The Narrow Road to the Deep North

Molweni everyone,

Hope this email finds you in good health and spirits.

For those of you who haven't heard through the grapevine yet, we will be leaving South Africa next week (aiming for the 4th of April). Due to a financial meltdown with Matt's company, the new management have finally decided to forego starting up the African office. We entertained the idea of staying on, with me continuing with my music teaching and running the literacy programme at a local township school, while Matt joined up with one of many of the renewable energy companies in SA who are taking advantage of the critical shortage of electricity in the country.

But... our itchy feet won out and we have decided to take this unexpected opportunity to travel and explore more of Africa and beyond. So just a few days ago, we bought Foxy, a 1993 Land Rover 110 Defender, and right now she's getting fitted with some safety features and new (round!) wheels among other necessary gadgets to make us self-sufficient on the road. See pic of Foxy in attachment.

Our plan is to head overland through Africa (SA, Nambia, Zambia, Tanzania, Rwanda, DRC, Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, Sudan, Egypt), cross over into the Syria, Jordan, Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Austria, Switzerland, France, and finally to London. We aim to be there by early August and after visiting the Thornington Family, we'll fly to Toronto/Ottawa to see the Wong Family before finally heading to Vancouver Island. Matt will be starting a 2 year Renewable Energy Technology course at Malaspina College in Nanaimo and I'll be hopefully working soon after arriving (any job contacts and recommendations are more than welcome here!)

Part of our African journey will include a trip to Goma in the Democratic Republic of Congo, just on the border with Rwanda. Matt has a relative, Lyn Lusi, who along with her husband Jo, an orthopedic surgeon, founded and are now running HEAL AFRICA ( www.healafrica.org), a clinic for war victims. By all accounts it's a pretty amazing place doing vital work for the community and training new medical professionals. It was also recently visited by George Clooney in his role as UN ambassador.

Also on our route is Hope Clinic Lukuli in Kampala (www.hcluganda.org), a clinic run by friends in Uganda, focusing primarily on philanthropic maternity child healthcare in the community.

We are hoping to raise some funds and bring over some medical supplies in Foxy which are difficult to find in that part of the world. If you are interested in donating any amount to our cause, please send us an email as soon as possible so that we can purchase everything we need at once. After we've bought the supplies we'll let you know what has been bought and where it's going to. Both of the clinics also have NGO status so I think that makes donations tax-deductible so if you prefer you are also very welcome to go to their websites and donate directly to them.

So, we may be out of reach for a few months, but do keep those emails coming - we promise we will get around to replying to everyone! We will hopefully be updating fairly regularly with pictures and stories; Matt found a satellite phone which he thinks can connect to Facebook ("Yayyy!!" he says). Or keep checking this blog for those of you who can take in more information than one status update at a time ;)

For those of you who think will be staying or traveling close to our route and would like to meet up for drinks/dinner, send us an email with your up-to-date contact details and we'll try and meet up. It would be great to see some familiar faces en route, and we would have no trouble making little detours for hot showers and homemade meals! ;)

To our new-found friends in Cape Town/SA, enkosi (thank you) for all the good times and fantastic memories. During the past 7 months, we've had the opportunity to explore this dynamic country and its 9 provinces, all so varied and beautiful in their own unique way. From rural towns to city centres, the hospitality and generosity we met were second to none and I will always remember Cape Town as a city of contrasts with laid-back, fun-loving and vibrant people, not to mention incredibly steep hills - which I cursed while trying to master hill starts in my manual car! Who knows, maybe we'll be back in 2010 for The World Cup!!??

We will have a leaving party next week and we've bought paints for everyone to leave their mark on Foxy (but please nothing that might jeopardise our entry into Sudan, Syria etc!) but we have to wait for the garage to finish putting her back together first, then we'll let you Capetonians know when that will be happening.

Big smiles and warm hugs,

Bonnie and Matt
xoxo