TRAVELING AROUND THE WORLD: Our Tales of Delights and Disasters (8 page)

Mike and I went to bed, but with the first strong aftershock, the room rocked, the window rattled, and, afterward, the coat hangers in the closet jangled a high-pitched, tinkling sound.
Eerie.
The next aftershock shot me out of bed. I felt more stable in the new part of the house than in our room in the original section. So I curled up on the sofa under a fuzzy blanket, wearing my robe and shoes, and holding a flashlight. Candles glowed, rain splattered outside, and I tried to sleep. But each aftershock racked my nerves. They came every quarter to half-hour throughout the night. Five times they were so strong that I jumped up and ran into the center of the room away from the windows. Needless to say, sleep was elusive. But that’s okay. Mike and I were better off than many. People – perhaps hundreds – were buried under rubble a few blocks away (the final death toll was 181). Thousands were in the makeshift camp across the street in the park – shivering in cold, crowded tents in the rain. We heard stories the next day of residents bringing clothes and offering spare bedrooms to stranded tourists who were unable to return to their hotel rooms even to get luggage. We met three people on our bus the next morning who were traveling with only the clothes they were wearing as their hotel in the city center was inaccessible.

I’ll take Cairo over this. At least in Cairo, we were not the target of violence or anger. No one wanted to see tourists hurt. Tanks were there to keep peace but also to ensure protection. Even though we could hear gunshots, none of it was directed at us. As long as we stayed out of the way, the chances were good that we’d be okay. This earthquake was a completely different situation. It did not discriminate, nor could we get out of the way. It would hit when and where it chose. All Mike and I could do was hope that we weren’t in the way.

Between Cairo and Christchurch, we learned several things about being in crisis situations. The first is
patience.
You just don’t know – nor does anyone else – what will happen in the situation. There’s no point getting excited or frustrated. Everyone is doing their best. And that’s the next thing. You have to rely on the kindness of complete strangers. How many times have we seen unfortunate things in the newspaper, thought, “Oh, so sad,” and turned the page? But it’s real – very real. And many of those people will get through their day because of the stranger who stops on the street to help them. And finally, I learned that you can only take one step at a time – and that’s sufficient. Crisis situations are filled with unknowns – so many that you can’t sort out the future direction. Sometimes, all that’s possible is to do what seems right at that moment; get to the next place; evaluate; and make the next choice. Advance planning is a nice idea but it doesn’t work when the situation is a complete unknown.

Mike and I also learned that true customer service shines through in a crisis. We experienced it in Cairo and we saw it again here. Peter and his family suffered damage in their personal home; Peter’s daughter burst into tears when she found him safe at the Classic Villa; and yet they stayed in the Villa with us that night. Food, wine, song and words of comfort are not on their brochure, but that’s what we received. And, you know, it helped.

We are now safely away in Queenstown but the impact of this earthquake remains with us in many ways. Each rumble or creak makes us fear another quake. But more importantly, we are touched by the immensity of what happened to so many people. It took several hundred years for Christchurch to become the charming town we experienced. It took a few seconds to turn it to rubble and destroy lives, families and livelihoods. The people of Christchurch, along with others from around the world, are already clearing away the debris and moving on. It will be day by day, but – what a difference a day can make.

Thursday, March 3, 2011

A “Wee” Mob of Sheep

Since we left Christchurch after the earthquake, Mike and I have been in awe of the New Zealand landscape. As we traveled our way south to Queenstown, we passed rolling green hills and towering craggy mountains with green slopes. There was a gentle dusting of white sheep on the slopes. Some sheep were recently sheared; they looked skinny and naked. Others were fluffy with curly wool. Still others had so much wool that their stick legs and faces stuck out from a round ball of fluff. The sheep were everywhere – field after field of them. It had a peaceful feel – the white dots against the green fields. The fields of sheep were captivating. I wanted to know more about the sheep and this industry that is so important to New Zealand.

