Abayudaya deliver relief to famine-hit Ugandans

Abayudaya members, from left, Eria Muyamba, Esau Wanani and Igaal Sizomu deliver food relief to famine-stricken villagers in the remote Ugandan village Acegerekinei on July 29, 2009. (Lorne Mallin)

By Lorne Mallin · Jewish Telegraphic Agency · August 2, 2009

ACEGEREKINEI VILLAGE, Uganda (JTA) -- After four hours of driving on ever tinier roads this morning, our food truck becomes stuck in the sand and we have to push it out. We are following the packed pickup in Rabbi Gershom Sizomu's SUV -- four members of his Abayudaya Jewish congregation, two Ugandan TV reporters and me, a semi-retired Canadian journalist volunteering with the Abayudaya.

Just then we see thatch-roofed mud huts in the distance under a bright blue sky dotted with puffy clouds. We see people gathered under a large tree. The high-pitched trill of ululation greets our arrival at last in Acegerekinei, a remote village in northeastern Uganda.

We begin unloading the 2,420 pounds of food relief we have donated to hungry families among the estimated 3 million Ugandans facing starvation in a worsening famine. I was happy to have contributed 220 pounds of corn flour.

The Ugandan government says there are food shortages in 52 districts in the north and east brought on by drought and other factors. Nearly 40 people have died of hunger-related complications in the East African nation of about 32 million.

Rabbi Sizomu says he wants to act before the numbers grow worse, before a high death count is needed to trigger a response. He received ordination in the Conservative movement last summer after a year studying in Israel and four years at the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at the American Jewish University in Los Angeles. He became the first ordained black rabbi in sub-Saharan Africa.

"Central to our Jewish values is saving lives," he tells the 65 families sitting on the ground in the shade of the tree. "We wish you well and we pray that God brings this to an end."

Rabbi Sizomu is responding to a village elder who thanked the Abayudaya for coming "and for rescuing us." Acegerekinei is in Katakwi, one of the 17 hardest-hit districts that the government says are experiencing famine.

The villagers all clutch cards from the Ugandan Red Cross, which is helping coordinate relief, entitling them to a share of the corn flour and beans that the Abayudaya trucked north from their home in the Mbale district near the Kenyan border. The Abayudaya first embraced Judaism in the 1920s and now include about 1,000 members in several Ugandan villages.

The Red Cross chose the most vulnerable in Acegerekinei to receive relief -- the elderly, the disabled and those suffering from HIV/AIDS. They line up as best they can; some are in wheelchairs fashioned out of plastic lawn chairs.

Each receives about 33 pounds of corn flour to make corn porridge and the staple dish called posho, plus about 3.3 pounds of beans. Each pound of corn flour is about enough for a meal for three people.

“Our community responded overwhelmingly to the call to donate,” Rabbi Sizomu says. “Everybody wanted to help.”

The response is considerable from a community that mostly lives on subsistence farming. Though the Mbale district has less rain than normal, crops are still growing.

“I believe that life takes precedence over everything,” the rabbi says. “God is not going to stretch out His hand physically, so we are extensions of God's arm.”

I notice that we are here just hours before the Jewish holiday Tisha B'Av, when practicing Jews fast for a day. We have the luxury of turning on and turning off our food consumption.

The rabbi's son Igaal, 15, helps distribute the food we brought.

“It felt good to donate,” he says. “If we get hungry, maybe there would be others who would help us.”

More relief is coming; more food was collected than the truck could hold. And on this morning, students visiting the Abayudaya from the California Institute of the Arts of Los Angeles donated $190.

To contribute to the food relief, donate at http://www.kulanu.org on the Web site of Kulanu Inc., a U.S. nonprofit that supports development in the Abayudaya community; write "Uganda Emergency Fund" in the comments field.

(Lorne Mallin is a semi-retired Canadian journalist volunteering with the Abayudaya.)

Being of service: A Vancouverite goes to Africa

CITIZEN BYTES

Published Tuesday, July 7, 2009 | 02:28 PM ET

Submitted by Lorne Mallin

About/Bio: A lifelong journalist, I took early retirement at the end of 2006 from The Province newspaper in Vancouver where I was an editor. I then spent about two years doing newspaper travel writing on five continents. I'm 62, divorced, with one daughter, Lisa, 26, a masters student at Carleton in Ottawa.

