tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-78895502759966238262023-11-16T06:41:23.676+00:00Africa Carbon OdysseyMeeting people, experiencing places and understanding their challenges.
Two friends slow travelling the length of Africa to explore environmental and interlinked social issues and examine solutions which are being successfully implemented.Carbon Explorershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11595610392269355741noreply@blogger.comBlogger20125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889550275996623826.post-37802034637889837992008-09-08T17:36:00.011+01:002008-09-09T16:27:53.738+01:00Travel log 15 – Rwanda; Kigali, Gisenyi, Kibuye, Cyangugu, Butare & Burundi; Bujumbura<span style="font-family:verdana;"><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><p style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><strong>12/07/08<br />Kigali<br />The Swiss man on Banda Island said we would encounter a landscape like that of his home. </strong><br /><br />The European theme continued as the driver played Abba on his tape deck, putting a strange spin on the film of children waving, which played through the car window.<br /><br />King Dom helpfully pointed out that if we got on a bus one in ten of the passengers was likely to be a murderer. Other than genocide, Rwanda is known for its gorillas and we did not have the budget for them, so it was with a wariness of seeing everything with ghoulish hue that we entered Kigali.<br /><br />Somewhere between the border and the hotel Stuart’s second camera went walkabout – hence the lack of photos.<br /><br />The city spread over the surrounding hills, a hotchpotch of mostly new construction linked by wide tarmaced roads, the likes of which we had not seen since Tripoli. It was even greener than Tripoli, although in Kigali’s case the green came from papyrus, banana and other trees and bushes that lined the roads, not patriotic fervour.<br /><br />And as odd as it may have been for such a picturesque city, it was the Kigali Memorial Centre that it was known for. It tracked the run up to, and the results of, the genocide graphically and effectively. In 100 days more than 1,000,000 people were murdered for their ethnicity, which was actually more based on a class system created by Belgian colonials. It was valuable to learn about the events but we do not want this to be the focus of our description of Rwanda. If you want to know more about it we recommend that you visit www.kigalimemorialcentre.org.<br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpE-YPJkW-4XJk9KqIxfOOPZv0IAUHNK-mATCEnJzXnnuPDJeibpGBcL8hvVauimZVyPHDJjGlUyLIpLv6o3brG2pqlK_WjTMjpKdb-keBGku7RT7L2YddFFl_j5tdDsFj98kEE1zMHyQ/s400/CIMG0095.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5243692502006754978" /><br />However, when we ate great Italian food in Papyrus, listened to good jazz in <em>Republica</em> and pulled shapes in <em>Planet</em>, images from the Memorial Centre lingered. There were moments of forgetting but those simple questions we wanted to ask in order to make standard conversation with locals in our stilted French sounded loaded. For ‘Where are you from?’ and ‘What is your name?’ read ‘Which tribe are you?’<br /><br />Between the hilltops, clustered with red-roofed buildings which looked distinctly Mediterranean from a distance, were papyrus swamps and huge swathes of banana palms. People left the wide boulevards, patrolled by bent-back women with grass brooms, onto dirt tracks to their homes. As a whole, the city just seemed better organised than other capitals we had visited. When we got on the back of a <em>bodaboda</em> in the city, not only did they have crash helmets, they insisted that the passenger wore one, and in some cases made sure it was properly done up. What caused this difference is difficult to speculate about.<br /><br /><br /><strong>Gisenyi<br />15/07/08<br />The four-hour bus journey sharing Bombay mix with an Indian gentlemen working for the UN in DRC validated Rwanda’s pseudonym, Pays des Mille Collines (Land of a Thousand Hills). </strong><br /><br />We passed through some of the most tenderly beautiful country either of us had ever seen. Steep, terraced hills and valleys cupping lakes of tea of a green so potent, as if every leaf were a perfect little prism. Then there were the banana palms heaving with lascivious deep bruise-purple flowers and the little villages of cottages with terracotta tile roofs, tucked away in the jungle with their front gardens bright with flowers.<br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqbniLw-5qK95_Ouk3TjkYKJ8tCs3ki1DmCDHfP0eCiYv0PaiskKrbcaKzXZZPat3ZzT7uRdH9CjOQqkPvqq1Eb6TiblaCzQWnVbPmF81broCXsNQGwhN-GtfwwFUJNCbVxJXDz-RPcD0/s400/800px-GisenyiBeach.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5243692504862975010" /><br />We took our time ambling down to Lake Kivu along the Rwandan Riviera. The imposing buildings looked down onto the sandy beach and the calm waters, then onto the double horizon of the ironically named, Democratic Republic of Congo with its two ominous mountain chains, those in the background as light as clouds but impossibly massive. They spoke of a mysterious and fearsome country of cannibals and diamond cartels, and what was, in the eighties, the world’s largest consumer of Champagne.<br /><br /><br /><strong>Kibuye<br />16/07/08<br />The road from Gisenyi was terrible and the minibus was useless so we spent eight hours in a state of mild agony covering a distance of 86km (52 miles). </strong><br /><br />The town was in two parts – that on the top of the hill was a generic, dusty collection of brightly painted shacks selling staples and Chinese tat. At the base of the hill stood the mainly church-funded hotels, which looked out onto Lake Kivu and the outcrops of jungle that cut into it.<br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjC51CScUUGOFHCDOruwZbp8ZIjcFFezOJC8SNoT0g2tzhk1N_bVQkMFpbX2ghKPCtYqXdBGLnB400gQdTICN4D63SnHHsCpnq3V_E40Xpxm6QiLGva01iPh-IDNWqMrKwDdBu6P-X2t4/s400/kibuye%2520sunrise.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5243692512147698002" /><br />Riding pillion on a motorbike taxi, heavy with our luggage between the driver’s legs we coasted down the high hill with the engine off. It was the perfect way to see Lake Kivu sparkle in the early evening.<br /><br />Our hotel offered us the first salad since Uganda and the evening’s excitement was a wet dog on the beach putting its stink on Stuart’s hands.<br /><br />In the morning we scrabbled down a track between the tumbledown houses and their prerequisite wide-eyed children holding the younger siblings up against their hips and on to the bus station. <br /><br /><br /><strong>Cyangugu<br />17/07/08<br />The exotically named Cyangugu was on the road to the unfortunately named Bugarama. </strong><br /><br />Our hotel was next to the DRC border post on a small bridge across the water. Toby asked the man in the shed-sized office how much it would cost to cross over for the afternoon. ‘You cannot take photographs’ he replied without eye contact. ‘But how much will it cost?’ ‘It is impossible’ he replied. Presumably this was the point at which some monetary persuasion was expected but it hardly seemed worth the effort. It was probably the vain part of bravado tempting us over the bridge anyway.<br /><br />In an attempt to change some dollars we came across a building with ‘Bureau de Change’ in large red letters above the door. Inside sat a group of women going through sacks of dried beans, giggling at our confusion.<br /><br />The next morning we were bundled into a minibus by wily teenagers who spoke their French with a devil may care drawl. The individual who joked about the beggar leaning against his home made crutch, who was pleading with us for money, was wearing women’s <em>Nike</em> trainers.<br /><br /><br /><strong>Butare<br />18/07/08<br />The bus to Butare took us through an extraordinary forest, home to a large number of chimpanzees. </strong><br /><br />Either side of the road was thick with ferns and creepers and vast old trees stretching out for miles that became, in the distance, a uniform swathe of dark green with the contours of a ruffled tablecloth.<br /><br />The limited amount of time we had in the town of Butare perhaps unfairly gave us the impression of yet another unpaved, dust bowl on the way to somewhere else, which for us would be Burundi the following morning.<br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_g0RDrWSOi-xqLzhZkRWLqKM9pWFFBdHuOy3lm_WWzEafyWyOaL9O03EomchUebIW0TOP-Uc_kU3gmTOJoqrNqg_FmYNq8GEaGthL1-3pqGcvPVTyR_JnVw5c3YRB5GqSYcRr2VEuexI/s400/Butare.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5243692514822676738" /><br />A boy in the town who showed us around in exchange for our email addresses took us to a bureau de change. We were taken down an alley where an ancient man was sewing with an ancient <em>Singer</em>. We were introduced to a Muslim lady who gave us a good rate but managed to make the whole thing seem quite sordid. <br /><br />On our walk back to the town centre our guide told us that his mother was a Burundian and that he regularly visited her in Bujumbura, the capital. When asked his opinion on the place he replied, ‘Rwanda is more nice because the security is one hundred per cent’. On one hand, Nairobi was painted for us as an anarchic hellhole and it turned out to be fine. On the other, it was only a few weeks ago that the Hutu rebels signed a peace agreement in Bujumbura. We researched the place as best we could, but there was still a very big element of the unknown which we were both avoiding talking about in the hope that our motivation was not the bad Congo bravado.<br /><br /><br /><strong>Burundi<br />Bujumbura <br />19/07/08<br />It was a relatively simple process getting into Burundi except for the fact we were only allowed three days at the border and were told we would have to get an extension in Bujumbura. </strong><br /><br />As it was already Saturday afternoon and we were a few hours from ‘Buj’ we had a matter of hours to get our visas extended or find transport to Tanzania. In the end we left it and got the extension. <br /><br />The waves of the children we had seen in Rwanda were inverted to calls for alms. Did they expect us to stop the public bus in order to give them money? Burundi was clearly far poorer than Rwanda, partly because its political situation was far less stable. Rebel groups have only recently signed the ceasefire so were not long ago still wreaking havoc in large parts of the country, including those we were travelling through and on the outskirts of Buj.<br /><br />As we passed through one of the countless valleys we were confronted by a large swathe of land divided up into small allotments which were being worked by entire families. Up the next hill a brook poured from the mountainside next to the road. Women sat with the fruits and vegetables which were being continually splashed with water, glistening appealingly in the harsh sunlight.<br /><br />We were welcomed into the city by the painted concrete remnants of a monument on a roundabout. Along the sides of the long road into the city were unkempt shacks with their living room, kitchen and bar as the street corner. It was a distilled version of what we had seen in so many other scenes of urban poverty. However, the context here was different. Underneath it all there was a decent infrastructure.<br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY9SB4Lj56Iu0kmL7chLWSv1r1y_byBXEwRxzqQM1o4bhVCtmsWcLh927xK2z6NViUWInCOfht9kgc65q5ri5NHgoFIwFOQ0uHTq0NxDP1GnkCfxlwDbK-9Kx2qL-ZA5M2rv1ZhogXgy4/s400/800px-BujumburaFromCathedral.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5243692515605072578" /><br />As we got off the bus a man speaking crazed French asked us if we needed help getting to our hotel. He tried to get into a taxi with us. We passed through the alien streets. It was hard to put a finger on what exactly the place was and it was unsettling. The <em>Hotel le Doyen</em> was built during the Belgian occupation and it seemed as if the management were expecting them back. Nothing had been changed by any hand but time’s. Great leaves of paint had heaved themselves from the concrete. The bakelite phone in reception was coloured like bone by sunlight, its cord to the wall long since frayed and disconnected. The board of lights which once, in more affluent days, had lit up to alert staff to the whims of guests who needed lobster and champagne at four in the morning, now lay on its side, covered in dust. <br /><br />Upon moaning about the lack of hot water Toby was granted access to the bathroom of the Presidential suite. In the squat football stadium which it looked over, a second division match took place with enthusiastic support. It sounded eerie from inside the vaulted bathroom with its cracked bath.<br /><br />Buj market was like a Victorian circus with horribly deformed babies on display and their mothers begging beside them. The only thing human in the massive misshapen head of one toddler was her scared little eyes.<br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZyWNiP-7T_BB_iW-sjoZpUnBNtXthaoIIsB6MlLXpMtd3e6Ph1Uhz5NoiAr6ANOjiK9nn9ppnANuNo88oa-k9yl1DeUAGcEygfKLuB0pW6IVFkoTtvK028DnRYMsletgzyFYOEVb5D4k/s400/Bujumbura_market.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5243694261075599154" /><br />Inside there was a vast maze of stalls in a building like an aircraft hanger. Many stalls sold second-hand clothes shipped from the First World in tight bundles and exchanged with ferocious haggling. It was a good opportunity for us to smarten ourselves up a bit, the hand washing and harsh sun leaving much of our clothing in a state. <br /><br />The food was very tasty – the chips and mayonnaise were Belgian and the legendary one litre brown bottle with the simple white stamp of the Primus beer, washed them down nicely. <br /><br />On the shores of Lake Tanganyika sat several bars where we could eat. At one a local wedding was taking place for someone evidently quite important. We were privileged enough to hear and see the tribal drumming performance put on for the wedding party’s benefit. Five toddler tall drums topped with animal skins were beaten with crude wooden sticks with an accompaniment of rhythmic chants and yelps. The rhythms were very complex and contained a perfect mix of the unexpected and intuition, making a whole that was trance inducing.<br /><br />Further down the beach was a classy colonial club named <em>Cirque Nautique, </em> which had beautiful views of the lake and the DRC. However, it did suffer from the irritation of mosquitoes and the incessant ribbiting of randy frogs. <br /><br />This was incongruous with the huge BINUB (United Nations Integrated Office in Burundi) base – floodlit and encircled with barbed wire and right next to the beach where people were gallivanting about on the sand. <br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCSelqmW1abDhNT8aw-Axwg6M2aXwz_j6M-8j9BVXv18R0_uT4KZcS-A75Iek2e_-0j64aTeb75X9yiXJZt5qgGtvbSvCZgnUN5BfPZz6F9tOjbKAxe3CxGeiZ_7WKRn45AWLqSLcurRo/s400/media_file_40415.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5243694266273523330" /><br />We made friends with a couple of Congolese who took us to infamous <em>Bwazaria</em> bar on the edge of the city. It definitely had an edgier feel to it but even the drunks arguing with their prostitutes were very courteous. The music clearly catered for a hard-core African crowd, the galloping rhythms were a challenge to dance to and the DJ refused our requests.<br /><br />It was by talking to one of the hotel staff that we got to learn more about the Hutu / Tutsi conflict which afflicts Burundi as it does Rwanda. We had read the Burundian approach to the problem is to discuss it openly, whereas in Rwanda discussing ethnicity is frowned upon. He highlighted the ludicrousness of the situation. Many years ago the Tutsi came south to Burundi with many cattle and because of this were rich. The native Hutu would then end up working for a Tutsi. When the colonials came they decided that everyone should have ID cards, identifying them as either Hutu or Tutsi. With many years of cross breeding they decided the best way to do this was to check the number of cattle owned by each person. This of course meant that it was not done along racial lines really but more class lines because of course some ancestral Hutus then owned many cattle and vice versa. The colonials then essentially used these Tutsi to be the ruling elite, which laid the seeds of resentment that grew into war and genocide. There are certain stereotypes that are supposed to distinguish the two groups. Tutsi are supposed to be tall, slim and have long noses. Hutus short, squat, with flat noses. The ridiculousness of the system was clearly demonstrated by the staff member who was Tutsi and pointing at his flat know said ‘I must be a Hutu’.<br /><br />Our last view of Burundi was the bus ride to the border with Tanzania at Manyovu. We saw fishing villages against the lake edge, their waters filled with old wooden boats. Coconut palm plantations stretched for miles. There was a general sense of there being a lot to offer amongst the squalor. <br /><br />Manyovu was grim. As we bartered with a taxi driver to take us the last few miles to the border post we were given an audience of twenty or so, all craning their necks, goggle-eyed. There was clearly not much going on.<br /><br />We drove through the tall eucalyptus forests on the pot-holed road, dotted with lone figures carrying wood upon their heads. We passed fenced enclaves and squat military posts. With a cloudy sky overhead it all looked very unpromising. These were the Burundian refugees chucked out of Tanzania after the declaration of peace. Tanzania claims they are crossing the border and sacking Tanzanian villages. The Burundians say that they are still unsafe in Burundi. A border official asked us to change money with him, at a very unfavourable rate. We asked the bus driver who would take us to the next town in Tanzania if we could pay him upon entry and he said it would be fine. The border official did his best to disrupt the situation for us. Fixed smiles, loud voices and just getting on the bus did the trick. It was one of the most uncomfortable rides in Africa thus far, quite an achievement. In the small Toyota minibus designed for fourteen passengers there were twenty and two clinging onto the outside. People had to get out as we went up hill. We came to Kigoma in a bad mood. </p></div></span>Carbon Explorershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11595610392269355741noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889550275996623826.post-46613227900469298082008-08-17T17:42:00.008+01:002008-08-18T14:51:50.405+01:00Travel Log 14 - Uganda<span style="font-family:verdana;"><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><p style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><strong>Bus ride from Nairobi to Kampala <br />17/06/08<br />We made the decision to upgrade our tickets from ‘executive’ to ‘royal’ for a fiver, which was relatively luxurious with the semi-paved roads and everything very Britishly punctual.