Learning Camp

Well I just went camping with some friends and we had a great time. These are friends that I have known for some time. Each one in his own way with a commitment to living a spiritual life. This made for some interesting learning experiences. As ever with spending time away with a group of people, it called for acceptance tolerance and understanding as we all tried to get along as well as we could. Since though, everyone had put their best foot into this shoe of acceptance, it made for something of a remarkable atmosphere of support and community. Where one person had a gap in their kit, another filled it. So by the end of three days we had no need to washing up liquid guy or sponge guy to chuck it down the hill as both items had been considerately stationed by the wash tap. This did away with need to catch the flying sponge but other than that it was favourable.

We talked at times on a quite personal level and to hear people I knew well be willing to be honest and open was quite heart warming on the cool evenings. What lies behind the 'you' I percieve you to be is sometimes quite different. I came away feeling that these people, and perhaps everyone, deserved more love and tolerance than I usually give people credit for. Not least of all myself, of course. I left assured that we were alike in the respect of our determination to live sunny side up, shining forward into personal challenges now better understood while perhaps no less grave in themselves.

This brief trip became the testing ground for many principles. For example, we proved that it is easier to pack your stuff for the return journey than it is on the outward journey. The cause for this though remains a bit mysterious. Here's another one: 'pursuing winning streaks doesn't necessarily work'. I got a classic CD for a pound in the Heart Foundation shop then tried to follow it up with a flurry of quick buys at the CD and record fair Great Malvern. Two, to be fair, were good, it was just the drum machine on the Bobby Womack gospel album that let the side down. I guess lastly I learned that it is better to live the strengths and weakness of my fellows than among the chilling vapour of isolation.

Me and my most local neighbour both marvelled at one point on the kindness of the older lady running the campsite who seemed to have a natural balance and good will that most Londoners would not demonstrate. When I told her I was not feeling too well, this was on Sunday feeling a touch of faituge, she opened up the bunk house and gave me a blanket.

Camping of course lives and dies by the weather and, although we had a renowned rain-attractor in the camp, we did pretty well during the day although it was cold during the night. One among our number has proven that in the absence of a hat, you can wear pants on your head for some heating benefits. I personally was freezing on two out of three nights. I discovered that, amazingly, if you put a foil survival blanket under your roll mat it reflects the heat so well it feels like an electric blanket, in spite of the fact this was not my idea. I might be 36 but I am still getting used to the fact that my assessements are not always right.

You know most of us went away last year together plus one more friend who was to far away at the time but 12 months can be a long time if you live one day at a time and these men are different. These are friends who are committed to their personal growth and change right down line. Men who will look you in the eye in the newness of their discovered confidence promising that it does get better and that best may yet be to come.

o

Reflections on the Trip

I think I am in danger of getting back to normal. Getting on the phone to do a round of sorting things out; organising stuff out of the bag and delivering fridge magnets to my parents (nice ones). I am pretty pleased with the mug I bought, too, so all is not lost.

In spite of the normality of England and an inital wave of news media and information, the heart still glows with the memories of being out in the winds of the trip. I expect this to condense down into something of greatest hits package over time but presently I can still access some of the detail, so I'll try to mention a few things before they get compressed and filed away until I am old.

I remember driving with Helen back from the meeting in Tesaria; both sites of the pillars of Hercules visible to the left and down separated by a great swathe of water. I remember meeting people who seemed similar to other people I know or have known in my life including some very similar versions of 'the original': Chris was very much like Chirs; Benji a bit like Matt etc. I remember having met the Antonios and walked past an old Moorish city wall in Seville, then taking the bus and finding myself on a kind of high. I can feel the dissonance between expectation and reality challenging my tourism of the otherness of places like Morocco where their point of relating is largely out of desperation and our point of relating is out of curiosity. I can see the influence of power and politics allowing and preventing travel and grading citizens of nations into classes according to their nations relative power and prestige, as well defining borders that include or exclude (or both at the same in the case of Gibraltar) and so go on to influence the language, customs, belief, prosperity and values of the relative territories.

