Pilgrims’ Progress

South East Asia.
Some Easy Arrangments.

After the how-to-transport-the-family-in-the-UK headaches we’ve been wondering about for the past week, it was comforting to see a post from the school we’ll be volunteering at in Cambodia…..if you click here and scroll all the way to the bottom you’ll see what I mean. Transport is going to be no problem whatsoever in that part of the world!

“Firstly, let me apologize for my previous letter. It wasn’t meant to go to you. Although I come from a family of 12 myself, it was, as you mentioned, a strange enquiry. I beg your pardon!”

“Who do you think you are? You think you’re so special to go off to save the world and you don’t even do enough in your own back yard. Charity starts at home, you know.”

We just knew someone would say something along those lines at some stage. Didn’t make it hurt any the less when it finally happened though.

Rob was very hesitant about “going on tv”. Very Hesitant. In fact, at first he said, “No. We don’t want that kind of exposure, it’s not like we’re even doing anything particularly special and many people are giving their lives up to great causes every day. They are the ones who should be on television.”
But then we considered the fact that it’s not about us, not about what we feel comfortable with. And we figured if we were given such an opportunity to raise just one person’s awareness of the needs of others around the world, then perhaps we had a responsibility to use it. Never mind that we didn’t end up getting to say much about that at all. Doesn’t change that THAT was our hope as the makeup was brushed across our faces.

And now we’re wishing we hadn’t done it.

We don’t want people thinking that we think we are wonderful. Coz we’re not. We’re just one family, who has had a goal to give its children the experience of life-outside-our-privileged-world. And so that’s what we’re going to do. It’s true, that we will volunteer at a few places along the way - but that doesn’t make us exceptionally philanthropic. It’s just who we are. When we’re at home we help refugees settle in the country and take meals to families with new babies and we usually have so many kids around the house that being in an orphanage will not seem that unusual.

So, who do I think I am? Not someone special. Not someone wonderful. Fortunately, you don’t have to be special or wonderful in order to make a difference in the world. You don’t need to be perfect to make a little difference in someone’s life. You don’t have to have it all together to decide to do something good. We’ll make mistakes, but we can’t live in the negative. We’ve got to do the best with what we’ve been given.

There are risks and costs to a program of action.
But they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction.
~ John F. Kennedy (1917-1963)

When landmines and snake bites and international terrorism and death by mosquito and financial insecurity start dominating conversation, it’s advantageous to take few moments to consider the risks and costs of comfortable inaction. What do YOU think those risks and costs could be?

“Maybe you guys could escort us on our first ever out of western civilisation trip.”
So suggested good friends a couple of years ago when we were tentatively dicussing maybe possibly perhaps going to the UK via Malaysia. They would come for the Malaysia leg.

When our plans firmed up more recently we threw the ball into their court again.

A couple of months ago they threw it back.
“What would it cost us? Where could we go? What would we do? Should we bring the two-year-old?”

It only took us a couple of hours to answer all the questions with ideas and suggestions and what-we-would-do-if-we-were-you-s.

But they couldn’t decide.
Then last Tuesday Mr Uncertain gave himself a deadline: Saturday morning.

Mrs Hopeful’s eyes sparkled in anticipation at the closeness of the decision.

And we waited.
By mid-morning we had to text them.
They returned texts, one word at a time:

We

…

…

have

…

…

decided

…

…

that

…

…

you should be patient.

Grr!!!!!!! But before we knew it, they were telling us they would come, two-year-old-n-all.
How exciting!!
And the mad scramble for finding flights in peak season began.
But they’re not going to Malaysia.
They’re jumping in the deep end.
**Christmas in Cambodia**
We’ll all meet up in Bangkok and then travel together by train into The Unknown.
We told them about temples and cultural experiences they cannot imagine from the comfort of New Zealand; their research had brought to their attention landmines, high temperatures and spicy food. We added snakes to the mix and turned the conversation towards something less risky.
How can you reassure someone when you’re actually a bit nervous yourself?
You can’t promise it will be all right.
You don’t even know what it will be like.
You know your own limitations, but you can only guess at theirs.

What a journey it is going to be as we walk through our apprehensions side by side, visiting 800 year old temples, an enormous rubbish dump which is home to thousands, the Killing Fields, orphanages, schools and who-knows-what-else. We’re yet to write the itinerary together.

We never expected it to be easy.
But I’m not sure we realised it would be this tricky!

For the past couple of months *impossible* has been ringing in our ears.
But we don’t do impossible.
Roadblocks call for detours, not an end to a trip.
Brick walls are to be scaled, not stopped in front of.

