News Archive
Nick Gudewill '66 (Groves')
Nick Gudewill (Groves') Refusing to slip quietly into retirement, Nick is still full of gusto and has had another amazing adventure. In January, he shipped his BMW 1200 Adventure to Cape Town, South Africa and along with a group of other motorcycle enthusiasts, completed a 13,000 km journey which took him the length of the continent to Cairo. Excerpts from his blog:
(Namibia) About a half hour later I come to another village full of kids in blue shirts heading home from school, like a lot of kids. I pull right off the road this time and wait for them to saunter up – ages about 5-10 years, maybe another soccer ball opportunity? They are all gathering around and I bring out the deflated ball; a cacophony of 'me, me, me, me' reverberates everywhere. Deafening. At least they know one word of English. Realizing the ball is useless with no air, when I pull out the pump there is dead silence. I take my sweet time on the pumping process in order to build suspense and survey the sweet little kids looking at me, the bike and mostly the ball. I get an older girl nearby to take a pic.
(Botswana) Sometimes words, even superlative words cannot describe what you see and experience; we were getting a bit antsy with no elephant sightings then, out of nowhere, we are in the middle of a large herd, half on one side of the track half on the other…. We are transfixed by the majesty of these animals in their natural habitat. They are a bit jittery with us so close by. Then, out of nowhere, the biggest bull stranded by himself from the herd gets angry, bellows, shakes his majestic head violently and almost knocks down a tree in a show of strength and intimidation.
(Ethiopia) The activity: by traffic I do not mean trucks and cars on the road, far from it, I mean animals and people in that order almost overwhelming; get used to it, slow down, enjoy the chaos for what it is because there will be nowhere else in the world with this congestion; the villages, literally hundreds maybe thousands a sea of vibrancy and goings on; I often wondered even in the middle of nowhere, just where was all of this movement going to and from?
(Kenya) Out of nowhere comes this sweet, sweet little girl, 12 years old (she will be married off at 15-18 for goodness sakes to a much older man) speaking near perfect English. Mister, are you the soccer ball man, yes, well we need another ball, why, because the big kids have gone off with the one at the school and the little kids need one too. How do you say no to that so my second to last ball was donated right there. She was a precocious little thing with great eye contact, determined and has a future in sales for sure.
(Egypt)I have been to the Pantheon, the Acropolis and Cape Sounion in Greece, the Coliseum in Rome and many other ruins, all very impressive. However, nothing remotely compares to what I saw today. The Greeks and Romans were like little boys playing with Meccano sets in comparison to what the Egyptians built more than a millennium before them.
If you want to share in Nick's adventure, read his fascinating blog: http://nickgudewill.blogspot.ca/
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