</strong><br /><br />The hiccup came at the border where an official, whose bulbous chin followed the movements of his head unenthusiastically, stamped our three month visas and wrote on them in biro, informing us that we could stay in Uganda for two weeks. When asked why, he replied that we needed to go to the immigration office in Kampala. He seemed a little confused between cause and consequence.<br /><br />From the smeared bus windows we noticed the mobile phone adverts dominating the street scenes as if they were rival political parties. We were told about the alleged backhanders government officials in Kenya received from Vodaphone’s Safaricom network. The African elite are buying into these companies in a big way. Almost everyone has a mobile: Africans like to talk. Now it is possible to move money using mobile phones. Credit can be sent from one phone to another and the credit can then be exchanged for cash. Most people do not have bank accounts and many live out of easy reach of a bank. People can get their wages by phone and can send money to their families. The mobile’s power is also being tapped into by the politicians who spend vast sums of money sending voice and SMS messages to voters. These are the same voters who can be mobilised into a riot in a matter of hours in the same way.<br /><br /><strong>Kampala<br />18/06/08 – 22/06/08<br />We came into the city in style: riding pillion on bodabodas – a taxi motorbike. </strong><br /><br />Enterprising Ugandans taking advantage of Kampala’s bizarre road system, the heart of which is a minibus park which crawled, beeping, up the hill into town and from town into the country. The motorbike ruled the gridlocked city; on the wrong side of the road, on the pavement, over potholes, in front of buses. Before even making the commitment to cross the road, engaging with Kampala’s traffic is an extreme act. Animals, men pushing / pulling huge carts and wheelbarrows, pedestrians with preposterous loads balanced on their heads (handbags and wheelie luggage being some of the most curious looking, but by no means the largest), motorbikes, minibuses, coaches and lorries all push each other around the pavement and road.<br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1ZrE2a-FfnKfVHokjceu4zVzRV2quLJsZt4QTFBhL8jwEWAo2-crPfDyFpKSInKXYi3voXHlpEt3-8EUVLpVdHDSoLQlr_TSsqxULytvieSm4JDpdo0DpWy62tnyx1oN3pkSeFZQTsPs/s400/n685000450_3383488_3455.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5235531278939037410" /><br />When we stopped to ask a man for directions he confirmed the wild generalisation made of Ugandans – very friendly. He phoned his friend because he did not know the place we were talking about and negotiated a good price for us with a <em>bodaboda</em>.<br /><br />The metropolitan skyline of Nairobi was pared down in Kampala. There were still the high rise buildings but not on the same scale and they are mainly 70’s dinosaurs. Many of the streets were in a state of disrepair, but somehow it had the air of somewhere less foreign. Perhaps it is because the violence against Ugandans at the hands of Idi Amin was far enough in the past (as opposed to the continuing post-election violence of Kenya). We spent one morning with a Swede on a wild goose chase, searching for an underground train station built by Amin, which never saw a train; it may have been a myth.<br /><br />We stayed in a <em>Lonely Planet</em> recommendation, the <em>Red Chilli Hideaway</em> - annoying accents, high-tech trousers and boring stories about the ‘ultimate’ experience and getting an ‘amazing’ price and having an ‘incredible’ time that is far from credible, and the privileged NGO oiks with little real desire to understand the world - before relocating ourselves to the centre of town where they don’t triple the cost that everything should be.<br /><br />During an evening we went to one of Kampala’s more salubrious night clubs: <em>Ange Noir</em>. We paid the extra pound for the privilege of going to the VIP area. The UV light was not kind to the shirts we were wearing. We had washed them ourselves and evidently not done a particularly good job. The dance floor was slightly lowered and enclosed by a metal rail upon which extras from a budget hip hop video nodded in agreement. <br /><br />Kenyan and Ethiopian dancing had been risqué but this looked like a tribal fertility dance. On the TV screens around the club they played <em>Ultimate Fighting</em> footage. The VIP veneer was cracked only by the prostitute who clearly had some horrendous story to tell, poorly masked by a fixed grin and a series of robotic chat up lines. What was striking was that she was another Ugandan to have the very specific speech impediment that we had noticed elsewhere. ‘L’ as ‘W’ as in ‘Pwese buy me drink’. We were told later by a man called Livingston that there is an eastern Ugandan tribe without the letter ‘L’. It was reminiscent of <em>Good Morning Vietnam. </em><br /><br />We were lucky enough to meet <em>Yunasi</em> again, at Kampala’s first international music festival, which they were headlining in the absence of the Congolese superstar <em>Papa Wemba</em>. The performers throughout the evening were all fairly unmemorable, some plaintive acoustic guitar sing-alongs about saving the world, an awkward fashion show and so on. Before <em>Yunasi</em> came onto the stage, there was only one stand out group who somehow fused frantic African dance music with prog-rock breaks. There was a theme of bizarre abstraction – the speeches they gave and their onstage demeanours were learnt and strangely accentuated in a panto fashion and were as such, very entertaining.<br /><br />The relatively small crowd had been unresponsive other than a lone Rasta on a tricycle riding in circles, tooting his bicycle pump-operated fog horn. <em>Yunasi</em> had everyone by the stage and dancing in no time. They were so obviously happy and charismatic it was very easy to get carried along by them. During their performance they invited audience members to come onstage for a dance-off. One of the group rushed into the crowd and pulled Toby onstage to partake in a well-intentioned act of ritual humiliation in order to confirm the <em>muzungu’s</em> inability to ‘shake their booty’. The winner was chosen by the cheers of the crowd. Toby came in a very respectable second. It was mainly a sympathy vote but the Rasta was so impressed he offered to dreadlock Toby’s hair. <br /><br />‘Backstage’ or more accurately, behind some scaffolding we congratulated them on their performance.<br /><br />We spent our days exploring Kampala’s sweaty crevices. As it is perched upon several hills the rewards of walking downhill are always short lived, but as they are topped with strange Bahai and Jain temples it makes a reasonable skyline.<br /><br />After passing through a vegetable market towards a ticking hum we came upon the haberdashers. They sat upon a stage-like platform in rows under the high shade of corrugated iron. Around them lay women on piles of material, scraps and rolls. Everything looked perfectly enough placed for one of them to burst into song and for them to jump onto their <em>Singers</em> and dance in synchrony.<br /><br />We ate lunch in a one table café looking out onto the hat sellers. Mashed plantain (matoke) was earthy, like swede and tangy, like banana and it sat in the stomach like concrete, which is an advantage when you do not know when your next meal is coming.<br /><br /><strong>Crater Lakes<br />23/06/08 – 24/06/08<br />Four hours on the bus from Kampala brought us to the science-fiction inspired Fort Portal in the west of the country. </strong><br /><br />Unfortunately it did not offer other worlds, an air conditioned supermarket would have been enough, rather it was the same mess of shops displaying the precisely painted names of rival mobile phone companies as any homogenous Ugandan or Kenyan town does.<br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEialDDtpz5lSoao3lN-6J-G41pHf8SqNDOFwZws0ovnKBcpK7Ub5SsCHWyUaJwFqcW0Hc3FOGgBEmZTRMo5bF4k3HO6i58zdQ70Y-igVCCcOGqVI2ahzNoN3hzmkYJBSxK2k9iXtoLMar0/s400/n685000450_3383500_398.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5235531282366551586" /><br />In Fort Portal we met the pastor who ran the campsite we planned to visit. He drove us down to Lake Nkuruba Community campsite on the same grounds as the orphanage that it funded, on the lip of Lake Nkuruba. We were told by a friend that it was infected with bilharzias so we did not swim, but sitting on the rocks on its shore in the early evening as the monkeys shook the branches of the thick jungle all around and the light gently played on the undersides of the leaves of an avocado tree was a salve to city sores. The Colobus monkeys seemed unthreatened by our presence and cast surly glances down at us as we competed skimming stones across the glassy surface of the lake with two boys who had come there to watch. Thirteen was the record.<br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFDmOuiCm94hO3wsKv0uxE-iE5pqjo0CIdlBHpRxtEQnm-2SSY6EURTc0UJXaxCqNazvxMl6V1HNPdTaJXyAb8D7vTFCGBaNTzWHIohirtA3VQfYD9-LfegkGY2Vltq8G_rDI7EXNSGLU/s400/n685000450_3383580_3613.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5235531285786569282" /><br />The following day we took a walk with Livingstone, a staff member from the campsite down to a waterfall. We took to the road at the same time of the morning that children from all around were making their way to school. Livingstone’s insistence that one particular group who followed us for quite some distance would be late if they continued to follow at our pace was not heeded. They seemed willing to suffer a clip round the ear in order for the opportunity to listen to our mysterious monotone mumblings.<br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwjYdzH1p34b2X7jAFcs88Y6CZJXnHYDeJfZKBwouqj4j17PlqKkm98porIY-GNnbRaIT79NLLh42phHDO2CarcQ9dmiqbaWLj7r9KoXS0-FUxsHdrPNMS53tuNB5H4JdUUb9_bSixO6c/s400/n685000450_3383512_6850.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5235531283139816114" /><br />We passed through a hilly landscape interspersed with sheer sided lakes all covered by lush jungle. Its green all the more green with the flamboyant flowers and birds dotting it. We came to a banana plantation and strolled past the neatly kept villages without views of the horizon, just endless banana palms. We took a Livingstonian ‘power shower’ under the waterfall with butterflies like bright leaves in a playful wind and vines creeping down from the past in the crisp, wet air. We chafed our way back to the campsite to be served beer, and food with too much salt in it.<br /><br /><strong>Murchison Falls<br />30/06/08 – 2/07/08<br />We stayed in safari tents, ate good food, were warned about feeding the warthogs and the dangers of hippos in the night, blah blah blah. </strong><br /><br />That was the less inspiring side of Murchison Falls in the north of the country. The prospect of spending three days with fellow tortoises did not appeal greatly but we were lucky enough to be sharing our time with a group of Austrians on their way to their friends wedding (to a Ugandan) and a Brit working in a school outside Kampala. <br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiITwaFDPxQt4oib_JjYNiUn4qBJOR3xUp2UEsJovI1-9lPfviw4AR6seBhThgUIofA3QWeP9o_YO-L1Dn-QiWxmCyYwxh7tpOYRhA0Qd1RUv4nNhbvchcaVhz31_kSSZ684VC4vgDdcek/s400/n685000450_3454759_4509.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5235532776547126498" /><br />So, the good bit: standing in the open-topped minibus speeding along the dirt track, stopping to watch the seemingly carefully arranged zoo animals. As we passed other vehicles our driver swapped animal knowledge with the other drivers in Lugandan and so we came upon a family of elephants which was striking, but not an image as indelible as seeing them from the boat. We also saw many other animals although the park’s lions eluded us.<br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyrpG8w8pTriBzqPA5a6P6AEyeo8UcqipB5HcRLUjUN3J1g0ySOKOLZquY0YkuftyK2xPvpaHIOYeoXE44mHabQF9-4ArAtHwgMFupbkJGx3b21bR70fcMXuw8sEOoCPjwnHVNiKfjxu4/s400/n685000450_3454735_2444.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5235532773172343250" /><br />Our boat chugged up the Nile to a few metres away from the point of impact between Murchison Falls and its river, while the captain chatted on his mobile. Three metre crocodiles basked open mouthed in the sun of the dry banks, all heaped on top of each other and very un-lifelike. Lumbering hippos, mysterious and powerful with eyes, ears and nostrils protruding from the water announced their presence with a fine spray of water into the air. When they heaved themselves up through the reeds and onto the riverbank to swing their heads at the grass like a blunt hoe, they became at once flabby and preposterous, making it far easier to imagine them enacting their hierarchical ritual of spraying their own excrement onto the heads of those hippos of greater import. A press cutting at the campsite warned of the dangers of Africa’s deadliest animal, showing a man being chased down the road like Buster Keaton by one at full pelt.<br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgdegoly1booAZXk_8WOlXlUaiWL0Jh6vGZ3Hyv6YCH9EOFeqIrPKR0ZfJAWT1aszupuymPoVsfB8rRb1LHbnd-ScyXBdYCid9E9OpU6T5ui7cP3wpbahLtyF_bC0qkMPGtWU0-z3lmzU/s400/n685000450_3454702_8722.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5235531285740792450" /><br />Then we saw a family of elephants drinking at the water’s edge. Two bulls, one cow, two calves and one immature male mucked around like they were on holiday. The dominant male was impossibly regal. All his features were individually ludicrous but together handsome and dignified. In this setting, perched between the bars of the moving blue of the Victoria Nile and the living green of the lilies, papyrus, then wet meadowland and into dense jungle then out into the serene yellows of the grasslands - they looked like a royal family.<br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVLEMgRmnI02mUcRiwxGJEpqzv9_f4Kg0n3CoTfA4X_TbIqc_umx3lcjFRecW-rz0oqRKID6-hIn1ZEk7gq78B3v9m2ox0aQJUcaMhEOmQ2hVVbpkbVmzHT5ACG5N5NfrLqBTjGjR5Czg/s400/n685000450_3454705_37.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5235532769770358530" /><br /><strong>Return to Kampala<br />10/07/08<br />We returned to Kampala to make our way to Banda Island on Lake Victoria, south of Kampala and to go to the Austrian bride’s hen party. </strong><br /><br />During the journey the British lady on the bus told us about the circumcision gangs that roam Kampala, carrying out the act they believe should have been done in childhood, forcibly and on the street. This was either the product of a very twisted imagination or terrifying.<br /><br />We met the Austrian hen party in <em>Fat Boyz</em> in a classier part of town and were assigned, by the bridesmaids we met in Murchison, the task of putting a vase of flowers and poster in the men’s toilets. The poster instructed those who washed their hands that Patricia in the photo was to be married and they should give her one of the flowers.<br /><br />Her table had been drinking shots like Eastern Europeans and they were beginning to show the sexual decorum of builders, whooping with excitement as a stream of mock-suitors handed the bride-to-be flowers. The Austrian sing-alongs were good and rousing but the African animal charades were perhaps a little too European. At the end of the evening the mother of the bride invited us to the wedding.<br /><br />This was the first opportunity we had to put on our ties and a clear case of mother knows best. The general sense of ludicrousness as we took a <em>bodaboda</em> to the <em>Papaya Palm</em> was heightened by the fact that we were both wearing worn out jeans, trainers, blue shirt and blue tie, purely because these were the smart clothes we both happened to pack. Luckily it was a very laissez-faire affair. The Austrian traffic planner / musician with the <em>Thundercats</em> symbol tattooed on his calf filmed us as we stood like lemons, with a grin on his face. Men were wearing earrings and undone waistcoats on top of t-shirts and women in trousers. It was all very progressive. <br /><br />After two hours they gave up waiting for many of the Ugandan guests to turn up and the procession walked to the steps of the garden to the sound of a Scottish girl playing the violin and a Ugandan man playing the piano. The priest ranted fire and brimstone about divorce, then it was time to eat. The Ugandans piled vast portions on their plates and everyone nattered away.<br /><br />Next were the speeches which were tearful and did not go on too long. One of the bridesmaids told a fairy story which stole the show. The father of the bride’s speech focused upon a bowl he made from the wood of a tree by a river in Austria. The DJ’s attempts to find a musical compromise for his audience resulted in a bizarre mix of Mozart, <em>The Birdie Song</em> (which is Austrian apparently), 70’s disco and frantic East African dance music, but everyone danced like they should, with the bride’s newly adopted daughters demanding piggybacks from the guests. We were invited to paint on a communal canvas for the happy couple and given blank postcards to make designs on and send on specific dates throughout the year. It was good to get the opportunity to sit with the father of the bride and be in the presence of someone with such a pure sense of pride. What united the Austrian and Ugandan cultures was their unsuppressible sense of hospitality and it all worked to act as a definite end of a chapter in our travels. Tomorrow we would be on Banda Island and it was hard to imagine what we would find there.<br /><br /><br /><strong>Banda Island<br />14/07/08 – 17/07/08<br />Maybe King Dom was a sexist, sadistic racist. It was difficult to know what was real on Banda Island. </strong><br /><br />It was difficult to know where fantasy ended and the truth began with the habitual recreational drug-using, semi-alcoholic ‘Keenyan’. As he held court at the ritualistic concrete slab table looking out onto his beach and the vast expanse of Lake Victoria beyond he made wild and terrifying claims about his childhood with his own personal African army, his years as a Benedictine monk, being a scab during the Thatcherite miner strikes and smuggling diamonds from Congo.