I could feel the ego straining against the reality of being a tourist whilst wishing to be doing something entirely unknown and original; finding people on remarkably similar itineraries to my own. I guess, though, if they were going to anywhere, they'd be in Andalucia. I can feel a sense of a liberal American confidence, with an international presence, growing strong now that the figurehead of the Iraq travesties, Bush, has been removed. I know that the adventurous heart would not, of its own accord, wish the Faustian pact to be over with; it does not relish the routines and rigours of London life.

I can feel that I am perhaps more defined by my hopes, beliefs and faith than by anything else. I can see these flags flying above the level of hardship and pointing to a fulfilment that one's present circumstances may seem to preclude. It is these keep the body moving forward through what ever it has to face; the roots in the heart that allow me to answer 'yes' to the question 'is it worth it?'

Day fourteen Going Home

I just met some nice people today including a guy from the States and a girl from France. It has been a day of talking in the kitchen and in cafes as well as a brief visit to the museum del Trios in the rain. Benji talked some real sense about the madness of the Enron fiasco in the states but tempered his views with a statement of hope about the innovation and zeal to move ahead out of this economic crisis there is in the States.

It is sort of a feeling of being in limbo here at present. Just about to fly but certainly feel richer for having done the trip. Although I am an absolute travel novice compared to many of the pros here, I have seen and done a lot in two weeks. I feel mentally tired and ready to go home. I have some memories that will stay with me for the rest of my life and have experienced hospitality and goodwill from almost everyone. I have not seen the news or read a newspaper for two weeks and do not know anything about what´s going in the world. This seems to be an advantage to an extent in terms of not worrying unnecessarily about stuff. I have let go of some cold fear that built up in me over the winter and feel good about the spring and summer in the UK.

If I have learned anything it is that sometimes some of the winter creases only come out by a prolonged airing in some hospitable foreign place, or in Cornwall or Scotland.

Here are some other points... that stress is a reality. No one seemed to have much of good word to say about London. There are plenty of very positive well adjusted, slightly younger than me, young people in the world. Americans are travelling again, especially Californians. People are visiting the Balkans inclusing Kosovo and getting well treated. Spanish people have a lot of foreigners living in their country. The Med is a kind of cultural eco system all by itself. Many English people live happy lives here. It is possible to travel with a limited diet. The run up to going away is more stressful than going away.

The natural world is beautiful. Kites make people happy. Many Spanish people drink sensibly. Tapas is free in Granada. The most beautiful places in the world are the most sought after places in the world. The pound has lost a lot of value and it mainly affected us, not the rest of Europe. We live very privilidged lives compared to Morrocans. Some people have a lot of money. Many Spanish Catholics appear to relate to statues as spiritual dieites in and of themselves. There are a great deal of people travelling who speak good Spanish as a second or third language. There are layers of history here that can present you with a flavour of the past. Spain is much bigger than the UK. Evolutionary biology would reduce all this to something meaningless. God is bigger than we think he is.

Democracy is painful. Day 13 Al Alambra

I got up at 6.15 to try and get tickets for the Al Alambra which I though was pretty impressive. I expected to see the streets filled with punters competing for the 1000 tickets released each morning (in addition to 75% sold through the internet) for sale on the day. I ate a hasty breakfast but couldn´t get the gas to work to cook my eggs. Leaving with a hole in my breakfast I took to the cold streets.

The first person I saw passed me on the steps leading up to entrance. He was going at a real pace, overtaking on the outside and easily, and I thought "Fine, let´s stay relaxed. There´ll be enough tickets. When I got to the queueing area the line itself was growing at a rate of knots. I placed myself two bends away from the ticket issuing area, estimating about 100 people and perhaps half an hour of waiting ahead once the desks opened.

The people behind me in the queue and I quickly became acquainted, each of us sharing our best guess as to whether we´d get tickets and, if so, how long we´d have to wait. I bet "yes" and "half an "hour". The spanish guy said "yes" and "much more than an hour". The Swedish lady with a black labrador called Cherie (as in ´Cherie Blaire´, she told me) left to go and feed the dog, and whilte we were saving her place, she didn´t come back. That left us pretty short of entertainment; the dog had been a bit of a focal point.