My take: Volunteering for a year and a half in Africa is my answer to the recession. I based most of my retirement income on stocks and bonds in an investment management account. When the market nosedived, I decided to stop drawing income from the account and pursue a dream to volunteer in the developing world. It's a chance to let my investments recoup, I'm hoping, and do some good at the same time.

But to do what?

For years I've been intrigued by the Abayudaya of eastern Uganda, an African community of about 1,000 that first embraced Judaism in the 1920s. I'm a Jewish chant leader and they make beautiful music with Jewish prayers and African melodies. Last December I googled volunteer and Jewish and up popped the Abayudaya and Kulanu, a U.S. non-profit that supports their development. I applied to be a Kulanu volunteer for six months and studied teaching English at Greystone College in Vancouver for three months to prepare.

Since arriving April 21 I've been living in the new guest house at Nabugoye Hill, a village outside the town of Mbale. I focus on improving the written English of Grade 7s and 11s in the community's schools. My other initiatives include forming a spelling team, working with the Women's Association on an Abayudaya Jewish cookbook, helping Rabbi Gershom Sizomu develop his web site, reviving the Abayudaya Girls' Magazine, helping secure a grant to launch an egg farm, and coaching a community member, Athalia Nalongo, for a Kulanu-Abayudaya North American speaking tour. I pay all my expenses and live on about $1,000 a month.

I'm a city boy but I love the village life with its dirt paths and mango trees. Time is elastic. Chickens, goats and cattle forage for food everywhere. Lizards dart across the inner walls of the synagogue where I go to services Friday nights and Saturdays. The Abayudaya mainly survive on subsistence farming and cook outside over firewood or charcoal. I feel loved in their midst and have made good friends who I greet in the morning in Luganda: Wasuze otyanno? (How did you spend the night?). Children play, laugh and cry, and suffer malaria with frightening regularity.

I leave Oct. 18 and will spend some time with my daughter in Ottawa before heading to South Africa for all of 2010 at a black township high school outside of Cape Town, sponsored by Vancouver-based Education Without Borders.

Here are some of my photos:

Traditional singers, dancers and drummers perform in Mbale,
eastern Uganda. May 17, 2009.

Young musicians of the Abayudaya community practise their
songs at Nabugoye Hill, Mbale, Uganda. They have videos
posted on YouTube. April 30, 2009.

The main synagogue of the Abayudaya Congregation is
at Nabugoye Hill, Mbale, Uganda. April 23, 2009.

Athalia Nalongo and two of her daughters behind their
home in Namanyonyi, Mbale, Uganda. May 15, 2009.

Swinging a hammer helps rebuild swinging New Orleans

Father-daughter team Lisa and Lorne Mallin volunteer at a Habitat for Humanity house in New Orleans' Ninth Ward. Aleis Tusa photo

Volunteers Jessica Hopkins and, top, Mike Valdez work with New Orleans musician Jesse Moore building a Habitat for Humany house. Lisa Mallin photo

Volunteers work on putting up siding on a Habitat for Humanity house in New Orleans' flood-hit Ninth Ward. Lorne Mallin photo

Some of the homes built by Habitat for Humanity in the Musicians' Village in New Orleans' Ninth Ward. Lisa Mallin photo

Volunteer serves Christmas dinner to seniors at a Veterans of Foreign Wars hall in suburban Harahan. Lisa Mallin photo

Chef Chiqui Collier introduces her half-day New Orleans Cooking Experience – a four-course gourmet meal that guests help prepare. Lisa Mallin photo

St. Louis Cathedral towers over the palm trees on a warm winter day in Jackson Square in the French Quarter of New Orleans. Lisa Mallin photo

The beautiful Houmas House Plantation and Gardens on the Mississippi River is less than an hour's drive from Louis Armstrong International Airport in New Orleans. Lisa Mallin photo

The steamboat Natchez takes visitors on New Orleans-area cruises along the Mississippi River. Lorne Mallin photo

Trumpeter William Smith leads the 726 Jazz Band at the famed Preservation Hall in New Orleans' French Quarter. Lorne Mallin photo.

The historic French Quarter in New Orleans is famous for its nightlife, music and food. Lisa Mallin photo

Parade celebrating the Sugar Bowl brings more music and colour to the streets of the French Quarter in New Orleans. Lorne Mallin photo

Strolling the streets of New Orleans' French Quarter with its Spanish-influenced buildings. Lisa Mallin photo

One of the energy-efficient homes built well off the ground by Brad Pitt's Make It Right Foundation in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans. Lorne Mallin photo

Published April 4, 2009, in the

By Lorne Mallin

Voluntourism. Noun. Combines vacation travel with volunteering at the destination visited.