<br /><br />A friend had lived on Banda Island and recommended that we visit the place, and gave us Dom’s number. It was sold to us like Garland’s <em>Beach</em>.<br /><br />When Dom’s carpenter misunderstood his instructions on how to cut the Congolese hardwood to construct a boat, Dom told us that he was going to break all the man’s fingers. If he did, it was after we left. It is clear there was something amiss as we found out that apparently he runs an orphanage (but he does not like to tell people about that).<br /><br />Banda is one of the Sesse Islands dotted around a lake that is a third of the UK in size. There was a child-like glee in the fact that he clearly had what he wanted – he was living in a castle he had built, on a tropical island he owned. <br /><br />Part of the kitchen garden was a pineapple plantation set up by Dom’s Minister for Internal Affairs – a slightly too skinny German with photosensitive glasses that always remained slightly too dark. His logic produced fruit that made the mouth wet itself uncontrollably. Dom’s other resident was a Swiss alcoholic who sneaked off with bottles of ‘Bananarama’: a banana based hooch, the alcohol content of which was demonstrated to us by setting it alight and it producing a purplish flame which, apparently, meant it was just about safe. When the Swiss man blinked he tended to re-open his eyes a little too wide. He was one of many old, lonely ex-pats who enter into a second spring before their final winter, and fall energetically in love with an African teenager who is <em>definitely</em> different from all the rest.<br /><br />We came to the island from the frantic, stinking port of Kasenyi where we were hoisted onto the shoulders of men who waded out into the water and dumped us into a fifteen metre wooden boat full of people and produce which chugged through the water with the babies crying.<br /><br />We arrived on the island at dark to the sight of a dramatic bonfire on the beach where Dom and his dogs sat waiting for us. We handed over the supplies he asked us to get in Kampala and we sat down to eat with the British couple who took the trip with us and were the island’s only other guests. Throughout our stay we ate like foreign dignitaries at court. It was hard to imagine how Dom’s enterprise was sustainable as it was so cheap. Dom had brilliant stories to tell and without Dom’s presence the Swiss man’s story-telling would have been far more impressive. He told us about the renegade monkey with a drink habit who terrorised guests on a neighbouring island. His descriptions of his attempts to kill it with a giant catapult were made all the more enthralling by his curious grammar.<br /><br />As we stood in the clear waters (which Dom told us at a later date were probably bilharzias infected) there was nothing to do but watch an army helicopter circle overhead. Apparently they were looking for the Norwegian sunbathers who were there a few weeks ago. We were told that the islands are fairly lawless. There are two policemen on Kalangalabut, their stationing there is penance for them as there are only two grotty nightclubs to choose from and for many Ugandans the water does not act as a lure, as many cannot swim. This includes the majority of the fishermen. They spend their days staring down the end of a beer bottle.<br /><br />During the night a motorway of lights appeared, made up of hundreds of small boats attracting flying insects with lights. The insects then fell into the water and attracted fish which could be scooped up with fishing nets. Dom claimed this ‘environmental rape’ did not occur within his waters because he threw explosives at their boats from his shore.<br /><br />Sailing away from the island the ‘Keenyan’, German, Swede and the dogs and their six or seven staff in the distance, milling about the kitchen, looked like a dysfunctional family.<br /><br />We took the bus back to Kampala and the following morning got on a coach for Kabale in the South-West near the border with Rwanda.<br /><br />After five monotonous hours on a bus it was a case of find some food then jump on the back of a bicycle taxi to our hotel.<br /><br /><br /><strong>Kabale<br />18/07/08 – 19/07/08<br />The following morning we hired a <em>bodaboda</em> and its driver for the day. </strong><br /><br />Luckily our driver was on his holidays from studying tourism and his bike was just about powerful enough to carry our combined weight up the hills. He was a good guide and repeated verbatim his textbook spiel on Lake Bunyoni. There was the Punishment Island where unfaithful women were left to starve to death (which looked to be only a few hundred metres away from the shore). There was the bamboo forest where the Pygmies hide. There were caves in which blacksmiths forge <em>pangas</em> (machetes). There was a village of renowned witchdoctors frequented by the Ugandan elite.<br /><br />The lush, steep sides of the lake were terraced and its islands’ plucky hills were invariably topped with a disproportionately large church further adding to the air of gentle fiction.<br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO8K-_n3q8Kpsu5EhwQz273SqeN94XbSf-C6NNBacQ4KOEqzHtdnCkTGjC6H1K2Bi5owDk5jMcbDT-JKrYYUlFHEk-Ros-NtZh4u9NSe2Vhh5FFP95-VSTjI5MVFWpFCsTsmRYwjUDzi0/s400/11928-Lake-Bunyoni-0.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5235532777443379954" /><br />Our driver stopped a small man without shoes, wearing a sun bleached suit several sizes too large for him who was herding goats across the road. ‘He is Pygmy’ our driver announced and the Pygmy smiled enthusiastically. Pygmies are the original tribe of large parts of East Africa but are a generally subjugated people. They are often a minority and their practices (living in the forest, tribal dances, refusal to plant crops, hunting for meat) often earn them contempt.<br /><br />That afternoon we took the short shared taxi ride to the Rwandan border where we filled in yet more useless trivia about ourselves and took another shared taxi to the Rwandan capital – Kigali. </p></div></span>Carbon Explorershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11595610392269355741noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889550275996623826.post-39053348545599899052008-07-07T10:06:00.004+01:002008-07-07T23:09:28.601+01:00Travel Log 13 - Kenya<span style="font-family:verdana;"><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><p style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><strong>Nairobi, Naivasha and Hells Gate National Park <br />3/6/2008 – 19/6/2008<br />Architectural wigs and an ominous air</strong><br /><br />First impressions of Nairobi were of a modern and Western metropolis, beggarless and lined with the first litterbins we’d seen since we went through France. Well-heeled businessmen and women hurriedly marched about in marginally out-of-date suits. The notable differences were; far more aggressive driving, louder voices, the occasional traditional dress - vibrantly coloured with over-sized patterns, and the proliferation of highly implausible but eye-catching, architectural wigs on the heads of women. As the sun set it became far more rowdy. Below our hotel room we could see street children glue-sniffing and staggering into a heap in an alley to a night chorus of hundreds of car alarms. The streets felt edgy, whether this is because we were expecting them to be dangerous (thanks to the many warnings about ‘Nairobbery’ from fellow tortoises) or because they genuinely were is impossible to tell.<br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPd94U0fpk1N_gin7nBZTsEkaHNuLHsl0GjQQyOIrGSlcPl0FELAw-ngFYyYdR0oioA9SKR6vET2i8HGCxoMr525UrrJXQu60-8jctp33PiXgiqr4GoAuzdXoi699b2Okni4EcJF5E-sw/s400/IMG_0865_Nairobi_skyline.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5220196724342646194" /><br />As we had an ex-pat friend in Nairobi (Tom) and he was kind enough to help us out, we ended up spending much of our time within this community. The world in which they, and therefore we occupied was in many ways dissociated from the black Nairobi and surreally Western. What united the ex-pats and the black Nairobians was their disgust with and their propensity to talk about politics.<br /> <br />We were told that over 22.5% of the country’s GDP is spent on the running of the government.<br /><br />Before meeting Tom we were staying downtown in the ironically named ‘Secure Rest Lodge’ which is <em>probably</em> where Stuart’s camera was stolen from (hence the inauthentic photos of South Ethiopia and most of Kenya). While we stayed in this part of the city a student was shot by indiscriminate police gunfire. We only knew when reading the papers the next day. A similar experience was relayed to us by many Nairobians regarding the post-election violence. It was felt that the Western media’s portrayal of events gave the impression of something not only citywide, but engulfing the whole country, and this had irreparably damaged the country’s tourist trade. We met seemingly lost tour guides who offered their services to us free of charge as part of government initiative to change the country’s image. Tourism accounts for 54% of Kenya’s GDP.<br /><br />One evening Tom, our man in Nairobi, took us to a very exclusive country club. We made our way past the stuffed lions to the billiards room to play snooker with the political attaché to the British High Commission. As he was introduced to Toby, Toby was not entirely prepared for the jolly good, ‘rah!’ hand throttling. He stared down at the awkwardly embracing hands and looked up with raised eyebrows, holding Toby’s eye, then Stuart’s, probably looking as he does when he is in hostage negotiation situations.<br /><br />The owner of the country club went to L.S.E. with Mugabe. After we sat in the bar and discussed African politics with the political attaché, specifically the state of Zimbabwe and how they should scrap their currency in favour of the South African Rand (as inflation has become so ludicrous – a loaf of bread costs 1 billion Zimbabwean Dollars at the time of writing and only three years ago three zeros were knocked off the currency). As we talked an old gent tutted and cupped his ears to hear the BBC better, he had said he had come for his lunch and it was then around nine in the evening. <br /><br />While staying downtown, we wanted to find out if the guard which we had put up was valid. We had heard our fair share of horror stories so we cautiously braved a bar near our hotel. After one beer in Zanze Bar we could take the staring no longer and yomped back. The staring was mainly out of surprise at seeing two <em>mwzungus</em> (Swahili for ‘white man’ but better translated as ‘man with no smell’). What was off-putting was, not knowing whether they were surprised because we were very likely to be robbed and therefore either mad or stupid, or just because the bars in the area were not frequented by <em>mwzungus</em> because they had been told horror stories by other <em>mwzungus</em>.<br /><br />We took a trip to Hell’s Gate National Park with Tom and Charles and their families. The excitement began as evil and organised baboons stole the bread as we picnicked. Next we walked through the high-walled gorge, the enthusiastic charisma of the children was infectious as we helped them clamber through the more difficult parts. We came to hot springs and washed off the mud. Chinese geothermal engineers in brightly coloured boiler suits chain-smoked ahead of us. When we caught up with them they grabbed one of the children to take photos of one another with her. It was hard work prizing her away, but the engineers seemed very pleased with themselves and helped lift the other children up a ledge as their parents caught up. We drove around the park leaning out of the top of the land rover engulfed in the flow of pillow warm air, trailing a cloud of red dust behind us.<br /><br />The families left Hell’s Gate to get to work and school the next day while we stayed in the luxury of Camp Carnellys, just outside Naivasha. The showers were the best so far in Africa (they were outdoors but felt like take a bath) and they served delicious crayfish. The campsite stretched out onto Lake Naivasha, rimed by a squat electric fence to keep the hippos out. <br /><br />The following day we hired bikes and returned to Hell’s Gate. We were lucky enough to come face to face (so to speak) with many Maasai giraffes as we cycled through. They were beautifully serene as they took the time to eye us down, and all at once, like a puppet operated by a mad puppeteer, they took flight. We were also lucky enough not to get gored by a buffalo that charged at us while we ate our lunch. It thought better of it and ran into the bushes. On the return trip the sun was low and the air was cool so the park was far busier with animals, but not tourists. Zebras, Maasai ostriches, Thompson gazelle, bushbuck, Kirk’s dikdik, common duiker, Grant’s gazelle, white bearded gnu, Coke’s hartebeest, iimpala, klipspringer, Bohor reedbuck, Chanler’s mountain reedbuck, steinbok, defassa waterbuck stretched out for miles. Well, that’s probably what we saw. We definitely saw ostrich, gazelle and the bizarre rock hyrax – it looked something like a large rat and apparently it is the elephant’s closest living relative and it has the ability to secrete a substance from its feet which allows it to climb rocks at improbable gradients. Besides all the safari one-upmanship, gliding silently along the road with gazelles darting across in the near distance with tens of buffalo following us with a shared gaze was an indelible image. The otherworldly nature of the place was compounded by the high cliffs that made it feel as though we had sneaked into an enclosure.<br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcuXHsyiT0lqD-tZ2-1KeY3-uW7JKl9__RRi8gWOoMYQMHBhfuvs6bD7ITDGlYXm9GXQMCPtlcEbh0zP7nhLmDYrW0_SlexOoHB6jh0o_j4vCBR3tfyjRyqyymI0H5o2wKkh_lqryK1GU/s400/174+20080614+153433+young+giraffe.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5220196729380256418" /><br />The following day we took a <em>matatu</em> (the small Toyota minibuses called ‘taxis’ in Ethiopia) to Charles’ house. Our bus driver was an unlikeable eccentric. He kept a photo of himself wearing aviator sunglasses in the sun visor above where he sat and tried to extort money from us in exchange for the directions to get to Charles’s. <br /><br />Charles’s family had owned the farm on and off for over a hundred years and he was born there to English parents. His beautiful house looked out across a bright garden onto the turkey pens and grassland on which his cattle grazed. He was suffering after the post-election violence regarding the disputed triumph of Mwai Kibaki over Raila Odinga because it had destroyed the country’s tourist trade and resorts were his main clients. We saw evidence in Naivasha where a large IDP camp had been setup in an attempt to protect the migrant workers who come to work on the flower plantations. However, this camp was so poorly located that hardly anyone had ever gone there. It was strange to see the reality of these workers and the strange thought that many of the flowers they were picking were destined for Britain. <br /><br />We took Charles’ huge dogs to walk around the grounds, respectfully greeted by the families of those who worked on the farm. For dinner we ate a beautifully prepared meal in a very English style. As we waited for it to be cooked Charles showed us some of his father’s photographs, which he took while serving as the commissioner responsible for most of south and west Sudan. He was clearly a great photographer and it was a real privilege to peek into a lost world of men with gramophones shooting lions, and pet cheetahs sat in front of typewriters. <br /><br />Having a maid come to clear the plates at the ring of a silver bell after dining was alien. Undoubtedly if one were to grow up with it, it would be different. Speaking to different ex-pats on the subject there seemed to be a consistent theme – I need their help and they need some money. If I was not paying them to cook or clean or look after the children or act as a gardener or driver or watchman, they would be working harder for less money doing something else with less job security.<br /><br />One night when we were having a drink with Tom we were introduced to manager of Kenya’s number one band – <em>Yunasi</em>. Simon or ‘E.P’. – ‘El Presidente’, as he was known by the band, was kind enough to offer us a place to stay and we headed to the nicer part of Nairobi after helping Charles carry some frozen turkeys to an old people’s home. <br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-ldtiql3rXPvTXTBXYqoQHMVvwBWox5DiRIgQ8yDp-a42pkgTVhTIU4I9a3cz1t2tThosVolBXU2MGS2XIJV6ZFWMnRl-bkmnf2uA7HjR4HvulUwkxIpkwXrNTLFpaeS96zBcJKCMXoQ/s400/300yunasi.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5220196728575953458" /><br />Simon’s house was also very impressive, built by an eccentric Indian architect who placed verandas, light switches, bathrooms and a secret passage behind the bookcase in seemingly random places. Sitting on the veranda during the evening watching his jungle of a garden alive with movement and sound was therapeutic. <br /><br />We were taken to a local bar after doing a day of work and drank too much before dinner with an interesting set of characters with different perspectives and filmic stories of Kenya. <br /><br />The following day Simon lent us his car and Matisu the driver and we took a day out or a ‘jolly’ as people seemed to refer to it. We visited the elephant sanctuary and ‘Giraffe Manor’ then continued up to the house for which Simon had made a bridge, crossing over the wide gorge. It was owned by an eccentric old artiste who had constructed herself a mad house stretching along the escarpment, made up of Gaudi-like buildings with strange turrets. Unfortunately the rope bridge was occupied by a party of forty of so people who were crossing painfully slowly so we had to head back to help prepare for a barbeque. Compensation came in being allowed to drive the Land Rover off road on the way back.<br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcjCw00cVmVsbEAbC4DVJw-0lXv8uGK-UxmR8oo-JLLsmxTDk_qemPTltNMF24a3FxN-n7iLDAG0sa-uSKW45jxVpZKTIj-sVqk1q8SXy4UXxYSnU0RedvrN2R555fyQ91ntoi0xyYf5c/s400/170+20080614+140239+Elephant+orphange.