The Lebanese couple behind me and I got talking. They both lived in Essex and were Anglicised; he was a surgeon and she taught Arabic. Our mood went through various phases of hope and despiar as we sought entry to one of the most famous monuments in the world and a UNESCO world heritage site. Once we turned the last bend, our spirits rose. The lady over the tannoy informed us there were about 80 tickets left for the morning and somewhere over 200 for afternoon. By the time I got to the front, that was eight tickets for morning. It struck me later how crucial it was that I hadn´t been held up by cooking those eggs. They could have made all the difference. I was served at 10am and I got a ticket for the afternoon some three hours after joining the queue. Don´t worry, I got those eggs as soon as I got back.

I came back at 2pm for my visit, praying that were wouldn´t be anymore queueing. Actually though, the jostling for the entrance was about as nasty as it got, with peoples nerves getting a bit frayed. I had a French (I think) guy pushing me from behind when he judged I´d cut him off. Once we got inside there were people everywhere and I started to think, "this better be good." I went straight down to the palace for my 2.30pm entrance and had to line up for another 20 minutes or so. I very nearly made an internal decision not to enjoy it, to get them back of course. Just managing to realise this was a bit pointless, I held my nerve.

Once inside, the palace was truly beautiful though. Some very ornate carving that must have taken years. Some patioes laid out with great balance and a very light touch. Some carved wood in the ceiling and some interesting geometrics here, and a series of ornate swirly carved columns there, and several rooms of this quality.

Later, looking out at the view of Albacin and the white Sierra Nevada I was glad that I´d got through all the nonsense from earlier. I felt warm inside and the wheels of my heart turned to register the completion something I´d wanted to do for a long time. Next stop, Taj Mahal. I was told that the palace was only constructed at a very great cost, almost runing the country at the time. Concentrating all that beauty in one place was, of course, a highly undemocratic act, leveraging a great deal of resources for the appreciation of only a very few. We do it differently now, making such places open to the public for a fairly reasonable price. But, of course, everybody wants to go. This is a kind of opposite to the situation prevailing at the time of the Moorish Kings but perhaps it comes at the cost of dilluting the experience. It seems that the monument is a bit too lean to be carved up and given out to everyone.

How greatly these human economies differ from what we hear of God´s economy and Kingdom. "In my Father´s house there are many mansions", and if you would indulge me to add, "And you don´t have to queue up to get in. These little time slots are not alloted to you in order that you may briefly take in their beauty before you are cattle herded down the road. The poor are welcome and they are not difficult to clean." I love this life (sometimes) but it is interesting to hope for the reality of these things that may be made manifest in times to come, and of whose true dimensions and beauty we do perhaps glimpse from time to time among of our man-made achievements.

Day 11 and 12 On the Road to Granada

I left Tarifa yesterday morning which was sad. I could have spent another week there, weather permitting. Actually, I could have spent another week everywhere in terms of how much each place has had to offer. But in terms of stamina, I don´t think I could do it. Today I have felt exhausted after a day travelling by bus, train and on foot to get to the Hostel in Granada.

In the morning I met a guy called Chris and his wife from LA. Now Chris both physically and gesturally resembled my friend Chris who lives in the UK but is from LA and whom I had spoken to only the previous night on the electric telephone. Strange world.

The first leg of the journey took us all to Algercias by bus where we got tickets for the later train. There was time to look around so I stowed my luggage and walked around Algercias. Not a lot to report I am afraid. I may have missed the interesting bits due to the lack of time and maps etc. You can see Gibraltar clearly from the port, though, which is nice, and over the sea to the north coast of Africa. You can see why the Brits wanted to hang onto that rock that forms part of the entrance to the Med with a strategic significance second to none. Well, except the Suez canal maybe.

The train journey started with a few modest hills but gradually built into a bit of an epic with deep gorges and fast streams and included powerful views visible in strips, like a slow cinema reel, through the open slats of a long bridge. This scenery manifest naturally in Ronda where my Americans friends got off.