NEW ORLEANS, La. – Our building crew arrived as strangers from different directions in Canada and the U.S. but we were all spending part of our vacations helping this wonderful city recover from the still-visible scars of Hurricane Katrina.

"We wanted to come to New Orleans just because we've never been here and wanted to help out somehow," said Jessica Hopkins, 29, who flew here from Glendale, Calif., with her partner, Mike Valdez, 33.

That roughly parallels the motivation for my daughter, Lisa, 25, and me, plus the opportunity to see relatives we'd never met before – cousins whose shared ancestors' paths included Winnipeg.

We found a unique and welcoming metropolis, hurting to be sure but bouncing back and eager to show visitors the kind of good time the Big Easy (more easygoing than the Big Apple) has been famous for almost since it was founded by Montreal-born Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville in 1718.

We were marking my birthday at a Habitat for Humanity construction site in New Orleans' Ninth Ward, which was hard hit when 80 per cent of the city was flooded after Katrina swept in from the Gulf of Mexico on Aug. 29, 2005. When levees failed, at least 71 percent of the city's homes were damaged, many completely swept away, others ruined by water several metres high that stewed for weeks before it was pumped out.

More than a million voluntourists (volunteer tourists) have responded and more are needed. I signed up for the Habitat opportunity online (see If You Go) and at 7:15 a.m. we took a $10 taxi ride from the tourist-magnet French Quarter, passing hundreds of derelict and abandoned homes and an alarming number of weedy, vacant lots where families once lived. There were encouraging signs of new and restored homes and businesses bringing life back to the area.

We gathered with a few dozen other volunteers at a corner of the Musicians' Village, a visionary project of 72 homes conceived by Harry Connick, Jr. and Branford Marsalis after many of the city's beloved musicians were forced to flee by Katrina.

A Habitat supervisor assigned us to a crew of seven putting up siding at 2113 Louisa St., a typical single-level Habitat home of about 1,100 square feet on a 35-foot lot with three bedrooms and one bathroom.

Some of us were experienced but Lisa and I were pretty much novices. While measuring was challenging at first, the fiber cement siding was easy to cut and hammer and we got into the swing of it.

Everybody brought their own lunch and sat around on building materials in the warm 16C sun in the backyard getting to know each other, including musician and budding homeowner Jesse Moore, who was putting in part of his 350-hour sweat equity by working with us.

The homeowners' sweat equity constitutes their down payment and then they pay off the $75,000, 30-year, no-interest mortgage at about $600 a month.

Moore, a 61-year-old singer-songwriter, had been living in Austin, Texas, when he returned to New Orleans and was approved for the last available house in the village.

"I was very excited about that," he said. We were excited to hear Moore's music and most of the crew turned up the next night when he performed at a French Quarter pub.

Music is central to the New Orleans experience and helped make another opportunity to volunteer great fun. A local couple, Keith Crawford and Deborah Frydman, hosted a Christmas dinner for seniors and posted on the New Orleans craigslist site for 30 people to help serve. We signed up.

They hired caterers and a three-piece band that set a warm and lively tone for the 300 seniors who were bused into a Veterans of Foreign Wars hall in suburban Harahan. We enjoyed chatting with the guests and serving the lunchtime meal.

That night we volunteered at a New Orleans Hornets NBA game after finding the chance online. We were given official Hornets shirts with "Volunteer" on the back to wear and keep, and assignments. I put temporary Hornets tattoos on young and old while Lisa coloured fans' hair with purple and gold hairspray.

By halftime we were sprung loose to watch the rest of the game, a 100-87 losing cause against the L.A. Lakers, but it was a thrill to see Kobe Bryant play.

Our tastiest "volunteering" was the New Orleans Cooking Experience, a half-day extravaganza with chef Chiqui Collier at the House on Bayou Road, a circa-1790s Creole plantation house. Guests pay $150 each for the privilege of helping prepare elements of a fabulous four-course meal, sipping on wine and then sitting down to enjoy the fruits of their and the chef's labours.

That's a great splurge. But eating here is a passion that doesn't need to break the bank. The brand-new Zagat guide credits New Orleans with the lowest average meal costs in the U.S. – $28.52 compared to the national average of $34.31.

