African Adventure Motorcycle Travel

The price of tea in Rwanda

'Two leaves and one bud. You know it?' asks David Sakindi, estate manager at the Nyabihu tea factory.

'It is the perfect balance for quality and production. Two leaves and one bud only from each bush.'

The tea pickers' hands are a flurry of picking, gripping and placing the leaves into the weaved baskets on their backs.

'They are trained and know the best way to bring the quality of tea that we need; the quality that makes this tea very different from Kenya, or anywhere.'

The piece-work pickers barely look up to acknowledge my presence, so intent are they on filling their baskets.

'How much are they paid?' I ask.

'They are not employed. They are paid when they bring the leaves to us - twenty-two francs (2.2 pence) a kilogram.'

 

End at the Beginning

I was more than a little keen to bring the Brew Ha-Ha show to the place where it all began - Original Tea Bag Designs in Cape Town. They provided the inspiration for the trip and last month they provided the venue for my presentation of stories and pictures from my trans-Africa trip.

Thanks to Jill and the tea bag workers who re-arranged the room for seating and came out on a Monday night for tea and wine.

A Tea Encounter on the African Brew Ha-Ha

African Brew Ha-Ha extract taken from Chapter 3 

The bastard beast bites back

An hour later I’m sitting cross-legged on the floor of the tent watching Bwedra brew up while two more Sahrawis and Carla and Keith all smoke like a fleet of Marrakech taxis. Bwedra is boiling up a pot of tea over hot coals and going to extraordinary lengths to blend, swirl and stir the dark liquid, adding copious amounts of sugar as he goes. He tastes and re-tastes at each pass, adding sugar broken from two misshapen lumps on the tray – each time, a swarm of gorging flies take flight. The ritual continues: pot to glass, glass to pot, pot to glass, glass to glass, glass to pot, taste, until there are six squat soldiers of rich caramel liquid with a deep head of foam on each lined up before him.

By the end of the second glass I am already struggling with the sickly sweet liquid and there’s still another to go. The sweetness is making me gag, the tannin is puckering up my gums, and the sour caramel taste makes my eyes water. I am enjoying the ritual and the company but my taste buds cannot lie. Tea in the Sahara.

Carla translates from Bwedra: ‘You must drink three glasses of tea: the first is young and strong; the second is not so strong and is beginning to mellow; the third glass is most mellow and is worth waiting for. If you don’t drink the third glass it is regarded as extremely rude to your host.’

Actually, even though I put a brave face on it, the tea is getting no better.

The six of us, 77 kilometres from Dakhla in the Western Sahara, the last disputed remnant of Africa’s colonial era, drink the tea in the largest of three full-height Sahrawi tents. The cooking tent is spread with overlapping carpets and cluttered with food and clothes. Unfortunately, the smell and grease has attracted a swarm of relentlessly bothersome flies which attach themselves to everything and everyone, although I seem to be the only person concerned by them. The encampment is about one kilometre from the shore, on a tight bay shadowed by a hill on one side with a small boat bobbing on the water. Two of our number are ex-members of the Polisario: Danny, a tacit handyman, and Sharif the fixer who spent six years in jail after falling out with the organisation’s top brass. The third Sahrawi, Bwedra the tea maker, had his fingertips blown off when he discovered a landmine as a kid. The bomb was one of many inadvertently found in the cruellest way each year despite the Polisario and Moroccan forces agreeing to a series of disposal operations throughout the area. The problem is that no one knows where they are.

Bwedra deems the third pot of tea now ready. He lifts the pot to shoulder height and pours me the first glass without losing a drop. He hands it to me and I do what anyone in my situation would – I think of all that sand outside the tent and the hundreds of kilometres to the nearest town of any consequence, I sip the tea and politely lie, ‘Excellent, the best yet!’

To read on, buy the book now on Amazon.

 

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The Forgotten People

I am directed to a small office in a breezeblock building and enter a darkened room with the curtains drawn. The chef de frontière du police force has never before seen a carnet, so I point out the places where I need his precious stamp to enter his country, but he is more concerned that I should want to.

