Due to a strange – but to my mind providential – set of circumstances and intuitions, 2020 saw me spend the year travelling around south western Europe and East Africa in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. After three months under a national State of Emergency in Spain, I was able to travel quite freely, and being ‘in the neighbourhood’ it made sense to visit the A Rocha centres in Portugal, France, and Kenya.
I was able to spend ten days at the original A Rocha study centre of Cruzinha in the Algarve region of Portugal, followed by three weeks at the Les Courmettes centre on the Cote d’Azur in southern France, and a further three weeks at A Rocha Kenya’s Mwamba centre on the Indian Ocean Coast, with a brief visit en route to A Rocha’s project in Nairobi. How wonderful to share in the hospitality at these places, and to get a sense of the amazing work being done by the global A Rocha whānau.