First it was the visa issues.
We don’t need visas for Thailand IF we have a reutrn ticket. Which we don’t. So we contacted the embassy, who told us to send them a return ticket and they would give us a visa. Umm. We don’t have a return ticket. And we don’t need a visa. We just wanted the return-ticket-requirement to be waived. According to recent travellers in the region, noone checks, so we’ll wing it. But it took a week to find out.
Russia and Mongolia pose a problem too. Their visas need to issued in your country of origin. But they also have to used within three months of being issued. We’ll be on the road six months before we get there. The embassies in New Zealand have been very helpful, suggesting we *try* the Beijing embassy when we get there, and if not, NZ will make every effort to help us.
NOTE TO SELF: arrive in Beijing with plenty of time left on China visas in case we have to courier our passports back to NZ.
It took another week of emailing back and forth to establish that.

Laos visa. We’re not entering by the usual means of transport and the town we’ve chosen to do our border hop is fairly remote. Indications are that we might be able to get a visa at the border. Other internet sites suggest you used to be able to, but that it is no longer possible. According to yet another source, it’s cheaper at the border than picking one up in Bangkok. Conclusion: who knows? Time spent finding out: another week!

Schengen visa. Heard of this? Basically it means that most of the European Union is now all good friends, but that instead of being able to stay for a month or so in every country along the way, non-Europeans only get three months in the whole lot. Not a good look for tourism, if you ask me.

But the visa regulations are starting to look like a piece of cake as we trawl through the driving regs for the UK. Patting ourselves on the back at being so organised (I mean to say, we won’t even *be* in the UK for another 12 months), we thought we’d just check the details for international driver’s licenses so we could tick it off our list of things to do. We should never have looked. Then we would not have discovered we are not entitled to take our whole family in one vehicle anywhere in not-so-Great-now Britain. We’ve got one child too many and Grandpa is excess to requirements as well. Will they follow the rest of us on a tandem? And now that we know we’re not allowed to tow a caravan either, what are we going to sleep in? A trailer (which we can tow) is not too different to a tent, and tenting in England holds little appeal - there’s a reason we’re taking waterproof coats.
Right now the UK Pilgrimage is firmly wedged in the too-hard basket. Not impossible, but not worth thinking about. 

However, once we’re there, we don’t want to forget the hurdles we had to jump to get there.

“SSSHHHH,” he whispered somewhat unnecessarilly as I was only just emerging from slumberland and had little intention of making my wakeful state yet known!
“Is it raining?” he continued.
We sssssshhhh-ed, ears alert to the drops falling outside. Were they falling from the sky or merely dripping off trees? Hard to tell. Opening the curtains revealed a thick layer of cloud enveloping our valley. Assured it would lift, we made the call to go ahead with the walk, knowing full well that 16km would be a long way for the littlest legs, and that it would seem even further if they were wet and cold, as well as miserable.

We were not to be disappointed. There was not one grumble from any of our children The Whole Day. If we’re going to be entirely honest, one of them knocked another accidentally and received a sharp word and even sharper kick in return, but the offender was sent ahead to scout out a lunch spot, and if that was the only bad thing on any other day I’d be one happy Mama! As I say, there were no grumbles, noone asked how far to go, noone complained of sore feet (sure, one asked for a plaster to put on a developing blister, but without so much as a word of complaint). I haven’t even got to the bit about climbing over a volcano or the fact that we ended up walking 19km instead of 16, because we skirted around the bottom of another instead of taking the direct route over…but you can tell I think it was a successful day, eh!
When we set out, we were not certain they’d make it. We hoped. We had a fair idea. We were prepared to carry them if we really had to. We didn’t for one moment expect a near-perfect day. We were pleasantly surprised.

We’re not sure how they’re all going to go with tripping round the world. We hope. We have a fair idea. We’ll make allowances when we need to. We’re looking forward to the surprises.

If we hadn’t tried the walk, we’d never have known.
If we don’t take the plunge, we’ll always wonder.

If you’re ever in Auckland, I would certainly recommend this walk. You can walk it in either direction, but we went from the Manuaku end as there was easily accessible free parking.
A short initial climb brought us to the first park of the day, complete with historic fencibles cottage and Onehunga Blockhouse, a small fort built in 1860 to offer protection from perceived attacks by the Maori.
At this point we stopped using our Interesting Facts sheet and just enjoyed the walk, sharing snippets of information that we already knew with each other as we walked, spotting landmarks from different locations - the Sky Tower, Rangitoto, the museum, the hospital, Mt Eden, Gothic houses, villas, native trees and birds, Grafton Bridge, the university, Queen Street.