‘You go where? There is nothing here.’

His secretary knocks and enters the room carrying a small tray on which are balanced a tiny teapot and two shot glasses.

‘I am sure you will have some tea, yes?’

We both take a large swig of the simultaneously sweet and bitter broth and acknowledge the moment with our eyes over the tops of the glasses. He leads me out onto the verandah of the building.

‘We are a race apart up here,’ he tells me, ‘we are the forgotten people. The people of Mfum across the river and here in Ekok belong to the same tribe, the same families, although they are told they live in two different countries. To them it is not a border, it is just a river. Most Cameroon people speak French but we speak English, but not your English I think. Yes,’ he repeats, surveying the ragged border settlement before us, ‘we are the forgotten people.’

That's an extract from my book AFRICAN BREW HA-HA which illustrates the sense of separation many people feel in northwestern Cameroon - on the Nigeria border - from the French-speaking majority in the rest of the country (a constant refrain I heard was 'We are the forgotten people').

Many now believe they should have voted to become part of Nigeria when they had the chance in the 1960s when the old colonies were becoming nation states in their own right.

UP STATION MOUNTAIN CLUB Man no run ...

Here is a website - written by English-speakers - that highlights the relationship between the state and anglophone Cameroon. It can be very funny, acerbic - and illegal. Another great example of how the Internet is going to influence life in these otherwise hard-to-reach neighbourhoods.

One thing is for certain - if locals judge their importance to the government by the state of their roads, they have been comprehensively overlooked.

---

How to Wash a Tiger

After coming in to see the guys who work at Original Tea Bag Designs over a cup of tea, show them some pictures of the trip and give them an idea of what some of the rest of Africa is like ... they suggested they would like to clean the bike: 'get rid of that African mud and dust, send you on your way in the same condition you arrived five months ago'.
It was a good idea.
We did our best with the soap and water but as we tried to polish her up it was clear the bike could not hide all the demanding miles, like a once-beautiful old trooper who must come to terms with the downside of advancing age, too much experience, the onset of wrinkles and a few age spots reflected in every pore. Much like myself, I suppose.

"You're doing a great job, Nicholas."

A soapy Nicholas looks up: "Whew. Taking  a Tiger for tea through Africa. That's a job!"

By the way, Happy St Patrick's Day - enjoy yourself today with any drink other than tea.

Ulysses Returns

There were dancers, singers, around a hundred curious tea drinkers (some from Lancashire but I don't think they were following me), a British diplomat, Olive (the missus), a couple of clean Triumphs putting the Tiger to shame, Jill Heyes and all the Tea Baggers, the South African flag, a Union Jack and the Irish Tricolour, and even a gumboot performance to welcome me to Hout Bay at the end of the African Brew Ha Ha.

Thank you everyone for coming out, it was terrific.

I managed half a cup of tea before I made an idiot of myself with a lachrymose speech about the trip and the 'blinding light' that kept me going during the last five months. I can't remember the journey without thinking about the people who have made the trip so unique, who helped me when I probably didn't deserve it, and of all the people left behind. And if that sounds soft, then so be it.\

Top Tea Bag Designs worker Nicholas said: "I know you had a soft heart today but you must have had a strong heart to make this trip and for that we all say thank you."

Ending in a Sea of Tea

February 20-21     The last two days of the Brew Ha Ha have been spent enjoying an alternative beverage in the Cape Winelands. But there is always time for tea: here are some super people I spent time with in Worcester.

Anne Lesch took me in and insisted on introducing me to everyone she knew. We spent the time either going to other places for tea or welcoming people to her home - for more tea.

Bloody hell it's hot here, somebody put the kettle on.

Soweto Legend, African Success Story

Sitting in a plush boardroom in offices within a purpose-built training centre and headquarters for the most famous football club in Africa, drinking tea with a local legend and post-Apartheid success story.

But Kaizer Motaung, he of the Kaizer Chiefs (note the spelling), is a modest, softly spoken man with an illustrious playing career behind him and a secure business future.