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5220196737085470482" /><br />At the barbeque that evening we met with a big group of Simon and his wife Katie’s friends and Yunasi themselves. They invited us to come and see them perform in Kampala, where we heading anyway. Toby from the band was delighted to meet a fellow Toby and even happier to hear that he played guitar. When it got late and most people had left they began to sing. They had amazing voices and beautiful harmonies punctuated by high ‘<em>yiyiyiyi</em>’s, low ‘<em>ommmmm</em>’s, sharp ‘<em>shhhhhh</em>’s and soft ‘<em>hhhhhhrrrrr</em>’s. The garden was full of wildlife, and with the background sounds of bush babies, bats and crickets it felt as if we were in the Masai Mara. <br /><br />After the luxury of ex-pat Kenya, and with little understanding of wider Kenya we headed on the bus for Kampala, leaving from a bus stop that could have been in the CBD of any major Western city in mid-summer. </p></div></span>Carbon Explorershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11595610392269355741noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889550275996623826.post-35935617480814397152008-06-29T11:06:00.008+01:002008-06-29T19:22:29.876+01:00Travel Log 12 - South Ethiopia - The wrong way to Kenya<span style="font-family:verdana;"><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><p style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><strong>Addis – Awassa (9 hours - minibus)<br />22/5/08 – 25/5/08<br />A town ruled by scab-faced storks</strong><br /><br />We dined at Lewi’s, which by the looks of the fleet of white land cruisers in the car park was the favoured haunt of the NGOs. Their menu was wildly ambitious and their food tasted good but it seemed as if there had been some misunderstandings between the reading of a recipe and the production of the dish itself, which was a little embarrassing when being introduced to the chef. Beer battered fish was fish inside a doughnut and beef with spinach and cheese was deep-fried beef Wellington.<br /><br />The town sat on the shore of the beautiful Lake Awassa stretching out for miles of perfect stillness, with hardly a boat on it, only reeds, mountains and birds. Walking along the path that followed its lip was Bill Oddie’s wet dream. As non-ornithologists all we knew was that the waders, kingfishers and raptors were, typically of Africans, far more flamboyant than their British counterparts. <br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeJtlf1GwJ753pIxIyD0vjt_oXAq054F2VNFTtKu9LJRtdbBcBbczrC_WWqmDJlX1AotwCS6SSJZ9BwjeyoabnLDFhYv65p2KiA1vhIBr2leEQRT9Ez_ztsHTf79E4xbeORM9D3Q1Va1E/s400/50272678_824fcc74ca.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5217243435470526274" /><br />Walking back into the town we passed a fish restaurant where the cooks and customers squatted under a tarpaulin set up at the waters edge. Outside stood a guard of huge and hideous storks that looked like Terry Gilliam monsters and lumbered unwillingly out of our way as we passed up onto the road.<br /><br /><br /><strong>Awasa-Arba Minch (9 hours – big bus) <br />26/5/2008 – 27/5/2008<br />Avoiding the crocodile market</strong><br /><br />We found the decision to charge double for <em>farangis</em> to stay at the aptly titled ‘Tourist Hotel’ too hard to swallow so ended up in the even better titled, ‘Hallelujah Pension’ next door. <br /><br />A man on the bus had recommended a place in Arba Minch called ‘Paradise’ so we set up the hill to find it. The view down in the valley of the silver-domed church glinting in the light creeping out from behind the rain clouds was spectacular. It was good to look at, less good to listen to. Apparently the locals regularly make complaints about the church sound system which is unwillingly turned down but always creeps back up to the ludicrous level we heard. From three in the morning onwards a tag team of shouty-voiced Orthodox Christians whinge in Amharic. It was loud enough that when we had a drink in the evening in a bar several hundred metres away, it was making the music unlistenable. It hard to imagine even their God was enjoying it.<br /><br />At the top of the hill we came to the dirt track leading to ‘Paradise’ – this road was clearly only ever taken by <em>farangis</em> in 4x4s because the local children were frantic with excitement to see us. A gaggle followed us, occasionally holding our hands. We asked for directions to ‘Paradise’ and one called out to ‘Jesus’ – saviour complexes well and truly established. When we eventually reached ‘Paradise’ it was a new hotel still under construction but the terrace offered superb views of the two lakes Chamo and Abaya separated by the bridge of God.<br /><br /> <img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgholkvfrdHerz2GPJdOx6pqjUsWkzSElHktnmyn2Gq0nFmw0EdUkSddtmWsv88F8bcO2mMBGOma61bwX7AFT1pcmIGuTF4Yvs0PKAlDKmCNxvcT-2TEJV2TUQtOVAVJWPAf7B_Ue5Gp2o/s400/20235852.1010179_IMG.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5217243442487623970" /><br />All the guides in the town had <em>mercana</em> (Amharic for the specific high achieved with <em>ch’at</em>, when it was described to us it was consistently described as something one ‘has’, as if it were enlightenment) because they had not yet encouraged us to visit the mysteriously titled, ‘crocodile market’. After a little investigation it turned out that it was an area of the river where the crocodiles basked and would have been very expensive. ‘Market’ was a shrewd misnomer. <br /><br />We heard on the grapevine that there would be a market in a village a few hours down the road in Chencha. Having already clocked up a serious number of land miles in the past few days and with more to come, a two-hour bus ride is just like doing stretches. <br /><br />On the bus which went up and up the mountain a policeman got onboard, presumably to moan about the people squatting in the aisles. When we arrived in Chencha he got into a ruck with the ticket collector who rather embarrassingly knocked the policeman’s hat and received a hard boot to the thigh and a sharp punch to the head. There were no twitching net curtains, everyone crowded round, the shorter ones pulling themselves up on taller shoulders. It seemed to be settled amicably with only two grumpy faces to be seen in the beaming horde.<br /><br />The bus took us through the post–apocalypse Paradise of the <em>Watch Tower</em> magazine. Everything was in a vibrant green, dotted with bright flowers and fruit. Outside thatched huts sat men and women weaving on wooden looms on the toy-town grass hillocks, kept childlike by cattle. Outside most houses were allotments, dominated by the vast leaves of the false banana, the roots of which we were to discover, form the staple in the region.<br /><br />A local guide took us across the town’s football pitch which was inhabited by teams of cow, goat and sheep all tied to separate stakes, industriously forming mown circles and continued up to a high point where locals get married. We were surrounded by sea-green mountains and meadowland.<br /><br />The market had a similar ambience and look to a music festival. People spread out, sitting on a grassed area busily making chaos. Different areas of the market catered for different needs. In the water pipe zone people took it turns to buy a dollop of tobacco and shared it round. In the staple zone women mashed false banana into a pulp with their hands. In fabric zone a man with a wooden spindle demonstrated his craftiness to us with a toothy grin. Our guide told us that the people of this village made the distinctive cloth which the Masai of Kenya wear, but it was hard to know whether or not to believe him.<br /><br /><br /><strong>Arba Minch – Jinka (9 hours – big bus) <br />28/5/2008<br />There was a man in a miniskirt next to me on the bus</strong><br /><br />As it was the thirty-year anniversary of the fall of the Derg (the Communist group which overthrew Haile Selassie) the restaurants and bars of the town were full of old-timers taking the opportunity to reminisce and not so idly talk politics.<br /><br />It was easy to understand why northern Ethiopians were in favour of the current Prime Minister. His impact was tangible, the roads had improved under his management and there had not been the flagrant violence seen after the last election in which the streets of Addis were awash with blood. As we travelled further south opinion was not so positive. He is of the northern Tigray tribe and it was believed that he favoured his own, to the detriment of the south. Most people believed that he was not a bad person but was operating in a corrupt and biased government. Many of the older generation still clutched to what was perhaps, a rose-tinted nostalgia for the Communist Derg, under which the roads that are now in disrepair were originally built. It is very difficult to know how dissent was forming into rebellion, as the press was so filled with disinformation regarding Somali, Eritrean and Sudanese rebels. What was clear was that in the desperate face of famine that there is a valid fear of an uprising.<br /><br />A few hours before, on the last part of the journey to Jinka, a member of the Bana tribe got on the bus. His upper biceps were tightly constrained by brass copper bands. His hair was shaved at the front and plaited at the back. He wore a miniskirt and a sports vest. On his wrists he wore bright beading in sky blue, black and red and he carried with him nothing but a wooden perch. It is hard to look dignified in a fifty-year-old bus doing breakneck speeds on 4x4 terrain but he managed it. When the ticket collector asked for his fare he broke from our previously held <em>National Geographic</em> image of the stoical tribesman. He released a one liner presumably regarding the price of the bus ticket, so powerful it brought the previously silent bus into hysterics. He grinned then returned to his world of serenity. <br /><br />Our original intention had been to travel back seven hours the following day to the town of Konso, which we had already passed through. Unfortunately the road that would take us from Konso to Moyale, the border town with Kenya, was closed due to fighting between rival tribes. This put us in an awkward position: we had to reach Moyale by 1st June because our visas would run out. We decided to head for Key Afar two hours back in the right direction as they had a market on and this was the best chance we had of seeing something of the south. We spent the rest of the day in the ‘Oromo District Research Centre’, which catalogued the peculiarities of the tribes in the area, including lip plates, bull jumping, female circumcision, polygamy, scarring, and soothsaying with goat entrails. They had a collection of wooden perches as we had on the bus. They were stylishly carved in accordance with specific tribal designs. We saw them in use in the area, waiting for buses and general milling about as an uncomfortable looking stool which, apparently, doubled up as a pillow, much like that used by geishas.<br /><br /><br /><strong>Jinka – Key Afar (2 hours-big bus)<br />29/5/2008<br />Hustlers with feathers in their hair</strong><br /><br />Before coming to the Oromo region we were warned by fellow tortoises that much of what we saw in the Rift Valley would not be ‘real’. When local tribes-people get wind of the arrival of <em>farangis</em> they would prepare costumes of brighter colours and more intricacy, to outdo their rival tribes-people and to win the 2 Birr reward normally expected in exchange for taking their photograph. These over-the-top costumes were without cultural significance. From one perspective, who can blame them? Their tribal practices are really none of the tourist’s business. If they are wearing an inauthentic costume, the tourist’s photo may look more spectacular and the tribes-person gets some cash. On the other hand it all sounds a bit sordid. The concept of going to an area to have a ‘real’ experience ‘man’ is more irritating than accepting your position on the other side of the camera lens. What is positive, perhaps, is that a startlingly large proportion of their culture is intact despite being given the opportunity to change.<br /><br />We can only assume that we went to the right village and the right market and the right tribe because we were the only tourists in the market place and money was only mentioned when we asked prices. It was a mutually starey situation, but more of a giraffe stare than a hyena or crocodile stare. They thought we were dressed oddly and we thought the same of them. The significance of the different elements of the costumes of people in the market was explained to us by a local boy. The women who had thin dreadlocks moulded into shape with red clay were married. Those with a huge metal necklace were the first wife of a husband and therefore important. Men with their hair sculpted and coloured and topped with a feather, making them look startlingly alien with their elongated red, white or blue heads with valve like attachments, indicated that they had recently killed an impressive animal. Those with their hair white at the back had lost their father recently and were still in mourning. Those men with extra beads and tall feathers in their hair were on the look out for a wife. It was an amazing social system that allowed them to cut out a great deal of needless chitchat.<br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiTzU41UCmWeiFPjEPcXOTOeKgK3j54mv_99i37mfxqW0kfdjiV57XEEEBsoT5uAfjY_KAKABvRIWlOEgCBop7R6FZeap6l1kqWV7NUUdVYHU6YlAXL0e2rM2m_e8XU5SDxcrNGzdEPJQ/s400/70044840.gjZLb3oZ._MG_3539.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5217243439380763058" /><br /> Much of the jewellery was recycled. Many earrings were produced from white plastic packaging and necklaces were made from the broken watchstraps of metal Casios. The choice of materials was indiscriminately focused upon looking good.<br /><br />During the evening we walked out to one of the clusters of huts on the outskirts of the village as the sun was setting over the maize fields. We were introduced to a family who performed a dance for us. It was a fairly mercenary experience, the dance was for our entertainment. However, after we alighted from the ‘real’ high horse it was clear to see that as they leapt around and mock shoulder barged one another, they were enjoying themselves and it suited the moment perfectly as they rhythmically ‘hummmm’ed and their jewellery clattered as they came back to earth, dust rising from their feet. We drank tea made from the husks of coffee beans and tried to persuade the grandmother that it was OK that the smaller children who were clearly terrified of us, did not <em>have</em> to come and shake hands with us, we did not want anyone wetting themselves. <br /><br /><br /><strong>Key Afar – Sodo (12 hours – big bus, minibus, landcruiser)<br />30/5/2008</strong><br /><br />As tribal fighting was blocking our intended route and we had only two days left on our visas, we had to retrace our steps sharpish before our visas finished, right back up to near Awasa in order to get onto the road running from Addis Ababa to Moyale. Leg one should have taken us back to Arba Minch but the bus broke down less than half way there, just before a village made up of not much more than a hotel. We walked along the road in the mid-day sun with tribes-people and business men and were lucky enough to hitch a ride in the cab of a lorry a few kilometres down the road, while meeting the disapproving glares of our fellow bus riders, still tramping along in the heat. From the hotel we smarmed a lift with Catholic missionaries the rest of the way, much to the indignation of bus riders who felt we were getting preferential treatment – finally! Before reaching Arba Minch we stopped for lunch in Konso, home of the perma-culture ecolodge Brits we met in Addis. We asked the waiter if he knew them and he replied that they had been there just the night before and he promised to pass on our best wishes. From Arba Minch we found a bus that took us the three hours down the road to Sodo. By the time we reached the town everyone was tired and hungry. When the driver stopped for petrol a couple of minutes from the bus station there was a very real possibility of a rebellion. We scouted around the dingy Sodo for somewhere to stay, everywhere half decent was fully booked so we ended up in a brothel perched above a bad disco. <br /><br /><br /><strong>Sodo – Dila<br />31/5/2008</strong><br /><br />In the morning we woke at 5.00 once again to fight for a seat on the 6.00 bus – departure time is dictated by the government in an attempt to prevent night driving and move Ethiopia off the top-spot for worldwide road fatality rates. We arrived in Awasa in the afternoon and took a minibus to a rainy Dila where we stayed over. By this point we had passed the stage of hysteria and were well and truly in a state of grumpy confusion. Now as we tried to sleep on the bus, if we went over a dramatic bump and banged our head against something, it was no longer chance, but part of some sadistic joke. <br /><br />During the evening in Dila a woman selling baskets invited us into her shop for a coffee ceremony. Her blind grandfather sat in the corner going through his prayer beads and periodically praying. They told us about the local language and how they learned English from a flat-screen TV donated to them by Germans, all while we ate delicious popcorn and drank delicious coffee and a tailor a few doors down repaired Toby’s bag with his leg-powered sewing machine. The following morning it was Dila to Moyale and the beginning of a whole new type of strangeness.<br /><br /><br /><strong>Escape to Kenya<br />Moyale</strong><br /><br />Young cats prowled across the flat concrete roofs, the ‘city’ behind them, creeping up the hillside, lit up and squat. The pregnant quietness of the Kenyan side of the town only became noticeable when manic <em>allah akhbar’s</em> began to sound from the mosque. A stark contrast from the typically rowdy Ethiopian side of town.<br /><br />Moyale had the now familiar unfamiliarity of a border town, on the frontier of something more than another country but not discernable. People passed through and left a gaggle of chancers whose lives were dictated by the movements of a fickle river. The river being made up of stray tourists, downtrodden businessmen, people visiting family, trucks full of cargo and lonely and frustrated men in search of Ethiopian ‘company’. They picked up what is left on the shoreline – in this case, two not so shiny new <em>mwzungus</em> (Swahili for white man, literally translated as ‘man without smell’) staring at their bowls of stew in the ‘Baghdad Restaurant II’, wondering how to eat it without cutlery.<br /><br />The border between Ethiopia and Kenya was a metal pole weighed down by some rocks and a rusted wheel rim. As we re-entered Ethiopia after sorting out a hotel in Kenya and a bus to Nairobi for the following day, passport control called us over. We were under strict instructions to be back before six because they would be clocking off.