Did people point and stare because of the dozen children wandering along the road (another family with lots of kids too, joined us for the day - thanks so much for coming with us guys, we enjoyed adding to our shared memory store)…or was it Grandpa peddling along on his recumbant bike that caught their attention? By the last few kilometers, he had two passengers as well. We figured it was better to applaud their mammoth effort with a very welcome ride while they were still enjoying the day, than to push them to finish under their own steam just so they could say they’d done it. They can still claim to have walked 15km, which is surely a worthy accomplishment for a four-year-old, don’t you think?

Boarding the bus for the twenty minute bus ride back to the carpark, M5 announced, “This is the awesomest part.” Spotting Grandpa cycling back as we waited at the traffic lights only added to the excitement (we arrived within minutes of each other - at 76 years of age, he’s a trooper!!), and noticing places we had walked just hours before prompted cries of delight and remembrance.

Yes, it was a day to be remembered. And would have been worthwhile even if we hadn’t been raising money for Big Brother Mouse!

…three, two, one fingers showing.

And then the camera was rolling.
We’d already been in the TVNZ studio for an hour, wandered around the bowels of the building, had make-up done in front of very bright lights and enormous mirrors, leaving the children to chat with whoever was waiting to go on Breakfast before us. Usual questions. Are you all brothers and sisters? You’re going to be late for school, aren’t you?

Paul Henry did his introduction, we gasped collectively when he decided to speak to T4, but she ACTUALLY ANSWERED HIM. Whew.
Before we knew it, the interview was over.

We hadn’t got to say the half of what we wanted to!
We’d thought we were going to be asked *what are you doing?* *why?* *how can you afford it?* and *what are you raising money for?*
The *why* never got there (which meant we didn’t get to use this line: Even before we had any children we knew we wanted to give them more than just a suburban kiwi upbringing, to allow them to see, smell, touch, taste more of the world than just their privileged corner.)
And we only just managed to squeeze in a little bit about fundraising. But not this:

We didn’t want the children just focussed on saving money for us, because it’s not about us. So we decided to try to raise funds to help some of the places we’ll be volunteering in.
One place is Big Brother Mouse in Laos….a retired American book published has set up a Lao-owned and run publishing company to try to raise the level of literacy and provide meaningful work for local people. As the average annual income is only $400 it’s hard to come up with the $4or5000 it costs to publish a book, so they appreciate outside donations. Distributing the books to remote villages is one of their major jobs once the books are published.
J12 was set to add:
I make flower presses to sell and did a special fundraising production run recently. All the profits from that are going to sponsor a mini-library for a rural village in Laos. The Big Brother Mouse people take a box of books to a village and run a book party where they teach the children how to look after books, give them an art lesson and have a storytime and then the children get to choose a book to keep. Plus they leave extra books for the whole community to share. I’m looking forward to going to the village and meeting the children at the book party we are sponsoring.
J13 would have continued:
Once J12 raised enough money for a book party we thought it would be great to raise money to help sponsor the publication of a new book as well. Last weekend we ran a silent auction and next weekend our family will be doing the 16km Coast to Coast walk – friends are sponsoring us to do that and if anyone else wanted to they could! So far we have raised $1600 and it would be great to be able to give even more.

And we didn’t get to our ironical quote either:
“Most people can do extraordinary things if they have the confidence or take the risks. Yet most people don’t. They sit in front of the telly and treat life as if it goes on forever.”Probably just as well, really.

Thank you very much to everyone who came along to support our fundraising effort. We didn’t get to talk to each person individually, so please accept this thank you. We appreciate your enthusiasm.

$365 from the sale of gear
$260 from Coast to Coast sponsorships

That’s $625 to add to the Book Publishing Fund. YAY.

So asked Rob. Of the Silent Auction.
Hmmmm.
If it’s a flop, it’s a flop.
But we’ll value the work the kids put in to it, choosing cherished items to part with, making cards and sherbet, carting gear, hoping for success.
And we’ll especially remember our friends’ enthusiasm at pitching in and helping us, chopping onions, making bags, painting signs and being interested. Thanks guys.

Tomorrow’s the auction. The stuff is all at the church. Rob is wandering around the house looking for more odds and ends to add! We’re enjoying get rid of *stuff*
Big Brother Mouse, here we come.
And not just us. Check out this silent auction for them. But don’t think that we’ll have items like theirs - no airtickets to Washington DC or ten course meals at our auction - plenty of sausages though