Through Dust and Dreams
by Roxana Valea
Synopsis:
At a crossroads in her life, Roxana decides to take a ten-day safari trip to Africa. In Namibia, she meets a local guide who talks about “the courage to become who you are” and tells her that “the world belongs to those who dream”.
Her holiday over, Roxana still carries the spell of his words within her soul. Six months later she quits her job and searches for a way to fulfil an old dream: crossing Africa from north to south. Teaming up with Richard and Peter, two total strangers she meets over the Internet, Roxana starts a journey that will take her and her companions from Morocco to Namibia, crossing deserts and war-torn countries and surviving threats from corrupt officials and tensions within their own group.
Through Dust and Dreams is the story of their journey: a story of courage and friendship, of daring to ask questions and search for answers, and of self-discovery on a long, dusty road south.
Purchase Links:
US - https://www.amazon.com/Through-Dust-Dreams-African-Adventure-ebook/dp/B00QZDP394/
Extract:
On their way south, Roxana and her travel mates cross Chad and have a less pleasant but nevertheless humorous encounter with police officer.
When we hit the tarmac at the end of a heavy drive along the feche road, we knew we were very close to the capital. A soldier, again judging by his gun, waved at the car to stop. I slowed down.
“What are you doing?” Peter looked at me.
“I’m stopping. He waved me to stop.”
“So what? He just wants a bribe. Just drive on.”
We were coming closer to the guy now. I was in doubt, but the memory of the other guy who stopped us just as we got out of Boll was still fresh. Maybe Peter was right.
“Do you think I should just drive on?”
“Yeah.”
This was coming from both of them and I felt they were right. I hit the accelerator. From the corner of my eye, I could see the surprised look of the soldier as we drove past and then I could see the rest in my back mirror: he suddenly swung around, pulled his gun off his shoulder and pointed it at us. I hit the brakes that very second. The whole car shook, and then eventually came to a stop in a few metres.
He was quite angry judging from the amount of yelling that came from the lower part of his face, hidden somewhere under the huge shawl that wrapped his head. He was yelling at us – surprisingly – in French, and demanded to see our documents. We gave him everything: passports, driving licences, insurance, the carnet1... everything.
“What were you doing? Why did you not stop? I know you saw me, I saw you looking at me!” he shouted at me.
What could I tell him? That I didn’t stop because I knew he would ask for a bribe?
“I wanted to stop,” I told him in the most docile voice I could find. “Only that…”
“Only that what?” he yelled back.
“Only that I hit the accelerator instead of the brake. I don’t know how it happened, I’m sorry. I did not mean to cause offence.”
I tried hard not to smile. To my right, Peter must have thought I had gone insane.
But I knew that this was a winning tactic. Playing the fragile woman who admits her incapacity always works in front of a macho type. The soldier seemed to swallow my explanation.
He was now busy going through our passports, and my travel mates got a sermon about why the UK should not have helped Bush invade Iraq. He then moved on to clarifying the next issue on his mind.
“Why are you driving?”
I knew what he meant but I couldn’t be bothered to think of an explanation.
He then asked my travel mates:
“You two in there, and a woman is driving? How did you let this happen?”
To him, this was as an insult to the manliness of my travel mates. Peter decided to serve him the full explanation.
“Because we’re on a very long journey, we all drive. We rotate. One of us drives every day. Today it is her turn to drive.”
It was beyond his understanding and obviously he did not get it. Peter gave up.
“Look at you, two men in this car, letting a woman drive. Who can understand…”
He went on for a while, but he didn’t get any more explanations so he turned to another subject, his main subject in fact, and the one that he had left until the end:
“You need to pay me 5000 CFA.”
It was useless to ask why. It was a bribe, just because he happened to be there, or just because he had a gun, or just because he held all our documents.
“No.”
This was in fact three “nos” combined into one. He asked again. We refused again. Then some mumbo jumbo started and Peter told him about our friend the Governor and our other friend the ambassador and somehow he believed us. Or maybe just didn’t know what to do with three white tourists who refused to pay a bribe.
As we drove on, I checked my back mirror again. His gun was pointing down this time. I couldn’t see his face, all wrapped up in his many layers, but I bet he had a doubtful expression. He might have learned two new things today: it was possible not to receive a bribe when you asked for one, and yes, women could drive. I wasn’t sure which one he found more puzzling.
As for us, we had just learned rule number three of surviving in Chad: when a man with a gun waves at you, you stop. Immediately.
1 The Carnet de Passages en Douane is a customs document that identifies a driver's motor vehicle. It is required in order to take a vehicle into a significant number of countries in Africa.
Author Bio
As an author, Roxana writes books inspired by real events. Her memoir Through Dust and Dreams is a faithful account of a trip she took at the age of twenty-eight across Africa by car in the company of two strangers she met over the internet. Her following book, Personal Power: Mindfulness Techniques for the Corporate World is a nonfiction book filled with personal anecdotes from her consulting years. The Polo Diaries series is inspired by her experiences as a female polo player--traveling to Argentina, falling in love, and surviving the highs and lows of this dangerous sport.
Roxana lives with her husband in Mallorca, Spain, where she writes, coaches, and does energy therapies, but her first passion remains writing.
Social Media Links:
Website: https://www.roxanavaleaauthor.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/roxana_valea
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