<br /><br /><br /><strong>Moyale to Nairobi (26 hours – big bus, minibus)<br />2/6/2008 – 3/6/2008</strong><br /><br />After this period of waking up before the sun, spending a day sitting on a bus, arriving in a town eating anything and collapsing anywhere, what did we need? A twenty-six hour bus journey of course! The bus was just like the geriatric boneshakers of Ethiopia but with, much to Stuart’s knee’s delight, slightly more legroom. We were told beforehand that the big bus is safer than the trucks because <em>shifters</em> (armed bandits who extort money) were generally local and therefore much more likely to hit one of their relatives if the spray a big bus with bullets. However, the addition of an armed guard was there to offer reassurance. After two police checks within the first half hour we made bets as to how many there would be before we reached Nairobi, the winning figure being nine. When we stopped for dinner the bus’ mechanic introduced himself to us. Apparently we could rest easy because he was now on board as the police had decided to release him from prison, where he languished on charges of cannabis possession. Charges he was very pleased were true. Another member of the bus team, whose role we could not entirely discern, was a Somali. He proudly told us how he had made his money as a member of <em>Dog Crew</em> in Cardiff for whom he sold smack and cocaine. Brilliant! The scenery was almost enough of a distraction. We passed through a very British looking landscape, other than the mighty presence of Mount Kenya, rising incongruously from the horizon. The next morning we were still chugging along with few enough passengers to lie down on the spare seats when the bus broke down. From here on we took a pimped out minibus or <em>matatu</em> as it is know in Swahili right into heaving central Nairobi. </p></div></span>Carbon Explorershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11595610392269355741noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889550275996623826.post-52472628186122707832008-06-29T09:38:00.021+01:002008-06-29T19:21:24.926+01:00Somaliland - The Unknown Republic<span style="font-family:verdana;"><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><p style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><strong>Somaliland and its bid for international recognition</strong><br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEispdsRDTrOXwOwE3Kw4roYqUfekuNt6Q0hMSoEhJrzDveLGOp_RZxmZR99HsgP4FzSuwzwEdzFYawryWd649B5r9bDe9jqSY2pGIjmFZnQzu92SNnoMhQgS5MA_4ZLA6fb7373RCLQeMo/s400/Somaliland+Flag.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5217225222961687586" /><br />The revelries of 18th May 2008 as the Somalilanders rightly celebrated the seventeenth anniversary of their democratic republic fell upon deaf ears amongst the international community.<br /><br />Somaliland is a small country located in the northern part of the Horn of Africa with Djibouti to its northwest, Ethiopia to the south and west and Puntland (another separatist part of old Somalia) to its east. The capital of Somalia is further south in Mogadishu.<br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0YpKOlkI0FrT9SKiQBGQxYkqQ0s0j4QnOnT4l3hqDUIh1fxbbIq2wVXtf5VM2_bsU3wvBqavEqK0zjJRrpiGB0n3_XgC3NfjlL5WGoqkCFEh4-NeN9FU8rGGdOSL8bS6rkXoEt9_PZwE/s400/somalia.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5217221745908102578" /><br />After declaring its independence the country was levelled by the Mogadishu based dictator, Siyad Barre. Since then the Somalilanders have built themselves a country based upon the greatest ideals of democracy, with the zeal of people in search of personal safety, education, free speech, healthcare and food.<br /><br />But Somaliland is running three-legged in a race where the other competitors run unimpeded. <br /><br />International non-recognition ties Somaliland to Somalia and is thus preventing it from becoming a model for African democracy. <br /><br />Somaliland is being asked to give up its democracy and stability and join with a war-torn country in a state of collapse. This entails Somaliland’s great potential for investment, its rich mineral, coal and oil reserves remaining unutilised. Somaliland’s ability to import and export goods is being seriously impeded as the insurance costs set by Lloyds of London is extremely high for any ship which uses the port of Berbera. The country’s merchants, whose main exports are camels, frankincense and myrrh see the situation as far from wise. <br /><br />But as the long-time Somaliland supporter, Tony Worthington, ex- MP for Clydebank and Milngavie explained in his 2004 House of Commons speech on the matter of Somaliland’s independence,<br /><br /><ul>Somalilanders are caught in a vicious Catch-22 position. They are being told, “Destroy your nation by joining the destroyer in the south, and we will recognize you. Stay outside, with stability and democracy, and we will ignore you.” </ul><br />The ignorance on the part of governments is voluntary but for the average citizen of the international community it is mainly down to being ill informed. In his speech he went on to explain why it is imperative that action is taken now (now in this case being four years ago),<br /> <br /><ul>The longer the world ignores the achievements of Somaliland in creating stability and democratic institutions, the greater the risk that wilder elements will take over, and the longer Somaliland is left to fend for itself without resources for schools, for example, the more willing will radical elements be to step in. </ul><br />With the recent spate of Somali pirating and kidnapping the case for action is ever pressing. In the face of such adversity the Somalilanders have a national pride that comes of seeing the horrific repercussions of political instability. They are quick to welcome strangers with open arms in order to show them what they have achieved. The reverence one is shown as a foreigner gives some indication of the Somaliland people’s collective desperation for international recognition.<br /><br />One hurdle which Somaliland is successfully tackling, which is going some way to keeping Somalia in the political Dark Ages is the knowledge of ancestry peculiar to the region. From a young age Somalis / Somalilanders / Puntlanders are expected to know their paternal lineage for ten to twenty generations as writ. Many Somalilanders we met knew theirs for more than forty.<br /> <br />This puts all citizens in sub-sub-clan divisions with a complex system of allegiances. Of the five major clans, Isaaq is dominant in Somaliland. However, the government has included a section of its constitution to ensure that clan based discrimination which plagues Somalia is minimized. There is now a multi-party democracy with district councils contested by six parties. It seems that Somaliland is keeping a close eye on Somalia and learning from its mistakes.<br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizTfY6XUa7V6LANXlXhIZ-nnwooWXyHvpm1cNDkkKvQTpgCVxjWPjTBgincgxaCdCNp3RV_acNIHiSzhGeZhVpWqGoilbULUMrkksodNItIUYyycwcZWXJ2PxO4gUqcm2TOq3vBlsZGjk/s400/africa1922map.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5217222115675107154" /><br /><strong>A history of the bloody tip of Africa’s Horn</strong><br />After the Greeks, Egyptians and the Ottomans the Colonialists came to the Horn of Africa and divided what was then Somalia along typically uncompromising lines. <br /><br /><em>1880’s: </em> In the far north the French occupied French Somaliland for Djibouti’s capacity as a port.<br /><br />The British attained a protectorate over northern Somaliland in 1886 in order to provide the garrison in Aden (Yemen) with meat.<br /><br />The Italians were permitted to occupy Somalia with Mogadishu as its capital after their siding with the Allies in WWI.<br /><br />Southern Somalia was incorporated into British Kenya.<br /><br />Ethiopia took the western deserts.<br /><br /><em>1900:</em> The ‘Mad Mullah’, Mohamed Abdalla Hassan began to sow the seeds of a struggle for a reunited Somalia with his failed attacks against the British.<br /><br /><em>1920’s:</em> Britain got a firm grasp of the region after a series of ‘pacification campaigns’ which decisively formed the borders of what is now Somaliland.<br /><br /><em>1940’s:</em> During World War II the Italians in Somalia attacked the British garrisoned in Somaliland which resulted in Britain taking Somalia from Italian rule and forming Greater Somaliland. During WWII 9,000 Somaliland troops from the Somaliland Scouts and Somaliland Camel Corps fought with the British against the Italians, holding back an army of 291,000 Italian and local troops. <br /><br /><em>1950’s:</em> Britain began to prepare Somaliland for its independence, holding meetings between different clans in order to broker stability after their departure.<br /><br /><em>1960’s:</em> On April 6th 1960 Somalilanders voted for independence from Britain and to unite with Italian Somalia. From the 2nd to the 7th of June Somaliland was independent before the formation of the Somalia Republic with Italian Somalia. The union was disastrous, the mainly Issaq Somalilanders were not represented fairly by the Somalia National League party of central government. In the face of further Italianisation the Somalilanders unsuccessfully attempted a coup in 1962. The centralised government system inherited from Italy and Britain was unsuccessful in dealing with de-centralised pastoral peoples without the Colonial resources and the situation became anarchic, returning Somalis to their pre-Colonial days.<br /><br /><em>1969:</em> General Siyad Barre took control of the Republic of Somalia in a military coup. Barre strove for reunification of its five states immortalized by the five-pointed star of the Somali flag. The Soviet Union was happy to oblige Barre’s gung-ho intentions by supplying him with arms, he then further ingratiated himself with them by declaring the Republic of Somalia a Marxist state, thus heightening Soviet involvement.<br /><br /><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGfcnhls0b55P21iicZdM0SBfoLSAtHOZcta9_nzP7pIsXh2rbEbpND-kq8Yt_pFiX0iIL5Sqje63XzCaOfY3aavsziSv7Kcwk4Rc3epy1FygYDHS0djbgJONajbtnK1AG4ADQnT94mbA/s400/Gen.+Mohamed+Siyad+Barre.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5217222635235767666" /> <em>"When I came to Mogadishu...[t]here was one road built by the Italians. If you try to force me to stand down, I will leave the city as I found it. I came to power with a gun; only the gun can make me go." </em><br /><br /><em>1977:</em> As Ethiopia fought a war with Eritrea to its south Somalia seized the moment and regained its western lands in the Ogaden War. Unfortunately for Barre the Soviet Union changed allegiances, supporting the greater power of Mengistu, the Marxist leader of Ethiopia who deposed Emperor Haile Selassie in a military coup. As a result arms stopped flowing into Somalia and with the help of the Soviets and Cubans, Somalia was crushed back into the shape Ethiopia dictated. <br /><br />The bottom of Barre’s internal support dropped out and internal power struggles began in earnest, leaving Somalia in a clan based chaos.<br /><br /><em>1980’s:</em> The sour taste of communism, left after the Soviet Union’s flip-flop, was sweetened by the arms of American and Italian democracy, as both countries were keen to prop those with anti-red sentiments and to gain a foothold in the Horn of Africa with its strategic importance as a neighbour to the Middle East.<br /><br />As the Somali Salvation Democratic Front formed Puntland, the Somali National Movement attempted to establish Somaliland on its 1960’s borders. During the chaos Barre began his vindictive campaign against the Somalilanders. During the air strikes on Hargeisa, Somaliland’s capital, in which planes took off from the city’s airport one of Barre’s closest aides recalled Barre considering himself to be, ‘a Darod chief who had totally annihilated an enemy clan.’ <br /><br /><em>1982:</em> Students rioted in Hargeisa, in response to Barre’s policies under which systematic human rights abuses prevailed.<br /><br /><em>1988:</em> The Somalia Civil War began and the mainly Darod clans of the Somalia region commenced a campaign of destruction against the mainly Isaaq Somaliland region. Barre’s preoccupation with the Somaliland region saw his opposition in Somalia grow in strength and non-humanitarian aid stopped flowing into the country.<br /><br /><em>1990:</em> At the end of the year Barre fled Mogadishu in the face of a military attack from a rival clan member, Gen. Mohamed Farah Aideed, who placed Ali Mahdi Mohamed in power. This left Somalia without a foreseeable future of peace.<br /><br /><em>1991:</em> Somaliland declared its independence and established an interim government made up of representatives of clans who elected a President, beginning on the road to what should logically be international recognition by putting in place the institutions required for democracy to prevail.<br /><br /><em>2003:</em> Dahir Riyad Kahin is the first democratically elected President of Somaliland with a winning margin of only 0.008%. The votes are counted by students and the military leave their arms in the barracks for the day. <br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYk95-PcwQNrZLi2Dj5snZWaIgy8oUVbeMZv1POXGdUOYSAhQR1jj4fmncomHQVPF5oSnbd-mPZEARkVHwIAB1Psiw2M5pwtnkzdkqLrJG4inAPVBRRkAvbTJxjcDyuUCHWvNdRkFerTM/s400/Somaliland+Map.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5217228224752064850" /><em>Somaliland as it stands today</em><br /><br /><strong>The treasure of the three wise men – Somaliland as seen from the ground</strong><br />As we travelled through Somaliland we were constantly asked, without malice, why had Britain, with such strong connections to Somaliland, forgotten them in their hour of need. Ethiopia has already stated that it was willing to be the second country to acknowledge Somaliland and with them, the African Union is likely to follow. The United Nations will be a harder nut to crack but with the support of various EU countries including the UK, already present if not written, all that is required is a bold step forward by a significant world player. <br /><br />In 1960 Macmillan addressed the House of Commons as follows:<br /><br /><ul>I should like to say, however, that it is Her Majesty's Government's hope that whatever may be the constitutional future of the Protectorate, the friendship which has been built up between its people and those of the United Kingdom for so many years will continue and indeed flourish. </ul><br />It is easy to understand why the Somalilanders feel betrayed.<br /><br />During Barre’s campaign 200,000 Somalis were brought to the UK, many settling in London and Wales. The small Somaliland government, as we were informed by the Minister for Trade and Industry (who used to work for Bristol City Council) has seven members who are British citizens. He also told us of the country’s energy crisis. The price currently stands at $1/kwh – the highest charge in the world. He then suggested we meet with ADRA (Adventist Development and Relief Agency – an NGO) to find out more on the subject of how they were going to run the country on renewable energy alone. <br /><br />With so little investment Somaliland’s current main source of income is its loyal Diaspora of over a million, who are evidently determined to rebuild the country and are savvy enough to be wary of making the same mistakes as many other African countries.<br /><br />The Parliament and President’s Palace, as they were proudly described to us by Hargeisan’s, were very humble. Many wanted it to stay that way, fearful of the prospect of Machiavellian machinations that will come with the might of the World Bank. They are very clued up.<br /><br />The Somalilanders are rightly proud of their democracy - during the election period the police and army go to work unarmed and the votes are counted by students.<br /><br />Somalilander’s generally have a murky view of the UN. The officer responsible for Somaliland is stationed in Nairobi. It seems that the UN is concerned about the threat of ‘Balkanisation’ of the Horn of Africa. It is perceived that an independent Somaliland will jeopardize the potential for peace in the region as this peace is envisaged as a united Somalia, drawn up along the pre-Colonial borders. This view does not appear to have evolved as the situation has, and now devolution seems the only plausible solution.<br /><br />Somaliland remains a graveyard for international dabbling. We were shown the NASA landing strip by the beach, the tennis courts of the British Protectorate’s summer retreat in the cool of the mountains, the North Korean crates in the abandoned cement factory in the desert, the Ottoman hilltop fort, the shell of one of Barre’s Soviet tanks outside the village of Hamas, the Bulgarian medical equipment in Sheik’s decimated hospital. All acted as monuments to international involvement which have passed into a distant memory. <br /><br />In Berbera we met with the Community Concern Group, a local NGO. Solomon, the director of the port and Dictor Jama (he was a doctor but this was how he was introduced), a one man Somaliland restoration whirlwind compered the evening. We were told about the various projects they had undertaken and were undertaking, building schools, planting trees and so on. They were keen to know our view on Somaliland’s bid for international recognition. It was announced that we were from then on partners of the CCG and plans were made for our appearance on national television the following evening to state as much and air our opinions on Somaliland’s independence. <br /><br />A meeting was scheduled in a plush hotel lobby where we were met by two effervescent Kenyans from the ADRA whom we were put in touch with by the Minister of Trade and Industry. During the meeting it became clear that ADRA was one of the few NGO’s working in Somaliland. A theme that ran throughout was of the possibility of making a great country. It is practically being built from scratch and there is the opportunity to learn from the mistakes of other countries - skip out the less savoury stages of development and become a beacon for hope.<br /><br /><strong>Recognition</strong><br />There is a widespread fear that Somaliland’s current opposition to fundamentalism may begin to lose its strength if the international community continues to turn its back on them.