Later on, the land planes out a bit into a kind of valley dotted with thousands of citrus bushes. It was not like a sunny version of Rannoch Moor, with alternative vegetation. At the end of this long stretch, instead of Glencoe, you have Granada just ramped up against the side of the Seirra Nevada. White peaks crowning the ancient seat of Moorish power still telling its story through architecture.

I had a bit of a scare when I realised I´d been given two addresses for the hostel but my useful contact in the UK sorted that one out for me, texting me the directions. But not before I´d been through about five stages of panic. I was running out of time to get to the meeting so I took a taxi to the hostel. I might have been overcharged by the cab driver getting to the hostel but only by about a Euro if anything.

I took a half hour walk to the meeting where met a couple of guys who were pretty settled in the area and both spoke excellent Spanish. We went out for Tapas afterwards which is, apparently, free in Granada. They brought up a place of three burger type things with chips and all for the price of the drinks. On the way back I cleverly got a bus going the right way but which, uncleverly, was on a detour due to the Semana Santa processions and which ended up taking me I don´t know where. That was another 40 minutes walk and I was wrecked when I got back.

Today, I have been pretty tired but have managed to get to the Cathedral and had a look around the Albacin, which is the old Moorish quarter with narrow streets. There are some nice view points at the top of the hill from which to look down on the Al Alambra and the mountains beyond, crowned white with a layer of April snow, and down onto the large plain in which the city is built.

I have the feeling that I am not quite doing this town justice due to fatigue but I have seen some quite unique sights. Tomorow the challenge is to get up early enough for tickets to the Al Alambra which are all sold out on the internet.

Day Ten - On the Road Around Andalucia

I heard that Tarifa has the highest suicicide rate in Europe - because of the strong wind apparently. It is hard to believe that the wind cancels out all the sunshine and relaxation but I guess it´s different if you live here all the time. I found it quite charming to see all the sails of the kite surfers in the sky. As a child I didn´t have a great deal of success with kites, except in landing them.

This morning I met a guy from the fellowship who had taken the trouble to drive to meet me as we had missed each other on the previousWednesday. It turns out we had quite a lot in common, including both being musicians, although he a far more experienced and recorded one than I, both having had a similar religious background, both having lived for quite a long time in the depths of south London and both being English language teachers. This is something of a conincidence, no? We chatted for a couple of hours and raised a house of very reasonable ideas that you could live if you put them into practice. He, let´s call him Ruperto, seemed very much the kind of man who does put them into practice too. He is a bit older than me and, in so being, indicated some kind of direction in which I might seek to travel; all those similarities describing the potential for grace and maturity I might aim for as I travel on.

In the afternoon I flew some more mental kites and kept a few in the air for quite a long time - much longer than I would have been able to a few years ago. Time passed pleasantly on the beach, ducking the wind in the hollow of the dunes, and being washed in waves by a hestitating but warm sun. Here, some old frozen pieces of the English winter got noticed in their little hidey holes and were compelled to make for the door, they being no match for the light.

He, Ruperto, put me in touch with a lady who was driving to an English meeting someway passed Gibraltar. She, let´s call her Angelica, agreed to pick me up from Tarifa and took me through the stunning hills and coast of Andalucia, through some of the white towns and villages to the meeting. She told me that Gibraltar has something of a twin on the other side of the straight - another huge great rock on the Morrocan coast - and that these two together formed what was known as the pillars of Herculas. They are both located at what is effectively the gateway to the Meditteranean. Apparently, Tarifa gets its name from the port at which you had to dock to pay your ´tarif´to enter safely past the pillars into the Med proper. It is quite a sight to see them there and makes you realise how long there has been a civilisation around the Med. Angelica was a bit of an angel, it´s true, offering true hospitality and the hand of the fellowship to a perfect stranger; and we parted friends.

Just enough time then to sit and watch the birds fly as the sun goes down back in Tarifa before moving on Grenada tomorrow. I´ll be sorry to leave though. The wind is strong round here - strong enough and warm enough, and with grit from the Sahara, to blow the cobwebs of the English winter clean away. I´d like to pack the birds and take them with me. Hey, why don´t we have flat roofs in the UK?

