Meeting people

To be fair I have seen 4 year olds with machetes. It’s an essential tool. What makes this moment special is 6 men with machetes in hand are walking towards us with serious intent. Its tricky timing as I am busy cutting onions for dinner. Emma has to be fed within 20 minutes of stopping her run for the day, I’m not sure about the reasoning for this but that is the thing that must be done. We are rushing, a little late, as we couldn’t find a good spot at the right mileage. I don’t have time now to chat to men with machetes.

Woocash and Robert are busy with the fire and setting up the campsite and get to watch their approach with rising concern. We had driven 100 metres off the road to an area of trees to hide Cleopatra but hiding a large 4×4 with a bright yellow bumper is tricky. And they probably saw us drive off the road and across the field.

As they arrive into our camp I turn round to greet them. It has to be me, Robert and Woocash don’t speak Portuguese. There’s a little tension in the air. After a friendly greeting, I go on to tell them why we are there, their faces relax into smiles. I guess they didn’t want to fight either.

The leader asks our names. “Woocash” says Woocash. Its caught the leader out. “Eh?” “Woocash”

“Woo… Woo?”

“Woocash” This looks like it’s going to go on for some time.

An exasperated voice behind the leader bursts out: “Woocash!” There is the definite tone of “you blithering idiot”.

I grin inside, it doesn’t matter what the culture, the emotions younger people feel at times for their elders are the same across the world.

Happily, the food is ready for Emma and Mike when they arrive. Emma has just run her furthest distance of the journey. 73 kilometres! In fact, Emma is feeling so good, she tells us to go ahead tomorrow to Pemba, to prepare for her arrival. They will be there in a couple of days!

Montepuez at dawn

Fetching water from the Mission by bicycle

Deadly scorpion in camp again

Fresh Watermelon from yesterday’s market

*****

Number of Days: 87

Total distance run by Emma: 3838 km, 2384 miles

Daily average distance run by Emma (including rest days): 44.1 km, 27.4 miles

Distance run today: 73.17 km, 45.46 miles

To be honest, I just love this moment and wanted to share it with you. I don’t even know why I like it so much. Possibly, I like that we are helping people out, or may be it’s the whole male only moment of men working together with boys to resolve a mechanical problem and all from different countries – the boys from Zambia, Robert from Zimbabwe and Woocash from Poland. I think that must be it.

Did you notice the wooden pump? And the yellow containers are to be filled with water at the bore hole and then they cycle home with them. Many people don’t have bicycles and walk several kilometres a day to fill up. We often fill our water from the boreholes and don’t even need to purify it, which I find amazing as it wasn’t like that when I visited 20 years ago. But we rarely carry it more than a few yards to the car. Living as we do now, longing to be clean, makes me appreciate the easy availability of fresh clean water in the UK.

The scorched scenery in the first photo will be from fires that are set deliberately.

Emma continues her incredible achievement in a lot of pain. We are almost at the border and almost time for a rest. She keeps pushing herself to get there sooner. Mike is always by her side.