<br /><br />The international think tank <em>Senlis</em> compiled a report in April of this year on the failures of America’s ‘War on Terror’<br /><br /><ul>Those bombings and sponsorship of a proxy Christian army – Ethiopia –to fight in Mogadishu have provided militant Islamists with abundant propaganda material<br /><br />An embattled population found the resolve to reconstruct itself, establishing functioning organs of government without little upheaval – a rarity in post-conflict reconstruction. Its drive to create multi-party democracy upon a backdrop of relative peace and security has been impressive, if not without flaw.<br /><br />Of all the states in the Horn of Africa it is the self-declared yet internationally unrecognised aspirant state of Somaliland that offers President Bush with his most viable opportunity to claim an Africa success story.</ul><br /> A 2006 report compiled by the international NGO, concerned with compiling independent reports on politically unstable and humanitarian situation, <em>Crisis Group</em>, called for the urgent action in the Somaliland debate, pointing out that, <br /><br /><ul>A multi-party political system and successive competitive elections have established Somaliland as a rarity in the Horn of Africa and the Muslim world. However, the Somalia Transitional Federal Government continues strongly to oppose Somaliland independence.<br /><br />Despite fears that recognition would lead to the fragmentation of Somalia or other AU member states, an AU fact-finding mission in 2005 concluded the situation was sufficiently “unique and self-justified in African political history” that “the case should not be linked to the notion of ‘opening a pandora’s box’”. It recommended that the AU “should find a special method of dealing with this outstanding case” at the earliest possible date. On 16 May 2006, Rayale met with the AU Commission Chairperson, Alpha Oumar Konare, to discuss Somaliland’s application for membership. </ul><br />All evidence leans towards a need to reward Somaliland and not to consider it merely as part of a potentially fractious Africa movement of ‘Balkanisation’.<br /><br />In March of 2006 a speaker of the Somaliland parliament was invited to speak before the National Assembly for Wales and rightly or wrongly took is as recognition of his country. It is a baby step but it is in the right direction.</p></div></span>Carbon Explorershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11595610392269355741noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889550275996623826.post-35665971264555213992008-06-28T11:06:00.009+01:002008-06-29T19:19:58.681+01:00Travel log 11 – Somaliland – Hargeisa, Berbera, Sheekh, Las Geel and Harar (Ethiopia)<span style="font-family:verdana;"><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><p style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">The following is a description of our travels in Somaliland. During our time in the country we became very interested in the country’s history and its ongoing bid for international recognition. The article above which follows this travel log contains the hard facts, and is not as easy a read but please give it a go<br /><br /><strong>19/4/2008 - 20/4/2008<br />Addis Ababa to Jijiga<br />The road to Somaliland</strong><br />We headed east from Addis taking an overnight minibus to Harar. Squashed into the minibus the driver sped through the night stopping only occasionally in small villages where trucks lined the roadside making their way to or from the ports in Djibouti or Somaliland. The driver would stock up on food or <em>ch’at</em>, the mild amphetamines which seemed to do a good job of keeping him awake and psyched up for the treacherous drive. Arriving at Harar at first light we jumped straight on the next bus to take us closer to the Somaliland border, in the town the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office ‘advise against all travel to’, the relatively respectable Jijiga. <br /><br /><strong>21/4/2008<br />Jijiga to Hargeisa <br />Walking across the dirt track border </strong><br />After overnighting in Jijiga we were glad to be on the bus to Wajaale. It wasn’t a case of the place feeling unsafe, more of it feeling like a town at the end of the Earth. Entering Somaliland was blissfully simple and after stamping our passport the official exclaimed, “Welcome British Protectorate!”<br /><br />As we waited for the sixth passenger to get into the car that would take us from the border town to Hargeisa, the capital of Somaliland, a middle-aged man popped his head through the window to welcome us to a peaceful Somaliland where we could be assured of our safety, and to enquire as to how Ealing was since his repatriation. Self-conscious patriotism was a repeating theme. <br /><br />A passenger in the car told us how he, as a Somalilander, differed from a Somali. If he saw us in trouble on the street he would be willing to die for us in order to protect our safety as we represented a step towards international recognition. If a Somali saw us in trouble they would join in. On a cramped two hour drive it was difficult to know how to handle this kind of hyperbole with anything other than ‘thanks’.<br /><br />After two hours and numerous passport checks we arrived in Hargeisa driving past the presidential home and the parliamentary building. To say they were not elaborate would be an understatement but for a fledgling African nation it was a refreshingly humble sight to see.<br /><br /><strong>22/4/2008<br />Hargeisa<br />The capital of an unrecognised country</strong><br />Wandering round Hargeisa brought into relief quite how other-worldly the place is. Moneychangers lined the streets, sitting behind walls of money. One British Pound is equivalent to 11,800 Somaliland Shillings and as the largest note they have is 500 Shillings, changing $100 gave us both very satisfying bagfuls of money. What was notable though was that there was no fear of anyone stealing from us, there was something in the air. When the call to prayer came over the loud speakers these same money changers and those squatting on the street side selling gold all strolled up to the mosque, leaving their livelihoods unattended on the street. Although the country does operate under sharia law, which can account for some degree of the population’s propensity to abide the law, they are relatively progressive, allowing women many of the same roles as men. Many of the women we met, like the headmistress of the Berbera Maritime University wore a headscarf but were far from submissive. She drove us round in her jeep and it was hard to get a word in edgeways. <br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhF0z8YrZ1zDWgzdvoMLiB5jBxD2brOJ-YzlBgJ98_r1CY8gy3Q-8pIimwdrJulfsomcxggHHKOrY-CdVADfMh6A-Of6qrgFaAdiwYxO1bhTYK-wsmpG-E1vpr8m0RrXcYcjh6A2jYRF0c/s400/n685000450_2890582_1665.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5216872816161899890" /><br />At one end of the ‘high street’ is the Somalilanders war monument: a Soviet MIG shot down during the war for independence against the Mogadishu based Siyad Barre. Its concrete base was adorned with bright coloured murals depicting the horrors that were committed against the Somalilanders and their more recent successes. This was Hargeisa’s closest approximation to a conventional tourist attraction.<br /><br /><strong>23/4/2008<br />Hargeisa - Berbera<br />A trip to the seaside with an armed guard</strong><br />To travel outside Hargeisa the government stipulates that you must take a driver and armed guard. Our experiences made it seem an over-zealous policy, but Somaliland is so desperate for international recognition that if those few tourists who do visit them come a cropper, this will scupper their chances as it will be seen as an indication of their failure to control the security situation. On the other hand our guard, Mr. Mohammed was nice enough and looked very professional in his full military outfit. The only gripe we had with him was that whenever our driver left the car (normally to pour water on the engine) he turned our tape off and switched the stereo onto Somaliland radio. We were not in a position to argue with him even though the shouty din over atonal stringed instruments was fairly irritating.<br /><br />Our driver / guide / presidential hopeful Abdullah showed us around his country, pointing out the success of democracy as a guide in North Korea might with Communism.<br /><br />It was possible to put the independence conflict out of mind because the destruction was generally out of sight: the city had been levelled and everything was new. As we left the city we could see that progress had been slower. On the road to Berbera we passed crumbling buildings, the gutted remains of Soviet tanks and a group of women who had been raped and had had their eyes gouged out with bayonets. But it was as if there had been a forest fire and now life could start again, new construction springing up all around, full of hope.<br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjp5POHXxHkN1IDxsESs2xcvrHTu64r3xsx7sETZTFgRHOD0iIAFe-QC-b_lPGvqwiw6UcoZffOMWcdxLNApAlpQOHOG0LRdHkxLTGFZQ6Gk7b-aepSWmGix6PIb5ah8dq0wALLxH7alU/s400/1.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5216872815441936882" /><br />We went to Berbera’s best restaurant, in the heart of its bullet-riddled Colonial ruins and ate fish caught a few hours previously, drank fresh tamarind juice and discussed the future of Somaliland with a motley crew of businessmen and teenagers.<br /><br />Abdullah took us to a pristine beach on the sapphire waters of the Red Sea where we met a group of boys who had caught a fish with their bare hands and an elder who had dyed his extensive beard bright orange with henna, as is the custom with Somalis. <br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8H_Ka8Ur9rzIY-79NhS_2HF-RPD_V4dI_83aVBGC3GciRIRDSvGvY3srv43T02jPuuRQSdVlZ7cJX9YOXbSQnvFpa_08SowJp2mpXQ4bFYOdzWR1kAqerszdxvUCfxjA12fy8LOsBVm0/s400/2a.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5216872819894534002" /><br />On the beach, framed by the mountains in which he had fought, sat our guard in full military uniform, keeping an eye on our bag full of money.<br /><br />On the drive back to our hotel Abdullah snapped from his cheery mood and took us to a vast graveyard with bits of wood, metal and rock for headstones. We stopped by a lorry axle protruding from the sand and he told us how his brother had been killed in front of him. While trying to stop Barre’s soldiers from burning the family car his brother had had his throat cut. He laughed about it with a glazed look on his face as if it were too absurd to have happened.<br /><br />That evening we chewed <em>ch’at</em>, a green leaf containing a mild amphetamine, favoured in the region as a legal social drug and Abdullah announced that that evening there was a meeting scheduled for us with the Community Concerned Group (CCG) who would tell us about all the good work they were doing.<br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDC4OqH49yDdJQE2LBSzqz6gStlajToXsTPW2c4Gtafz1mahKZGURFzcq4IsArdR_g66PtY-VQlLeVTZaMZtZpvupTwWwlyzQ5-odLMQwWyeHu09LU3LDhDYfwDFGPaK-3hS8ePdhR61M/s400/3.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5216872818492693602" /><br /><strong>24/4/2008<br />Berbera<br />Ghostly city by the sea</strong><br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFUnF2mLJy-oIgtoyT2QG6IBZOQD-60rR-yGHTtJy_7G5C28XxCiqiI9mBiNnBOzOexgBzLKqoXjF9SK9kT7BOHXQQkHlJ4F6gZuBzSshsJKOKBuHnXDxHc2dxi9xZWXYKWVj5IPYuhCY/s400/4.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5216872825201367746" /><br />Dictor Jama, the one man Somaliland restoration project, from CCG decided to give us a guided tour of Berbera which was slightly bizarre at points and in around 40oC and extremely high humidity quite testing. We first toured the port, the port director, before being taken to meet with the governor of the region and then touring the abandoned cement plant, then on to see the salt factory (which turned out to be a small concreted area they put sea water into and let it evaporate) and then along to Berbera lighthouse. We were shown an area of land which had been bought by Dictor Jama and Abdullah out near the old iron lighthouse for a hotel they were planning. They offered us part of their beach so we could build our own houses on it. Stood on an endless, empty beach watching the sun set over the calm sea it seemed a tempting offer. But there were still ghosts around. The area of scrub between us and the NASA landing strip now used as Berbera’s airport in which dark-eyed camels looked out over the sea was the same stretch Dictor Jama and Abdullah had sprinted across as they fought together against Siyad Barre’s troops and people presumably bled into the sand. <br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjscH_xp8zLnFUKDNzk8bl9A0pAWkEVnHiNjhyphenhyphenl8r1x8t3Hk3yXqXn0P1YORWdMr6m9sKwMNAAxWxnmycH5Fb8-7q-nsiLjTj4Csci1fgjXxriL1GxGC6Nh__5ryW6i0_G7_cajdWzFxHw/s400/5.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5216873710460880626" /><br />In the evening we were set in front of the national press. It soon became clear that the purpose of the broadcasts (three channels, including on satellite and the national newspaper) were to be political. We were asked how the Somaliland we saw differed from the one we had envisaged. At the end of the broadcast the reporter from Somaliland Times asked us if we could send him pills for his stomach ulcer when we returned to England.<br /><br /><strong>25/4/2008<br />Hargeisa – Sheekh – Las Geel – Hargeisa<br />Into the mountains and caves</strong><br />We visited the mountain top town of Sheekh, the summer retreat for the British Governor when the stifling heat of Berbera, down on the coast became too much. The house was in ruins but the tennis courts and swimming pool could still be made out and locals had left the baths and window frames, for which they had no use. This was in stark contrast to the botched together nomadic huts which now surrounded it. We continued into Sheekh to see the hospital which had all but been destroyed in the war. It still smelt like a hospital and much of the Bulgarian medical equipment was still in place but the walls were covered in graffiti and the only sound we could hear was of the children playing football outside and the birds flying from ward to ward. <br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigdJjQnso1XvEcZIZqOKHv6HaId1EYzZ9z89H099oq4r6nKM4fCRAlKym5h250y6MzitTSbLn0YT5tBav1Ll1XbMMaMTEX1e-guzO0B-8dHnZoUf1Wlvv_eKYztMVqyMQV4EKnn3YzuP4/s400/6.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5216873714617975954" /><br />We then went back through Berbera on our way to Hargeisa, as we cruised through the desert in the left hand drive car on the right side of the road (a typically absurd Colonial reminder) Abdullah pointed out the mountains which he had hidden amongst and the straights across which he had run with Mr. Mohammed, our guard, when they fought together. Mr. Mohammed remained stony faced even in the face of the Libyan trance reggae tape we put on which Abdullah was very taken by. <br /><br />On the last leg of the trip back to Hargeisa we were taken to the most spectacular site in Somaliland, the Neolithic cave paintings of Las Geel, which are regarded widely as some of the best if not the best rock art in Africa. The caves are located in a beautiful area of the country high up on a hillside looking over the vast expanse of scrubland and desert where a river once ran. It is thought that the paintings were produced 4000 years ago and yet they are still in stunning condition. The subject matter mainly revolves around images of different types of cows but also of men, dogs, giraffes and other animals. There is clearly a hugely complex symbolic subtext to the works which archaeologists are still trying to piece together. The area is in fact still being catalogued as it was only discovered by a French team in 2002. Upon seeing Las Geel we had to agree that the only reason it is not a World Heritage site is because it is in Somaliland.<br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhk7r0CJFJleFgTckQ24Ol4IgOGdGRlEjB4sAWqWoDufus1D2lB3z-d5mzAdJCSs13Lf4OpI7Awxqr-FoOAGpBHyMHY0KoaqSMCj-o3tC59iCFWiUF76KsX96NmsnKk5Yr8QR7nzDGbugk/s400/8.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5216873714571967154" /><br /><strong>26/4/2008<br />Hargeisa <br />Meetings with the ministers</strong><br />On returning to Hargeisa we met with the Minister of Trade and Industry to discuss the country’s potential and his interest in promoting clean development. It was strange chatting to a man who used to work for Bristol City Council and was so proud to be a British Citizen, as were seven other members of the cabinet. They came with the tens of thousands of Somalilanders brought to Britain during the war who are now flooding back to rebuild their country.<br /><br />Later we also met ADRA the only NGO doing serious work in Somaliland and discussed the huge potential in the country. They also added to the bizarre picture we were building up of the country by telling us it is the most hooked up (in terms of electrical coverage per head) country in the whole of Africa.<br /><br /><strong>27/4/2008<br />Hargeisa – Harer (Ethiopia) <br />Turning down the Vice -President</strong><br />In the morning we were supposed to meet with the Vice President of Somaliland, but the meeting was rearranged for the afternoon, and unfortunately we had to leave, meaning that we missed out on the opportunity. We had a long day of travelling back into Ethiopia, all the way to Harer.<br /><br /><strong>28/4/2008 – 29/4/2008<br />City circled by hyenas<br />Harer</strong><br />We wandered round the high, narrow streets of the old windy city of Harar, escorted by a local guide without whom we were guaranteed to get lost in the labyrinthine mess of markets, houses, churches and shrines. Without him we would never have found our way past the unassuming gates which led to Rimbault’s old house, nor would we have thought anything of the run down wooden building in which Haile Selassie was born.<br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwvQj1ZVwpvMplBcKLgycf8AgZ-7qQy-k_C-laBgJizM2JsvsfQfvzAJnkiP9IOtvoM4JPoAvu_uA0LThh20VXtHs3V8rpvFAjJaMcc9IsJSD0K1NU7f3Kw8GmZJr96AsMgfLxf7pq560/s400/n685000450_2910370_4735.