided to conform and set the glass back down on the table.

Then the singer broke out with an REM song, albeit with a hint of Frenchness. “Zat’s me in zee corner, zat’s me in zee spaut light loosing my reeleezgion.” It was like my own personal soundtrack, wondering how much of myself I stood to lose by relearning all the facts of life.

So this is my new foundation; a world turned backwards and inside out. Even as I type I see the “A” coming out as a “Q” because French keyboards have some letters in different places. When the simplest things that you understood as common sense fail to work for you, something bizarre (to use a French word) happens to your frame of reference and you begin to question the very laws of nature, like the make-up of dirt I suppose. I’m not sure I even know how to walk down the street anymore. In French, to convey that I miss home I have to say, home misses me very much.

Then just when you begin to expect all things to be alien–all of life–the strangest thing happens. You realize some things are the same. And then you say it out loud because it’s just such a profound discovery. Like the other day when I was at our little grocery shop I noticed the woman in front of me had a scrap piece of paper with the things she needed scribbled down. I caught myself, but truly, I almost remarked out loud how strange it was that she used, gasp, a grocery list, just like us. I don’t know, I guess because the shop was so small or something, or because people tend to shop everyday or I don’t know, they just do it differently. So the list seemed extravagantly the same.

In a way, my expectations for everything to be magically different, for the adventurer in me, translates as hoping for things to be better. I guess I was hoping to suddenly be a morning person. But no, motivation is just as hard to come by here in France. Loneliness and purposelessness float around here too. I walk the same, lay down and wake the same. Gravity pulls just as heavy and all the same things I struggle with at home are here. And you know, they have the same dirt.

Avery Sumner lived on Chokoloskee Island for seven years where she owned the store begun by C.G. McKinney in 1890. She lived in France for two years after that and currently resides in northern Georgia with her French husband Alain.

Stephen Bugno has been writing about travel ever since his mother made him keep a travel journal at the age of 9 on a family vacation to the southwestern United States. Since then his travels have taken him to four continents and his writing has been published in more than ten online and print publications including the San Francisco Chronicle and the Philadelphia Inquirer. He specializes in off-the-beaten-track destinations, budget and independent/alternative travel and travel narratives.

He temporarily resides in Fredericksburg, Virginia, freelance writing in addition to editing the GoMad Nomad Travel Mag.

He blogs at Bohemian Traveler and  Blog of a Modern Nomad

Reach him at stephenbugno [at] gmail [dot] com

By Stephen Bugno

a fellow pilgrim on the Camino de Santiago

Not a morning passes when I don’t hear the oop oop oop of the hoopoe. Some days I walk through vineyards, other days through centuries-old olive groves.

Usually the camino follows dirt roads, but at times I suffer the unforgiving impact of the pavement. Occasionally my way narrows into single-track, and I savor those moments. Wildflowers saturate the Andalusían spring. The waves of orange, yellow, and red make me smile when the pain in my feet demands otherwise.

When I arrive in Extremadura, free-range pig farms and cork forests compose the land. Later comes the monotony of the plains and the burn of the mountain climbs. I always pass cow pastures, and sometimes a toro stands alone on the opposite side: the road cutting the farm in two.

I can’t fully appreciate Spain’s history until I cross Merida’s 60-arch Roman bridge and slip underneath its triple-tiered aqueduct. Since I am an American, these are the features that imprint my memory and are too often taken for granted by Europeans who have grown up with them. In Salamanca, I ponder the generations of academics who have toiled inside the high walls of the university’s oldest buildings.

In Galicia, I pass through stone-built villages: Laza, Cea, and Laxe, so old they are inseparable from the landscape. The villages here are situated closer together than those in the regions I’ve come from. The green rolling hills are cut into lots by waist-high rock walls. The aging faces and lack of cars expose the sharp contrast between the outdated countryside and the vibrancy of modern Madrid.

view from along the Camino

I walk to experience life at walking pace. I catch what those traveling by car and tour bus miss. Moving at this speed I feel Spain in my tired joints, I hear Spain in the ringing of church bells, I taste Spain in each of the changing regional delicacies as I make my way north from Sevilla on the Via de la Plata.

Instead of pulling over to a scenic view point for five minutes, the view follows me for five miles. I see Spain unfold in front of me—the landscape picture book of back roads, front roads, agriculture, mountains, meseta, and lavender-lined footpaths. Time passes along the way: 38 mornings of café con leche and 38 evenings of tintos y tapas.

When I walk I become part of the environment. When the wind blows and the sky pours I become cold and wet. The warm Iberian sun dries me back to warmth and the thick oak groves shade my rest breaks when it becomes too dominant.

I am happy to say buenos dias to the townspeople in each community I pass through. I appreciate their brief hospitality and the fleeting moments we cross paths. They smile: surprised that I’m so young and walking alone.

I have always been told that the journey is more important than the destination. So, nearing the end, I try to downplay the significance of my arrival at the cathedral in Santiago. But I can’t convince myself that tomorrow will not be extraordinary.

Santiago de Compostela is a special place, and after walking almost six weeks to get there, the magnitude of my arrival will only be amplified by the journey that got me here.

Stephen Bugno walked the 1000 km from Sevilla to Santiago de Compostela on the Via de la Plata in the spring of 2008. His writing has appeared in The San Francisco Chronicle, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Transitions Abroad, and the Matador Network.