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Adjala-Tosorontio couple are world travelers

July 7, 2016   ·   0 Comments

Written By: Jasen Obermeyer

Catherine and Norm Allen are no strangers to traveling. Adjala-Tosorontio residents since 2003, they have toured around the world  speaking of their experiences in Africa.

Prior to Africa, Mr. Allen traveled around Asia and at 20, hitchhiked for eight months from Alberta to San Tiago, Chile. Mrs. Allen volunteered teaching six months in Southeast Asia, as part of her research to write her master’s thesis on how English as a Second Language (ESL) is taught there.

Taking a year-long sabbatical in their early fifties, they traveled throughout Africa for eight months beginning in July 1999.

Arriving in Zimbabwe July 12, they volunteered teaching for a month at the Mutare Junior School, which at the time had over 1400 students from grades one to seven.   

Mainly teaching about Canada, they noticed no one knew how to operate the school’s new computers. They purchased Encyclopedia Britannica software, networking with a man running an Internet café, who volunteered to help in-service the school.   

Continuing around South Africa the next few months, including Swaziland, Mozambique and Tanzania, they hiked, scrambled mountains, and saw various wildlife, including zebras, lions and giraffes. 

Mr. Allen recalls a matriarch mother elephant charging their traveling group. Told by the guide not to run, only he and Catherine listened, the rest scattered.

He says it wasn’t the only bluff elephant charge they experienced.

“That was the closest and most intimidating one.” 

Mrs. Allen says seeing the African sky and stars in the desert, without a light bulb, made her feel like a spec in the universe.

“They try and do that in Hollywood movies, but it was nothing like that.”

Mr. Allen says he loves the people and the wildlife experience is extraordinary. 

“The scenery is so different from what we’re accustomed to. There’s some kind of an atmosphere to it, there’s a bit of a feeling of adventure.” 

Traveling in Eastern Africa, from Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda, Mr. Allen says they became more aware of the AIDS epidemic. In Malawi they saw numerous graveyards marked with plates, for children who died from AIDS. 

Mrs. Allen recalls meeting a little boy in Uganda; whose grandmother was raising him after his parents died of AIDS. She gave the grandmother her $20-a-day budget to help raise the grandson. 

Their African adventure ended after visiting Egypt and the Middle East, before touring Europe.

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