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5216873717821402242" /><br />During the evening we went to witness the surreal tradition of hyena feeding. It is thought, or more likely, was thought, that if the hyenas were not fed the crops would fail. There is undoubtedly an inverted logic to the feeding of the hyenas and the community’s general prosperity as the well-fed beasts were less likely to kill livestock. Now the affair is far more touristy. There is warm up act of a man who calls to the hyenas down in the valley with a strange moan. Then, like a circus performer a man puts bits of meat on sticks to give to the tourists to feed to the stinking animals. Unfortunately we came the day after Ethiopians celebrate Easter and their vegetarian fasting ends. The hyenas were clearly pogged after the previous days off-cuts so their performance lacked its normal verve. Still, it was quite impressive and in terms of a touristy show there was only one other tourist there. The next morning we returned to Addis by minibus and were lucky not to have ended up in the hyena man’s basket after we collided with a rock in the road. The conductor handed out some <em>ch’at</em> and repaired whatever had broken with a mix of black paint and superglue.<br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrNSlbGVN2MsRSbqcSaVD3Jte3epp1q5yL0OPTkokdOC1kDDbZCMSIQqVo3rdjwD3dR4mNIl7C5CKF2LLoZdmKVVxOajEtkQh97bsaq8KTnubOapxDYQk1wHrfmhW8reP1V6bduURfVtI/s400/Hyena1.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5216873722643334818" /><br /></p></div></span>Carbon Explorershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11595610392269355741noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889550275996623826.post-23677789867279765722008-06-28T10:43:00.012+01:002008-06-29T19:18:42.720+01:00Travel Log 10 – Addis Ababa<span style="font-family:verdana;"><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><p style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><strong>Addis Ababa<br />29/3/2008 – 18/4/2008 and 30/4/2008 – 21/5/2008<br />The ageless mango</strong><br /><br />Having been told by a businessman on the bus that ‘Addis Ababa’ meant ‘new flower’ made the approach to the city one of imaginings. Would it be fresh and vibrant? Would it be a delicate and beautiful place?<br /><br />Historically it does not live up its name. ‘New’ is somewhat a misnomer as it is widely considered to be slap bang in the centre of the seat of human kind, from where, 100,000 years ago the human race spread out across the globe. In more recent times, it was established by Emperor Menelik II in order to appease Taytu, his wife, who was fond of the natural mineral baths the city still provides. In the present it does live up to its name, as its people are new. Everyone in the city seems to have either consigned themselves to an eternal immovability or is in a state of manic movement, waving their arms about and strutting around. Men in oversized sunglasses and designer stubble mix with the robed crowds praying at the old churches. Women in traditional dress eat pastries to the sound of <em>50 Cent</em> and prostitutes trussed in Lycra swaddling rub shoulders with priests wearing strange, cylindrical hats. There is not necessarily a sense of Addis, the place being ‘new’, more that it inhabits a time all of its own. It is more the case that its people are ‘new’, but they have come from all different times.<br /><br />‘Flower’ suggested something effeminate, and it was impossible to deny that the city had a disproportionate number of knee-tremble-inducing women. However, the dirty, raucous nature of the place was symbolically closer to a fruit like the mango: exuberant, but sordid. <br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimpKzcQzCVP-hLLGNOpvjPbYJtr-VLFtoOWWnEGbrWBwI1SIE49mQg8A3z7KVTLlQHzwsfhSnLDNJYsIT_0aAKlxSNWRFvptXDlZoNS80y-mv_hVxQWzijPIROKpnLRDVk6RkoNfWjVyI/s400/800px-Addis_churchill.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5216869732769468258" /><br /> ‘Ageless Mango’ as it should be known was dominated by the vast Presidential and Prime Ministerial palaces, grand Coptic churches, high rise shopping centres (but never with more than ten storeys), the brightly lit Ethiopian Electric building, wooden scaffolding reaching up into nothingness and decadent the British Embassy. <br /><br />When the Djiboutian Embassy asked for a letter of recommendation from our embassy in order for them to begin processing our visa application it did not come as a big surprise, the same was required by the Sudanese in Cairo. The shock came when we passed through the imposing gates of the vast British Embassy with its polo field, swimming pool, golf course and pet leopards. Presumably in order to fund such a jolly good time we were asked to pay $120 for the one page printout which cost around $30 in Cairo. Toby had previously been in the Post Office to collect his birthday cake but the security guard was unwilling to allow it entry into the Embassy compound. Presumably as it was a heavy fruitcake it posed a risk as a weapon.<br /><br />It sounded like an echo of the not-so-distant past. Haile Selassie would feed his lions before breakfast every morning. The image we had built of the mythical man was brought crashing back to reality when we visited his palace, now part of the city’s university (where there are no tuition fees). We stood uncomfortably in his private chambers looking down at his sad little bed. There was a poignant reminder of his usurpment by the Communist Derg on the 12th September 1974 in the form of a bullet hole in his bedside mirror. His private bathroom did not have gold taps, it was a utilitarian affair of plain mosaic not too dissimilar from toilets down the road in Kaldi’s café.<br /><br />Kaldi’s is Starbucks with a more inventive menu and better coffee. There are the same chalkboards, uniforms, logo and unpleasant prices. An enterprising gentleman suggested Starbucks open a chain in the home of coffee. They refused after they lost a court battle with the Ethiopian government with regards to the patenting of an Ethiopian coffee bean. Ethiopian coffee producers thought it unfair and won the case. Kaldi’s was built in its stead and appears to be hugely popular. <br /><br />We occasionally watched the ice cream melt in the counter fridges during one of the city’s many power cuts. After reading the local press it came to light that the late <em>Mahar</em> rains were the root of the problem. Ethiopia gets its electricity from hydropower and with the imminent completion of expansion projects intends to begin exporting power to its neighbours. Without the rain the system did not work so power was being rationed. What was not in the Ethiopian press was the more pressing effect of the drought: the impending humanitarian disaster in Oromiya and Somali regions where 4 million people are at risk of death. A week after the US and UK pledged $90m in relief, the Ethiopian government announced that it will be increasing its military budget eightfold to $400m.<br /><br />Some of the Ethiopian press was surprisingly free (most notably, <em>The Reporter</em>) which described how the opposition had ducked out of the local elections which were taking place while we were in the city. They claimed the voters and politicians were being pushed, violently. While we were in the city three people were killed by a bomb blast at a petrol station. There were suggestions that it was the work of Ogaden National Liberation Front (the underdeveloped south of the country). What was bizarre about the ONLF was the government’s claims that they were backed by the Qatar government. No indication was given as to Qatar’s interest in the debacle, but it entailed the Qatar based <em>Aljazeera</em> website being consigned to the same fate as all blogs in the country – it was barred. This made writing this blog challenging.<br /><br />Addis seemed to attract fascinating eccentrics from all over the globe, all with weird of wonderful tales. The Austrian researching the sticks Ethiopians use as toothbrushes. The French graffiti artist, fluent in Amharic and the world’s only white <em>azmari</em> (traditional Ethiopian minstrel who sings freestyle about the audience members and current affairs). The group driving three Morris Minors from South Africa to London on the way to the 60th anniversary celebrations. The Dutch woman trained in hostage negotiation helping street children. The French street performers preparing for a fire show. The three Brits setting up a perma-culture ecolodge in the south of the country. The alcoholic Saudi Arabian who loved America at around four in the afternoon but generally hated them by about ten in the evening. Two of the three Russian cyclists we first met on the boat from Egypt to Sudan who were hating Ethiopia, having had rocks hurled at them as they passed through villages. The Japanese farmer who wanted to introduce bamboo to the Ethiopians. The British journalist living in Lebanon researching tobacco and <em>ch’at</em>. The part time DJ from Dalston searching for source material. The Frenchman who had single-handedly rediscovered Ethiopian jazz of the 60’s and 70’s (as can be heard in Jim Jarmusch’s film <em>Broken Flowers</em>). He was in the process of organising a music festival steeped in Romanticism. One of the performers had not been in Ethiopia for fifteen years after he sought political asylum in America. He was found working as a petrol pump attendant and had agreed to return for a one off performance. <br /><br />Politics and music were hot topics in the <em>ch’at</em> and coffee houses during our stay as the country’s number one performer had been locked up just before the election. Apparently this is a repeated theme, the governments of Ethiopia have had some bad experiences with their more feisty song writers. Teddy Afro was in court on the charge of a hit and run murder and everyone had an opinion on the matter, far beyond the information found in the papers and very deep into their imaginations. It was a welcome break from talking about Arsenal, Man United and Chelsea (and in the cases of some wild cards, Liverpool).<br /><br />Knowing where to go out in Addis was a tricky business. We had to base it upon the advice of those who had tried and tested before us. On Toby’s birthday the decision was made that <em>FreeZone</em> would do for dinner, <em>Harlem Jazz</em> for some music, then wing it from there. <em>FreeZone</em> turned out to be the place to be, a courtyard of people posing, posturing and doing their best to catch the attention of the waiters (in Ethiopia waiters are very possessive over their tables, if you catch the eye of the wrong one you normally get a blank stare). Everyone was having fun and it was a relaxed place to be but everyone was showing off a little too much. <em>Harlem Jazz</em> proved to be the place for some genuine reggae. Many of the ‘twice as nice!’ band members came from Shashamane – the spiritual home of the Rastafarians and sang of Selassie, repatriation, Jah and Bob over lolloping and scatty rhythms that made all of the white people dance like idiots. We made the schoolboy error of asking a twelve year old taxi driver where we should go next. We were taken to the notorious <em>Memo Club</em> where women outnumber the men 4-1 and the ugly ones are turned away at the door. The flaw in this seemingly perfect club was that they were all prostitutes. Fat, bald, sweaty Chinese businessmen lounged on sofas draped with women while UN types ground against women in mini-skirts. However, the saviour of the dance floor came in the shape of an Indian man wearing a sweat band and sporting one hell of moustache. He pointed to the DJ to signal that now was the time for his song (the one where bhangra music is played over the top of the <em>Night Rider</em> bass line). He picked a point when the dance floor was empty. He circled round pointing to people in the crowd then erupted into a flailing masterpiece. It turned out to be good fun, once we had established with the women that their services were not required they were very cordial and referred to themselves as our sisters and we all had a good dance. We never quite got the hang of the Ethiopian shoulder dancing (which randomly interspersed the <em>50 Cent</em> and <em>Timberland</em> tracks) but we gave it a bloody good go.<br /><br />Addis was not a place of attractions. The Derg Monument near the Post Office was an imposing monument to Communism and intriguing in its incongruity. The Millennium Square celebrated the Ethiopian Millennium with a giant metal dove and the flags of most of the countries of the world. Then there was Selassie’s palace and the ethnographic museum, which did have some good photos of British soldiers who were stationed there, as was Toby’s Great-grandfather, and the tribal habits of the Ethiopians of the south. Then there was the church housing the body of Haile Selassie and his wife (that is if you are to believe what the ‘bomboklat’ minister tells you – Rastafarians believe him to be alive but in hiding) with its mural above the altar depicting Selassie’s moment of transition from mere mortal to super hero. It was at his speech to NATO that his words became prophetic, he foresaw and warned them of WWII but no one was listening! The truth of the matter was that although these sights were distracting, Addis was far more about drinking amazing coffee and reasonable beer and chewing the cud with anyone and everyone. This sensibility seemed to rub off on those people passing through and left the city crackling with chatter. <br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz-o_v1-qdXUHIZYZqfZCMvcMA3B2UXxlKxMSJ1B4gl_zuz3GmLXnwUY4KKImxJra18oqUTlKoeqQqGLQ7Eve5iz_C6lquqrR1ikDRP7ySktftxFPPWy_JNP6ReDucskWfT0o2nmQOCFM/s400/cathedral-c-galen.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5216869736021423490" /><br />What was treacherous about Addis’ streets was the moral threat rather than a physical one, as culturally Ethiopians did not seem inclined towards crime. We were told how children come to the city looking for easy cash. If they are not female or not pretty enough to be a prostitute they are taken under the wing of a <em>Fagin</em> character who in many cases purposefully disfigures them, in order to improve their earnings. From a roof top café one could watch a mother sending her toddlers out to targeted individuals. We saw a man lying on the street with what looked at first glance, like a pink sweet stuck to his belly, hence the flies. It seemed like a cruel trick to play on someone so destitute. On closer, and completely innocent inspection it turned out to be the membrane of some internal organ which had ruptured through the skin. The Addisians reaction to these people was one of resolute acceptance. We watched as two blind people collided in front of a bus queue. They were locked in an awkward embrace, maintaining there respective sales pitches – the man calling upon the name of Selassie and tapping his white stick, his face almost entirely burnt away and his white eyes bulbous. Her calling upon Jesus and shaking a handful of change up and down rhythmically. People from the bus stop quickly and quietly righted them.<br /><br />Addis’ <em>merkato</em> is dubiously given the title of Africa biggest market. It covers a huge area but what is a shop and what is a market stall is hard to tell, and where it starts and ends it also unclear. What is clear is that it is a dirty, noise life-filled headache. Everyone was bustling to get to their bargain and out again. Inside one shop / stall we bought honey. It was a high ceilinged and dark hall filled with musty smells. Huge sacks of butter, honey and dried fish were piled high. The shopkeeper scooped handfuls of honey into a plastic bag, gently conducting the flies around him. The place was alive with bargain hunting women preparing for the end of the Easter fasting. As Easter approached the goods became in higher demand and the prices rose and this was apparently the best time to buy.<br /><br />We were lucky enough to be in the city during the annual film festival. <em>The Africa Spelling Book</em> whetted our appetites for Kenya as it was a film made by an NGO which had given cameras to Nairobian street children and told them to produce short films about what Africa meant to them, based upon the letters of the alphabet. The driving, upbeat feel to the films set in slums were thought-provoking. It was easy to forget that although these places may be a mess, they are also people’s homes, in which they go through some the very same sagas as people in environs more familiar to us. <br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEZ9C5UpJ-BcwJ9T_8yh1OFhHgs1jJGdAF-qJhKrJ2iVfMphZ8a8Cy1k7CBSjOlzg8fQCVnPw0UoyyPr7K-raM2b-MOan90PWML0KulG9vhqK_SgUIT0z_40ZWXv3UvZvMgYZk3c_0t7Q/s400/2323079-Travel_Picture-Addis_Ababa.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5216869736887558322" /><br />During the night the city felt very safe. When we visited the <em>Habasha Restaurant</em> for a treat we dined with the Kenyan diplomats and were treated to the most spectacular shoulder dancing we had seen to date. The dancers moved their necks and shoulders independently and into impossible contortions, flicking their heads around like ping-pong balls. Members of the audience (generally older Ethiopian businessmen) would periodically go up and give it a go, then stuff cash into the pockets of the performers. Miraculously nobody suffered from whiplash.<br /><br />Another dance performance was on a whole new scale of weirdness. It was a variety act at <em>Concord Club</em> which involved a dance narrative performed by a man and woman. The man is a drunk, saved by the power of love. The climax of the show is the man playing the woman as a variety of musical instruments. The most eye popping being the piano. He laid her legs in the splits position across his lap and pressed her thighs and feet as if they were keys. When a bum note played on the musical accompaniment he went straight for the groin. We later saw the same performance re-enacted on the TV. They are clearly quite a sensation.<br /><br />Another night’s entertainment was advertised to us as ‘traditional’ which turned out to be quite a stretch of the imagination. It was a fashion show watched by Addis’ great and good, with a camera crew there ready to film our awkward grins. Between designers the entertainment included a stand-up comedian who we suspect may well have been using us, as the only two white audience members, as source material. There were also three far from coy mistresses in Lycra performing a very ‘special’ dance routine. This all took place on top of one of the city’s tallest towers in the modesty titled <em>Cloud 9 Café</em>...<br /><br />It was all a lot of off-kilter fun. </p></div></span>Carbon Explorershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11595610392269355741noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889550275996623826.post-74117158558581385822008-05-09T16:44:00.002+01:002008-05-11T16:52:40.450+01:00Travel Log 9– Northern Ethiopia, Sheidi, Gonder, Debark, Simien Mountains, Bahir Dar and Lalibella<span style="font-family:verdana;"><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><p style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><br /><strong>Sheidi<br />3/3/08<br />The taste of success was warm, flat and satisfying.