We ate at the tony, venerable Galatoire's restaurant but also budget meals like splitting a heaping roast beef Po'Boy (like a sub) for $9.95 at Messina's. Another day we popped into Frank's Restaurant for takeout and carved the $13.75 Muffaletta, a massive sandwich with a round, flat bun of near-Frisbee proportions, into quarters for two meals.

On Christmas Day, we feasted on a Louisiana specialty, a deep-fried turkey dinner, for $9.50 at 13 Monaghan's in the Faubourg Marigny district, and later on I sipped a frozen Irish coffee for $4.50 at Molly's at the Market in the French Quarter. (Full disclosure: both places are run by my newfound family.)

As much as the food, people are drawn to New Orleans for the music, and more specifically the jazz. We sat on the floor of the famed Preservation Hall a few feet from hot trumpeter William Smith and the 726 Jazz Band. A few times we caught sizzling musicians at the Spotted Cat on Faubourg Marigny's Frenchman Street, which has better music than Bourbon Street.

A special treat was the gospel-oriented Christmas Eve midnight mass at St. Jude's Cathedral. Gospel in a Catholic church? That's because of New Orleans' history of slavery and French and Spanish rule. There's a Canadian element too here in the Cajuns (local pronunciation of Acadians) who were expelled from Nova Scotia in the 18th century.

New Orleanians love to celebrate. Mardi Gras, which falls this year on Feb. 24, is New Orleans' signature street party. I kept hearing that the city's Jazz Fest, April 24-26 and April 30-May 3, is unbeatable for music lovers.

Most celebrations emanate from the French Quarter with its narrow streets and Spanish-flavoured architecture. "Like Havana with newer cars," said my daughter Lisa. The Quarter is on higher ground and was not flooded.

We enjoyed browsing the antique-store treasures on St. Louis Street, café au lait with doughnut-like beignets dusted with icing sugar, pecan pralines at Aunt Sally's, touring grand old homes and cruising by the house that Brad Pitt and Angelina bought. Pitt's Make It Right Foundation is building homes in the Lower Ninth Ward.

Beyond the Quarter, we recommend a Cajun Encounters tour to get oriented to the city, the excellent National World War II Museum, the funky boutiques on Magazine Street, the powerful IMAX film "Hurricane on the Bayou", riding the vintage street cars down St. Charles Avenue for $1.25 and the state ferry across the Mississippi River for free.

And if you want to help New Orleans, the city wants you. "We have come a long way but we've still got a lot of work to do," Mayor Ray Nagin told me in an interview. "Come down, do some good and enjoy the city of New Orleans."

You'll feel good. "It almost felt like we were being ambassadors for Canada," said Lisa. "We were making a difference in people's lives."

IF YOU GO
• Getting there: Flights from Winnipeg connect through Chicago, Minneapolis and Denver
• Accommodation and food: Fodor's 2009 New Orleans guide is hot off the press, and you can get a free visitors' guide from www.neworleanscvb.com
• To volunteer: www.handsonneworleans.org and www.habitat-nola.org
• Thing globally, act locally: Habitat Winnipeg www.habitat.mb.ca
• What's happening: www.neworleansonline.com (also click through to "voluntourism")
• Get a feel for New Orleans in Brad Pitt's hit movie, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"

Sacred Mayan Journey to the goddess

Mayan leaders head up the procession of villagers attending the opening rituals of the Sacred Mayan Journey at Xcaret Park.

The Sacred Mayan Journey was more than 36 hours of rituals, ceremonies, dance, music and paddling.

After a tropical storm cancelled their crossing plans to Cozumel, paddlers circle their canoes in Xcaret Park's tranquil lagoon.

Sunset from my balcony at the Coral Princess Hotel and Resort in Cozumel.

At Chankanaab National Park on Cozumel, the goddess Ixchel with maidens representing her various faces, and an oracle priest above.

Wearing a headdress of a coiled serpent, the goddess Ixchel gives her message to pilgrims on the Sacred Mayan Journey at Chankanaab National Park.

At Chankanaab National Park, women representing the phases of the moon are paddled past men representing spirits of the four ways of the cosmos.

A team of women paddlers sets out across the channel to the Riviera Mayan mainland.

Three canoes begin paddling the 18 kilometres to the Riviera Maya mainland on the Sacred Mayan Journey.

When Sofia Arenas, Betty Sandoval and her sister Gina Sandoval-Juarez paddled from Cozumel, one of their oars snapped in two.