The Chiefs, now largely a family business, were created from nothing in the 1970s - the dark days of Apartheid when black teams were forbidden from playing at the best stadia, as they were in 'white' areas. Kaizer was playing for the Atlanta Chiefs in the US and was persuaded to return and build a new club around himself. He was personally very popular in South Africa, so the team grew very quickly. The new headquarters are now situated within a free kick of Soweto and the famous painted power station cooling towers which can be seen from the windows.

Arch rivals Orlando Pirates lost some of their team members to the Chiefs, which sparked a rivalry that exists to this day, and even divides people along political lines. But sometimes, to foreign eyes, it seems everything in South Africa is divided along political lines.

As the country approaches its showcase event of the 2010 World Cup, it is struggling to meet the demands of a growing population and economic growth. We are very aware of those demands as we are sitting in the boardroom during a regular power cut that has affected Johannesburg for the past few weeks. It's not the first time the tea has been warm, but welcome all the same.

Kaizer says: "There are worries about the 2010 World Cup and the impact on Africa's image in the world. For the sake of Africa we must get it right."

Rooibos with a Capetonian

February 15      Jeremy Muller, although his wife would describe as "a so-called coloured", prefers to be known simply as "a Capetonian". He escaped the Mother City to the relatively tranquil, and dusty, streets of Mariental, Namibia, some years ago.

"We don't have a tea ritual as you call it. You get Rooibos in a mug with us."

As national programme manager for the Namibia Development Trust he is involved in helping local people, often in remote settlements, set up small businesses for themselves, for instance to serve the growing tourist sector.

"Although you will notice that there is more money in Namibia than in many of the countries you've visited, the gap between the richest and the poorest is shocking. Even here in Mariental.

The one thing that would change Africa the most is if people would use their democratic rights to vote governments out that do not serve them. Why does the population vote back people like Mugabe in Zimbabwe?"

"It makes no sense to a European," I suggest.

"It makes no sense to a Capetonian either!"

Advice? "Enjoy the time you have left; don't speed down to Cape Town at 140kph, take time to look around."

Dancing with One Foot

February 2     Severin Galley dips a corner of his bread into his cup and sucks the soggy dough while also slurping the milky tea with a teaspoon.

I’m not sure he’s done this tea thing before but he seems to be enjoying it OK.

The second English teacher in a row on the Brew Ha Ha has abandoned his teaching class after getting a phone call from a friend who said l’Anglais who was in town needed help. Ten minutes later a traditionally dressed man with a brief case and a willing manner is standing before me.

“Can you help me get some information about the state of the roads and rail tracks to Brazzaville? Or anywhere?” I ask plainly.

“Why not. I am in your disposal,” he replies, and prepares his robes to jump on the pillion seat of the bike.

We spend the next five hours making grooves in the sandy streets of Dolisie checking timetables, prices, options, and speaking to anybody who might know what was happening in other parts of this vast country.

“Do you think there is a way out of Dolisie?” I ask somewhat desperately.

“Of course. We are able to find solutions to our problems; it is what makes us different from the animals.”

I can’t argue with that.

Severin doesn’t need much encouragement, in between slurps, to talk about his beloved Congo and its place in Africa.

“To improve Africa we must reduce the birthings, and as a rich country, naturally speaking, we must respect the earth and make better use of our raw materials. We must also not worry about politics too much, otherwise it may lead to more wars.”

“Civil wars?”

“Of course.”

“When, exactly?”

“Nineteen ninety three …”

“Was there much …”

“Nineteen ninety seven …”

“fighting here in Dolisie?”

“Two thousand … and often in between too. In Dolisie there was a lot of fighting, it was most terrible.”

Looking out from the hotel reception where we are sitting it is hard to believe that these streets were the scenes of some of the worst fighting in those civil wars.

“We should spend less time arguing about politics and more time listening to others’ advice wherever we go. We have a saying here: ‘If the locals dance with one foot then you should do the same’”.