We stopped by the Queenstown tourist office to inquire. The tourist office is swimming in activity brochures. There’s rafting, jet boating, bungee jumping, hiking, mountain biking, hand gliding, parasailing and more. The staff seemed a bit perplexed with an inquiry about sheep shearing. They only knew of one place – in Glenorchy – a small town up the road. There was no colorful brochure; just a phone number scribbled on a scrap of paper.

The man on the phone told me that he runs a morning and afternoon “tour.” He still had room on the morning tour so all we had to do was drive along the lake to the village (250 population) of Glenorchy and meet him at 10 am. How do we find the meeting place, we inquired. Well, he explained, Glenorchy is very small. Turn left at the roundabout and there will be a “wee shed” on the right. He’d meet us there. And, there was, and he did.

We drove quickly up the road from Queenstown past stunning scenery to make it by 10 am (we found out later that this is one of the top ten scenic drives in the world). We didn’t want to miss the tour. The “wee shed” was called The Wool Shed and was definitely “wee” at only a few feet square and filled with wool garments for sale. John, the owner, operator and tour guide, was inside. When I told him we were there for the 10 am tour, he said great and let’s go. It seemed that I and Mike were the tour! We followed him – like sheep – to his truck. “Hop in,” he said. It was his farm truck, just like one from back home in Texas. The floor was covered in mud and dust, and various tools and garments were scattered about. I immediately felt at home. This was going to be a special event!

John drove about ten minutes up the road to part of his farm. We pulled up to a gate and he scampered out to unlatch it. Mike and I took in the scene. There were truck and tractor parts lying under a tree lounging next to scraps of lumber from old fences. Just past the gate was a three-sided barn assembled from sheets of corrugated tin – some silver and some red – whatever was handy. Junk was everywhere. As the three of us climbed out of the truck, a welcoming party of one sheep and six chickens came trotting (with the chickens clucking). The lot of them followed John through the barnyard. It seems that this particular sheep had been bottle-raised and was now a pet – and it knew the routine. John found an old, red, plastic bucket and got a scoop of feed from a tin shed. Soon, with the help of the feed, we had the sheep literally eating out of our hands. There was no hand sanitizer, no napkins… just sheep slobber between my fingers. It was just like Texas, except that sheep drool less than cows. And there was a pig, too. The small, spotted pig was in a muddy pen next to the barn. John told Mike to feed him from the bucket of mealy pears by the fence. The pig turned up its little, pink nose with interest as Mike held a pear. With a toss, the pig was after it and woofed it down with a little mud and straw.

According to the tour “program,” John was to show a film to us about sheep shearing, so we walked to the barn trailing a string of sheep and chickens behind. This was definitely
not
your typical, choreographed tourist experience. We walked into the open end of the tin barn to find yet more junk. John – completely unconcerned – said, “Take a seat.” We looked around and at each other. Finally, I said, “Where should we sit?” There, on the ground in front of us, was an old bench seat from a truck with a couple of sheep skins thrown over it. Okay. We’ll sit there. As we settled in for the movie, there was an old, faded sheet covering something on a stand in front of us. John whisked the sheet away to reveal a shiny, new, forty-seven-inch flat-screen television! It was all we could do to stifle a belly-laugh (that came later). To make the scene even more unlikely, the pet sheep wandered in to block our view of the movie. John kept shooing it out so it wouldn’t “baa” while we listened to the program. We watched two films – one about rounding up sheep in the mountains for the yearly shearing and the other about the men who shear sheep for sport. The world record is 843 sheep in ten hours (non-stop from 7 am – 5 pm). This includes reaching inside the pen and hauling out a full-grown sheep. It takes forty-six passes to completely shear the sheep. Then the wool is collected by women working the floor. They throw the fleece in one fling onto a bed and sort it within seconds so they’re ready when the next sheep is finished. It’s a choreographed ballet where each person’s timing is exact. It was impressive and extremely hard work.