The first canoe arrives on a shortened nine-kilometre paddle from Xcaret Park at Mamitas Beach for the end of the Sacred Mayan Journey.

Friends rush to help a capsizing canoe as it arrives from Xcaret Park at Mamitas Beach for the end of the Sacred Mayan Journey.

The canoe's paddlers and friends bring the boat into the beach.

The paddlers are greeted with hugs and kisses from their friends.

Mayan villagers await the return of the canoes.

On the beach, women representing different phases of the moon.

One of the four spirits representing the four ways of the cosmos.

The second canoe makes its way to Mamitas Beach.

One of the paddlers is Pilar de los Rios, of the Yaxche restaurant, who we met our first night in the Riviera Maya.

Pregnant women at Mamitas Beach await the arrival of canoes at the end of the Sacred Mayan Journey.

Who can resist a cute kid picture?

Mayan women elders at Mamitas Beach.

Published September 13, 2008

Stormy times when Ixchel meets Chac and Arthur

By Lorne Mallin

PLAYA DEL CARMEN, Mexico – At first it was just a speck on the horizon of the turquoise Caribbean Sea. Then we could see the first of the native dugout canoes with four men in loincloths and one woman in a Mayan dress paddling steadily in the choppy ocean.

Slowly they carved a path through the waves toward the golden sands of Mamitas Beach at this resort city an hour south of Cancun on the Yucatan peninsula's Riviera Maya.

Metres from the beach the canoe tipped over and other paddlers rushed into the surf to help. When the exhausted paddlers finally made it to shore they were embraced by family and friends while hundreds of onlookers cheered and applauded.

Two more boats arrived for the closing ceremonies of a remarkable cultural, spiritual and theatrical experience called the Sacred Mayan Journey, the recreation of an ancient annual pilgrimage by canoe to the island of Cozumel that was lost for more than 500 years after the Spanish colonized the area. Women had been required to be pilgrims there at least once in their lives to ask for fertility.

Local officials plan to continue the event every year, helping this area make its mark as more than a sun and sand destination. For tourists, it's a window to the customs and practices of a people who built an elaborate, complex civilization here many centuries ago.

The focus of the journey was to honour Ixchel (EeshCHEL), the Mayan goddess of the moon, with prayers and offerings for four reasons -- fertility of the soil, good weather, health and the continuity of life -- and to bring back her message.

Our press-tour group of invited journalists witnessed colourful ceremonies, dances, music, and purification rites that began near midnight May 30 at the eco-archeological Xcaret (shcarET) Park and ended more than 36 hours later. At the start, hundreds of Mayan villagers arrived singing in processions.

To purify ourselves, we joined in by removing our shoes and walking barefoot on a jungle path carpeted with palm leaves. We were also encouraged to participate by writing down offerings to Ixchel on slips of paper that were ceremonially burned to reach the goddess. I'm not sure I was in the right spirit. I offered my "tsuris," Yiddish for troubles.

Some of the journalists stayed all night. I slipped away with two others to the adjacent Occidental Grand Xcaret Resort for a few hours sleep and to marvel at the wonders of a gorgeous all-inclusive where even the mini-bar is included.

Throughout the rituals, we were serenaded by a melodic chant to the goddess: "Ixchel, Ixchel, la misión y el trabajo esperan ya; Ixchel, Ixchel, nadie puede ocultarnos tu verdad." Which means "Ixchel, Ixchel, the mission and work are waiting for us; Ixchel, Ixchel, nobody can hide your truth from us."

Teams of paddlers in Playa Del Carmen and on Cozumel trained for months to make the challenging crossing, 150 of them in 30 eight-metre canoes going over and another 150 coming back.

At least, that was the plan. The weekend was all about Ixchel but a couple powerful guys, the Mayan rain god Chac and Tropical Storm Arthur, stole her thunder. Torrential rains and fierce winds swept through the coastline.

The 18-kilometre canoe crossing to Cozumel was cancelled, a huge disappointment for the participants. In the morning in a tranquil Xcaret Park lagoon fringed with Mayan huts we witnessed paddlers circling their canoes without taking on the wild waters.

It turned out to be a wise decision. When the journalists headed over to Cozumel in a catamaran, we had to turn back half-way when high waves constantly washed over the deck. Some were sick and some were scared. Totally soaked, I chanted for deliverance.

But the show must go on. We crossed in a large ferry, rested and freshened up at Cozumel's waterfront Coral Princess Hotel and Resort, and bussed to Chankanaab National Park to see the evening dances and rituals. Here we found another serene lagoon with a recreated Mayan village and temple platform.