Day Eight and Nine Gibraltar / Tarifa

Well I have been to Gibraltar, something I´d always wanted to do. It is quite a trip from Tarifa and although it doesn´t look like a long way on Google Earth, when you add in a few totally unexplained pauses for fifteen minutes or so along the way, it takes quite a long time to get there by bus. One problem I did not have though was locating Gibraltar itself once I´d got off the bus at La Linea: if only everything was as easy to find as a 500m rock island towering above everything else in its proximity. From there you walk across the border effectively from Spain into the UK which is a trip. Within the space of twenty metres or so, all the road signs change and you get street names like ´Winston Churchill Avenue´. There are plenty of symbols of royalty around as well as red post and telephone boxes; the later now just for show though sadly.

It was another case of small distance geographically, big difference culturaly and, as something of a surprise, meteologically. It is just that the weather had been fantastic right up until the time I crossed the border when, suddenly, on the British side, it clouded over and got a bit blowy. Driving is more aggressive on the Gib side too and the attitude of the people is somehow more reserved.

One surpise which greeted me early on was there are a people there - the Gibraltans - who are basically ethnically Spanish and who speak Spanish but who are fairly robustly happy with their British nationality. They can at, a moment´s notice, stop sounding Andalucian and provide you with the English of a fluent native speaker from the London area. I spend quite a lot of time listening to people´s English and thought the first person I met must have spent quite a long time in the UK. Later though, as the amount of Gibraltans who did this to me piled up I realised that it just seems to be the dialect they have acquired in the territory. The other thing is, they seem to have slightly different features from the mainland Spanish: eyes a little closer together and smaller; intense.

Of course there are plenty of ex-pat Brits there too and no doubt they are considered within the range of the territory´s typical constituent population but in one sense they appear not to be the ethnic Gibraltans. These must be those who since 1704 have mainly chosen to maintain their language, customs and appearance alongside the British political and cultural presence. Something of this presence, though, has been absorbed by the native people who now seem something of a genitically modified people people posessing DNA from both sides.

The rock itself is quite interesting although some of it sort of fenced off by the M.O.D. It is tempting to imagine some sort of neo-Manhattan project being hatched somewhere in the middle of rock - a belated attempt to propel Britain back to its true status as the world power. There are plenty of birds flying around at the top indicating all the best views to the sightseers, pointing wing tips down to Algercias and La Linea on one side and back up the South-Eastern side of the Peninsula on the other. Old gun placements, pill-boxes and back garden style bomb-proof shelters abound. The monkeys don´t seem quite so involved, sadly, preferring their own counsul to interracting the humans.

Once I´d been to the gardens for a rest and a meal (tuna, red quinoa and salad) I headed up to hospital hill to meet the friends of Bill W, then it was back to the border for a last chance bus ride back to Tarifa. As much as I do like to plan these days, it was good fun not knowing whether there would be a bus or not. Lively; jaunty.

Back here in Tariffa things are pretty relaxed. It is good friday and I have been on the beach wondering what to do with my life. The sun struggled to appear earlier as the kite surfers got their sails into the wind. Gradually as the clouds disolved, the warm currents of the sun gave a little thermal boost to my thoughts and sense of well-being.

I get the impression, perhaps not entirely from own best thinking, that to serve - before I return to my home planet). The problem is, I don´t really want to do it, until I am doing that is. It´s a bit like doing homework in that respect. It is interesting to note here that, in terms of observing one´s nature, there is no end to the demands I will place on life to provide me a Faustian never-ending increase in the level of stimulation and reward I recieve. There is a part of me that wants it all for me and doesn´t want to share any of it with you. This is the part of the self that can get you isolated with a mind like hell, raging with a case a with case of perpetual war - if it is not treated. Apparently, it gets treated with service. On good Friday then, the thought struck me that if I think I am going to do any better than the concept and the practice of service I should remember that service is even fundamental to the nature of the One who died on this day. And if it was good enough for him, it´s good enough for me.