We got a small taste of it. John has been raising merino sheep for thirty years and clearly loved telling us about the different breeds and how they are used. Merino sheep are raised for wool and live high on the mountain slopes. They are rounded up twice a year using people and dogs – the dogs being the more important of the two. Crossbred sheep are raised for meat, and they are generally penned in the lower elevations, which make it easier to herd them up for shearing – this is what we were going to do.

John had a few crossbred sheep in the field, and our job was to herd them into the pen by the barn. We paid money for this activity (amazing, isn’t it!), so we headed off through the field tramping through high, green grass and more than a little sheep s---. Sheep s--- comes in much smaller piles than cow s---, which made it more difficult to spot. The good thing about these sheep is that they are largely wild and afraid of people. As soon as we started walking toward the small herd of about twenty sheep, they moved away, staying in a tight pack with their buddies. Walking and shooing, we got the sheep to the barn where John opened the gate to a rickety pen and herded them inside.

Next, we had to move them up a chute into a smaller holding pen for shearing. So there we were – me and Mike – inside a pen with a bunch of sheep. Frightened and panting, they ran around us as we moved avoiding the chute. There was nothing to do but shove. We pushed and shoved and prodded. Eventually, with John’s help, the lead sheep reluctantly headed up the chute and the rest followed.

Inside the shed, we took photos with the six plus sheep waiting to be sheared. Some had curly, oily wool (this is where lanolin comes from) and others had dense, thick, soft wool that made me want to snuggle up next to these fuzzy animals. Plus, sheep have great faces, framed by their big, soft, warm ears. They didn’t have a lot of choice, so they let us pat them, feel their fur, and take countless photos. By this time, my hands were covered with sheep slobber, dirt, oil from the wool, and the charming smell of farm animals. No time to worry about that – it was time to try shearing.

John plugged in the electric shearer (it looks like a larger version of the shears we have for our cat), which was suspended from the wall of the barn. He went into the pen and grabbed one of the sheep and dragged her out by her front legs on her butt. There’s something about this posture that keeps the sheep calm. She just sat there on her “bum” while he held her by her front legs. Her skinny, stick-thin legs stuck straight out as though she was pointing her toes. We each got to try holding her and she cooperated very well. John demonstrated how to shear her and then had me – and then Mike – try it. I carefully ran the shearer down her side as the wool curled up and peeled away. It was so cool! John said I was a “natural.” I’m not sure the sheep thought so.

Mike took his turn on the same sheep. After we finished, we let her go and surveyed our handiwork. Poor sheep! All her sheep buddies are laughing and calling her names. She had a very bad hair day!

With her on the outside and all her buddies on the inside, she was very unhappy and wouldn’t leave. Much “baa-ing” ensued so we let them all out. They were a little slow to catch on, so I had to get back in the pen and shove them to the open gate. John instructed me to grab a sheep’s head and physically turn it in the direction I wanted her to go. Once again, when one started moving, the others followed. Soon all the sheep were headed back out to their pasture for more peaceful grazing – before the next “tour” of uninformed city-slickers arrived.

After shearing, John showed us how to see the difference in wool quality by the number of wrinkles in the fibers. Merino wool is filled with tiny crinkles and the fiber is very fine. It’s perfect for high-quality, soft garments. There was a memorable moment as John described how merino wool was prized by the fashion industry for its drape – as he tipped his body to one side to demonstrate the drape of the fabric.

With the flat-screen television re-covered, and us back in the truck, we said good-bye to the chickens, the pig and the pet sheep. What a morning! We thanked John for a most memorable experience. After leaving the wee shed, we stopped for lunch at the Glenorchy café. Thankfully, they had a sink
and
hand sanitizer!

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Blue Skies – Undoubtedly!

The natural beauty of New Zealand inspires. We saw vistas across the South Island from Mt. Cook, The Remarkables in Queenstown, and Doubtful Sound; each place with its own beauty. I found myself wondering, how can a place like this exist, and why aren’t we all living here?