The dramatic presentation with fire, bathing maidens and fantastic costumes led to the focus of the evening -- the message from the goddess, in her turban-like headdress of an entwined serpent, through the medium of oracle priests. Essentially, her very eco-conscious message was: Mankind has destroyed the environment, and for that reason we're the ones responsible for our destiny. Ixchel said the only way this world is going to change is if we don't wait for some miracle to happen but make the change ourselves.

Early the next morning, the seas had calmed considerably and three canoes that were transported over from the mainland for readied for the crossing while a fourth held five women in red dresses, their faces painted in vertical turquoise stripes.

Representing phases of the moon, they were paddled around the lagoon under the gaze of four men painted head to foot in brilliant colours portraying spirits of the four ways of the cosmos.

A chilam or priest blessed the three canoes and they paddled away. Two of them made it to the other side in just over three hours while the third capsized and the paddlers were rescued. Mexican Navy vessels were on hand to help.

Meanwhile, 12 canoes left Xcaret Park for the nine-km journey up the coast to Mamitas Beach. Nine had to turn back in the worsening waves, including one that capsized four times and waited a half-hour for rescue.

The three from Xcaret that made it delivered Ixchel's message to the local Mayan leader amid dances and celebrations.

Betty Sandoval, 31, who paddled from Cozumel, said on the beach that the crossing "touched our hearts." She said the ancient pilgrims didn't have the benefit of weather forecasting technology. "They spiritually offered themselves to their god. I really admire that."

As many as 800 people took part in the many facets of the sacred journey. Fidencio Tzel, a dancer from a long line of Mayans, played a priest. "I was proud to be able to rescue part of the culture of my ancestors," he said.

The event was initiated by Xcaret Park, the launching point of the ancient pilgrimages, and organized with local municipalities. Two years of research involved the National Institute of Anthropology and History, the Maya Centre of the National Council for Culture and the Arts and the Research Institute of Philology of the National Autonomous University of Mexico. A choreographer, a composer, and makeup and costume artists helped make it a crowd-pleaser.

While it will be another year before the next journey, there are many other ways to connect with the Maya. Xcaret's spectacular evening show spotlights Mayan history and the park includes other cultural and spiritual experiences. The Life and Death Festival at Xcaret Oct. 30-Nov. 2 is another creative production.

The Riviera Maya features Mayan ruins and villages well worth seeing. I visited Tulum, a magical Mayan city from the 13th to 15th centuries an hour's drive south of Playa Del Carmen. The Palace of the Frescoes contains a mural of Ixchel and the main pyramid rises above a high cliff over the beach.

Life is not all history. The Riviera Maya attracts with modern-day cultural events, including two film festivals in the fall and the annual jazz festival Nov. 29-Dec. 1.

For some distilled culture, take in the Expo Tequila Aug. 16-19 on the main shopping street of Playa Del Carmen. There'll be food delights, mariachi bands, and tequila tasting. No historical study needed. Just raise a glass and say "salud!".

If you go

• Go to aircanadavacations.com for deals on Riviera Maya trips, including the Occidental Grand Xcaret Resort from $1,232 per person (air, land, taxes from Winnipeg) all-inclusive for a week in a double. More about the 4.5-star resort at www.occidentalhotels.com/grand/Xcaret.asp.
• Travel info at www.rivieramaya.com.
• Sacred Mayam Journey info at www.travesiasagradamaya.com.mx/index_eng.htm
• For Cozumel accommodation, contact the Coral Princess Hotel and Resort at www.coralprincess.com.
• Cozumel info at www.islacozumel.com.mx/
• I felt well-prepared with Lonely Planet's Yucatan guide.

Kenya: On the road

We never knew what we would find on the road in Kenya, both on safari and in more urban areas.

When elephants want to cross the road in front of you, they definitely get the right of way.

On the road, we encountered zebras and ostriches . . .

. . . and Thompson's gazelles . . .

. . . and an iridescent bird I've yet to learn the name of.

Also on the road, all manner of vendors. Here a man on the road from Nairobi airport sells passport covers.

Here, at the entrance to a safari area, vendors were delighted to see some rare visitors.

Kiosks waited for trade on the roadside.

Others waited for work. Unemployment is around 45 percent.

We drove through a poor Kenyan town on the border with Tanzania.

And in the town of Voi on the highway east to Mombasa sits a roadside mosque.