Just after the new year 3 families from our compound (and several singles) went on a short holiday trip to Yankari Game Reserve, about 4 hours east past Bauchi town. It was delightful! The roads to get there were surprisingly smooth, on the 40 mile drive (!) from the gates to the accommodation we spotted something antelope-like crossing the road. Warthogs (and baboons – least said about them the better) roamed around the chalets we stayed in, and as well as a fun wee safari, we spent lots of time swimming in the Wikki Warm Spring. Nestled in a grove of trees a river emerges from under a large rock wall. The water’s just a touch under body temperature the year round, and so for those of us used to a chilly shock every time we jump into an open air pool, it’s a rather pleasant surprise to jump in and get no shock – whether by day or by night. The blueish-tinged life-giving water steadily flows out from under the rock and is crystal clear, so that it was actually hard to see where the surface of the water was (at night especially). All you could see was the gleaming sand on the bottom.
Intriguingly there is a ‘royal villa’ at the game reserve which has its own private swimming pool for the State governor and his big men. But I for one couldn’t quite see why you would want a chilly and increasingly dirty artificial pool instead of the living, regenerating spring a few hundred metres away.
It reminded me of the prophet Jeremiah’s words to Israel:
Continue reading A warm spring or a dirty swimming pool?“My people have committed two sins:
They have forsaken me, the spring of living water,
and have dug their own cisterns,broken cisterns that cannot hold water.” (NIV)
Jeremiah 2:13
