Couchsurfing 2009: the numbers

Out of curiosity, I checked how many people we hosted in 2009 through Couchsurfing, a website that allows you to be hosted or host travellers, mostly backpackers, and tell them about your life and work in a place.

Last year I received 135 emails through CouchSurfing, of which 56 were requests to be hosted. In total, I hosted 35 people (not counting Thomas' hosted people), for I would estimate an average of three days (some stayed only one night, others a LOT longer). All this is not counting friends or families staying over, or the volunteers that often crashed at our place as well... We're thinking of putting up a sign: BnT Hostels, what do you think?

Being a clown can be beneficial...

Aymeline de Cartier is here for three months, since beginning of December 2009. She's a psychologist and specializes in using care for animals (horses and dogs) as well as bodily expression to work with children.

The Wild Wild Zim

This Sunday we went out to Caro and Andy's house for a lazy afternoon, some Xbox shooting... and some real shooting as well. Andy owns a couple of guns and, regardless of the whole pro- or contra-gun debate, I suppose it is always safer to have some notions of how to use one.

Ah, who am I kidding, I just wanted to fire a gun once in my life and this was the opportunity!

So I took the Star .22 kaliber, a Spanish gun, very carefully (and with a lot of precautions) learned how to load it, aimed at the poor, defenseless Hunter's can whose only crime was to be empty, squeezed and utterly destroyed it (well, at the second try).

Well, at least it was better than Thomas who not only missed, but even hurt himself in the process (only a scratch from the recoil though, no worries ;-)...

Kenya - the south coast

Thomas and me decided to spend a week after Belgium on the south coast of Kenya, close to Mombassa. We'd used our spared up miles through the Ethiopian frequent flyer programme to get there and swap the cold and busy Belgium with the hot and lazy beach time in Kenya.

And honestly, we hardly did anything. First stayed two nights in a Eco-camp, in Mida creek with many mangroves and other backpackers (read blog entry from British Dave and Dutch Marit here).

The Gede ruins we visited

Little dow trip in the creek

Flamingos (Thx Leslie ;-)

Then we moved to the more beach resort area of Watamu, for some quality beaches and sun bathing. Here we also went diving, a first for Thomas (did a scuba fun package, with basics on scuba diving) and a pleasant reminder for myself. Can't say we saw anything hugely spectacular, but it is always fun to go back to that other world, with its own rules and ways of communicating.

And lastly, we went to Little Italy, where locals address us with Ciao, and

there are more pizzas than mais porridge. Here we spent more time by the pool than anything else, and thought the plan was to go out and discover some Kenyan nightlife, we weren't very impressed and spend more time watching Damages S2 than anything else...

In short, not the most active or eye-opening trip we've had, but a perfect counterbalance between busy bussing Belgium and work waiting for us in Zim.

Short movie: Big Sistar - made at Chiedza

This is what I spent most of October-November 2009 on: working with 15 children from one of our partners, Chiedza, on making short movie, while meanwhile discussing how to deal with constructive criticism. They came up with a script based on reality TV where one of the members is found dead.

Everybody accuses each other till a tape is found...

Shocked by Haiti...

How sad... As my boss in the Dominican Republic said: 'Parece que Dios no es haitiano...'.

After information trickled in, most of my friends and colleagues seem to have survived, though many have lost houses... Frantically forwarding emails, phone calls from friends along time ago or far away, linking up with people here that also have or had family or friends there, all sharing the same sadness...

Holiday season in Belgium

So, back in Belgium, for a 10 day stay during the traditional end of year celebrations with friends and family. Maybe I should emphasize family, cause everywhere I went, I seemed to encounter babies and toddlers. I suppose it’s normal, most people of my generation are now having kids, or trying to (which can be less fun). Still, it takes some getting used, with having your friends concentrating only partially on what you’re saying, cause 30% of their attention is on their kids. And much of their mind seems to be focused on it as well. Parents can go on in great length comparing diapers, sleeping time, who does the baby resemble most etc. All okay for a little while, but when you can’t contribute… Thank God I had Loïc, my god child, to be able to share a couple of experiences as well, and that seemed to reassure (or revive) some of the discussions as well.

Still, as usual, it’s nice to see everybody, and at least you see a lot of family in a short amount of time, but it was definitely not a holiday. We again didn’t sleep twice in the same spot consecutive, running around with loaded backpacks, hurrying to catch the train or the bus, as well as colds. Don’t know when we’ll be back in Belgium, probably not in 2010, since most of the year seems quite hectic (we used up the last of our NGO paid ticket, and we have to finalize all the activities by 1st of October 2010, to finalize our 3 year programme so it’ll be cramped).

HAPPY NEW YEAR!