</strong> We drank beer while we waited for our visas to be checked on the border between Sudan and Ethiopia. The passport office was surrounded by a complex of wooden shacks and alleyways.<br /><br />At the bus station the reservation we saw on the faces of Sudanese was put into stark contrast as we were harangued by children hell bent on acting as our porters. On the bus it was a bawdy affair with people laughing raucously and the women wearing the antipathy of burkahs making none too subtle eyes. We were definitely a commodity. A woman on the bus had the tattooed face of an Orthodox Ethiopian Christian – a cross where a bhindi would go and cog-like marking encircling her neck.<br /><br />The bus took us from the border town of Metama to Shihedi where we would overnight before getting the bus further to Gonder the next morning. It was made up of shacks playing Ethiopian pop (which was heavily keyboard based with a strange 2/2 rhythm which sounded like a strange impersonation of the 80’s), table football and bar after bar after bar.<br /><br />Walking along the dirt high street dodging the horse drawn carts we were followed by a group of young boys who claimed to be our guides to the town. As we drank coffee they scuffled outside over ownership of us.<br /><br />In our hotel a woman from the bus recognized us and invited us into her room. Inside were her adopted son and younger sister. We chewed <em>ch’at</em> (see later) with her – a mild amphetamine popular in the Arab world and across much of east Africa. The leaves were stuffed into the mouth and chewed slowly, allowing the acrid juices to trickle down the throat, accompanied by cola and peanuts. After the dehydration of the bus journey (on which the man in front insisted on closing the window, and remained infuriatingly un-sweaty for the journey as we felt our skin crack under the pressure) the effect of the <em>ch’at</em> was hard to distinguish but there was a general mood of chatty giddiness. There is of course a strong possibility that the presence of an unveiled, powerful woman who was willing to put us in our place on a variety of subjects we were completely unable to comprehend may have been the vital ingredient in the heady mix. Her adopted son who she called Baggio (after the Italian footballer) and who had the same eccentric haircut as him insisted on calling Toby ‘Papa’.<br /><br />We finally managed to establish that the bus to Gonder, seven hours south, was going to be leaving at 5.00am. The confusion arose from the fact that in Ethiopia the day begins when the sun comes up at 6.00am and this is counted as 12.00, the time is therefore always six hours outside what it should be.<br /><br /><br /><strong>Gondar<br />04/03/08 – 09/03/08<br />Emmanuel got sap from a tree in his eye when he was a tot and was left with a blind, shiny, milk coloured iris.</strong><br /><br />Kibrit came from Bahir Dar to make his fortune as a traditional musician, playing animal skin drums and singing as an <em>azmari</em> (freestyle comedy singer approaching politics and often those in the room) and playing a <em>masenqo</em> (one stringed bowed instrument) as part of <em>tejbei</em>t (traditional Ethiopian music, still very popular with locals). <br /><br />John was an orphan who fell in love with a rich girl. <br /><br />Rich had dreams of going to university with his girlfriend and getting a good job.<br /><br />Wonderful was having trouble paying for his night school classes in tourism in order for him to get a pass which would legally allow him to trail us without the threat of a beating from the police. <br /><br />Hanging round with these lads, learning their ‘stories’ was a mainstay of our time in fairy tale Gondar. After spending four days with this motley crew of hustlers, chancers and lay abouts we had a chance to better understand their respective predicaments although we would not claim to know the truth of them. These street urchins had not been dealt the harshest hands in the town, they just had the language skills to communicate them most successfully.<br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9Q5-f35_ItXI7vZkuJHlCPsrmxFxJ0WPKlyRpyDWR0y_2p8jvnURlY-7oyMucAd4lzP_Sl08fQfpxspvePQ2pfLwSE_NETxfd3qc44NGW3q_RBeB7kHuidw5bwCZEqvjAU5EGia_JAGc/s400/140z+125514a+The+Street+guides+of+Gonder+out+for+a+drink+with+Toby+ghostly+in+the+background,+I+wish+it+had+been+intentional.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5198397165284670466" /><br /><br />After buying Emmanuel a second hand dictionary, giving Kibrit an old pair of Toby’s trousers, Wonderful a copy of ‘Waiting for Godot’ and John an Arabic to English dictionary the money hassle abated. They had nothing better to do than try and pick up some English from us so followed us about. Understandably they were also keen to speak the international language without the handicap of an American accent. Through their local knowledge and understanding we were able to see and understand many sides of life in Gondar that would otherwise have passed us by.<br /><br />Nestled in high mountains, Gondar was the ancient capital of Ethiopia and seat of the powerful Abyssinian Empire, the castle of which still stood at the top of the town. The town and surrounding area’s main industry is tourism as well as agriculture and the Dashen (beer) and huge <em>Pepsi</em> plants. The other main industry of the town, often disturbingly connected to tourism, is prostitution. <br /><br />The street urchins took us to a series of nightclubs where the women’s vocabulary was limited to a few phrases that would make Jim Davidson blush. If we were to make eye contact with one a catfight would ensue. The street urchins pointed out an Israeli man in one of the clubs, who had just finished national service. He came out of a bedroom at the back of the club near the stinking toilet with a blank-faced girl. They explained that their friend had made 70Birr ($7) commission from the transaction and they were very pleased for him. They seemed genuinely surprised that we were not interested in the same. We had to be adamant about it because the initial sensation of coming from two months of <em>sharia</em> law to a room of women gyrating their backsides independently of the rest of their bodies was pretty overpowering.<br /><br />We stayed in the faded glory of the <em>Ethiopia Hotel</em> in the heart of the town. The café below was popular with Gondar’s dapper old timers who greeted each other with a theatrical series of embraces such as handshakes cupped at the forearm representing a transference of power / strength in some kind of business transaction. They would then sit down to the complex flavours of the freshly ground coffee and pat each other on the knee with the kind of tenderness that would get them funny looks in England. However, here it is the norm: Banksy’s artwork would be stripped of its shock value in Ethiopia as policemen and soldiers genuinely do hold hands on the street. <br /><br />From the vaulted ceiling hung replacement chandeliers but the stained glass above the grand double doors was original, as was the Italian coffee machine and the booth from which the dour old owner watched over proceedings, slowly counting out money with arthritic fingers for the beautiful waitresses to hand out. One slow turn of his bald head in its starched collar housing would send street children who came in to sell packs of tissues and tooth brush sticks clattering out of the door. As was the case with the town’s many crazies who, no matter how far gone they were, still seemed to know not to try his patience. The packets of tissues business seemed to be booming. It was quite a status symbol for someone in a café or a bar to be able to mop their brow in such a disposable fashion. Also, none of the toilets had toilet paper. From the perspective of the street children, they could buy a pack of twelve from the shop, which worked out as 65cents a packet, then sell them on a 1Birr each.<br /><br />In comparison to most of the places we had travelled through (Khartoum included) it was better paved, cleaned and even pedestrianised. The path leading up to Gondar’s castle was clear for a good stream of tourists. This brought pastoral people from the surrounding areas who believed the streets to be paved with dollars. Despite the almost European feel of the central town there was still a large volume of donkey and sheep traffic to temper its aspirations. The huge numbers of Ogre buzzards that patrolled the sky over the town at all hours was an impressive sight giving it the true feel of a medieval mountain castle town.<br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjESN51JcI-Gn2EtaMk_3_s8R750DNrmu6P5RG1FskBe8VXGJsfbIGWS_5BWmvyIedsVZLJh4cdCCtzP1ywSl-t_igqShvq4n5qiN8pcTqk_S5DSGsdQyGSqcluQ23EVsKslhSXnf5bCGk/s400/121z+125340b+A+view+from+the+castle+comlpex+at+Gonder+with+hawks+in+distance,+a+constant+sight+over+the+town.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5198397169579637778" /><br /><br />We got to know quite a few of the town’s wide boys in their shady alleys, by putting the word out that we were after a second hand tent. After many wild promises and let downs we came across a reasonable and non-Chinese manufactured tent that was suitable enough to use for the remainder of our trip.<br /><br />Most of the time we ate <em>injera</em> – a large, slightly sour pancake made from <em>tef</em> (a native grain) which was topped with a variety of different dishes. Parts of the pancakes were ripped off by all those round the table at the time and used to pick up the various dishes. We had heard that Ethiopians were not willing to eat alone and this seemed to be true, everyone seemed happy to share. Because of the Orthodoxy’s strict adherence to a fifty five day fast for Lent there was little meat available but the wide variety of vegetable dishes were delicious. It was a welcome break from the <em>fu’ul</em> of Sudan.<br /><br />On our last day the street urchins invited us to an Arabia –something like an opium den but designed for the consumption of <em>t’chat</em>. A small series of rooms containing squat tables, beds and cushions divided by curtains. As we watched a rural woman with tattooed face performed the coffee ceremony for us, making the surrounding bizarre environment drift away. She laid grass from the river bed on the ground and arranged a series of strange wood and mud vessels and implements. She roasted the coffee beans and as they smoked wafted the scent about the room then ground them with a clumsy wooden mortar and pestle. The pot from which she poured was lifted high in an act of high drama and accuracy, like a knife thrower, aerating it and producing the mandatory three cups each of the best coffee either of us had ever tasted. Our taste buds were thankful for the relief from the acrid <em>t’chat</em>. After a few hours the <em>t’chat</em> and coffee had taken effect and there was no chance that we would be able to sleep so we went out for a few final beers with the street urchins. We got back to our hotel at five in the morning and left on the bus for Debark at six.<br /><br /><br /><strong>Debark<br />10/03/08<br />Without sleep and with a heavy box of food for a planned ten day trek through the Simien Mountains to the summit of Ras Dejen (the highest mountain in Ethiopia) we completed the three hour endurance bus ride from Gondar to Debark.</strong> We made our way to the Simien Mountains National Park office to organise our hike. Gurning with concentration, straining to comprehend the prices quoted to us, using all our mental will power we arranged our English speaking guide, compulsory armed scout, two mules and a mule man (which mysteriously became two mule men), cooking equipment and sleeping bag hire and park entrance fee. The first impression we made on Deejain, can’t have been great as we were dazed and confused, falling asleep into our lunches. We slept early to wake early the next day and begin the trek.<br /><br /><br /><strong>Simien Mountains<br />11/03/08 – 18/03/08<br />We rose before the sun, the air thick with thyme and stars following the same mountain pass as the priests and pastoralists in medieval dress, across a sheer meadowland of frozen streams and bleeding hearts baboons to Ras Dejen – Ethiopia’s highest peak at around 4550m.</strong> This was our fifth day of an eight day trek and our slightly weary legs revelled in the cool start to the day. At the summit a couple of hours after dawn our achievement was put into perspective as we were followed up by shepherd boys in broken wellies who played a <em>washint</em>, (a wooden flute) its dissonant, lyrical, syncopated sound caught in the bluster suited the forbidding repetitions in the volcanic ranges spread out before for miles like a ruffled cape. <br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_00ZqtzcBrZIDJjd3OMUbVGgF8IT-cJ449-WAlrzpZO3D-cnPshDDOjyfMZdHmDZAP0dPdIpuPuoAIyc6DLITrwojisGDnJjfqv7M4g2P9IWFrcadC6bJYhzsmyeSgTvIEccYmSZP_5c/s400/137+20080314+080949+On+the+descent+from+Ras+Dashen.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5198397169579637794" /><br /><br />During the five days we had previously walked we had seen some of the most dramatic volcanic landscapes on Earth with sheer abysses, and towering rock formations and its rare animals and otherworldly flora (in particular the giant lobelia, up to six feet in height with a thin trunk topped by a spiky prong of succulent leaves – especially useful as something to grab hold of when having races down the grassy mountain slopes). We had walked through a squat forest of ancient olive and Ecicaboria trees, bent double with lichens, through a grassy clearing smelling of wild roses, where about thirty Gelada baboons dug for roots. Our presence did not bother them as the locals, as Orthodox Christians, were forbidden from eating primates so had not predated them for centuries. Also, as white folk we did not pose the threat of throwing rocks at the monkeys to scare them off our crops, because like everyone else in Africa knows, white men do not do hard work. <br /><br />The opportunity to sit amongst the Gelada as they beat the ground rhythmically, glancing at us occasionally, their faces full of personifiable expression with their eyebrows raised and their eyes wide as if to say ‘what on Earth do you think you are doing?’ was astonishing. The alpha males were clearly defined, festooned with poodle rock hair styles and hugely impressive mutton chops. They continued with what sounded like a complex and irresolvable debate of lilting whines after they were fairly sure we were not a threat.<br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioM7Ab8sCLXqA6Lt_sduLFvhOJ_I6ORj-AvWPOT6JN2S0GWYwCpQQU-JoQ8YXSxKkFhyqAywOYPYnX1s_diR3FlsbTCUpTONAwq2qIduiPpm3jCofzkdTCNFuenPWH0XOf9IwMPitcQ0o/s400/123+20080310+105526+The+happiest+moment+in+Toby%27s+life.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5198397173874605106" /><br /><br />The Gelada, like most of the park’s flora and fauna are now protected and the penalties for discrepancy are severe for the locals. Laws have been created which mean locals are now unable to use any wood from the park other than specially planted Eucalyptus because the trees are protected. In order to avoid confusion this also includes dead wood. Quite what the fast-growing, soil-degrading Eucalyptus plantations impact is going to be in the long term had not been answered, but joint projects with the Austrian government were developing the use of fuel efficient stoves to use significantly less wood as well as reducing indoor air pollution and its associated maladies. Now, many of the locals, rather than walk the often huge distance involved, prefer to scour the landscape for animal waste. As there were no bandits, our mandatory armed guard seemed to have the task of policing these laws with his 1964 hammer and sickle stamped rifle.<br /><br />The Walia ibex were more secretive than their baboon counterparts because during the fifteen years of civil war which plagued the region the soldiers resorted to eating them. Watching the adolescent males practise knocking horns together was an impressive sight but there are only 400-500 individuals remaining. As they fought they were surrounded by the Gelada who act as lookouts for them. We were also lucky enough to see klipspringers (diminutive deer), many Verreaux’s eagles, vultures, lammergeyer, kestrels, falcons and ravens (the spine-chilling sound of the thick-billed raven ever present where we slept) and most luckily of all, the Ethiopian wolf: sub-Sahara’s only wolf. Only 550 individuals remain making it the world’s rarest canid.<br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQT_f4qSkE6XR1CzpPMjP7dSXc9gCvQRpfGM0f73jW7HC1k3fWyFRF2MEZR0nsywUvwexZRQEufnUeKk7Papnjci8PyQtkJwTY2qWQ8OJny510PZ5-iShJqErhYX26GZ9wo4w1Jb305h4/s400/138+125511a+Wilde+Ibex+and+Gelada+Baboons.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5198397173874605122" /><br /><br />One viewpoint we had stopped at, near to the track that ran through the park, looked over a sheer drop where down below we were able to spot ibex. The outstanding beauty of the area was contrasted sharply though when its recent history was revealed. During the Derg era (the Communist regime led by Mengistu who overthrew Haile Selassie in 1974 and ruled until 1991) dissidents were thrown from the viewpoint down the sheer cliff without any semblance of a fair hearing in a time when human life was cheap, it gave the place a disturbing edge.<br /><br />For the 60,000 people living in the park it was a hard life of chasing cattle up and down the steep paths. The best many could hope for was to become like our scout, Mmbabo, who we were paying 40Birr a day ($4) the official rate as dictated by the national park office who keep a list of scouts, called upon when a group from the park’s 10,000 a year visitors required their services. To put things into perspective, to hire the kerosene stove and a few cooking utensils cost the same per day, and the mule men cost the same as the mules. <br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAZeuWbb4qPBtyUstyBIu3J9uHwwj2wp5ehfU8IZXKYR9Av1SqKpdrjP4xSOi3FAwS5nd2OHeb8gnJFrhj_ZC78mRwnaPPId8MWFDIvuVVe6ZGia1Upwgud8gHns65b1wp7wQtqgeynPU/s400/128+20080311+060038+Scout+man+relaxes,+Simien+Mountains.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5198398930516229202" /><br /><br />On one particular day we were allowed an insight into the lives of the people in the park having been invited to a coffee ceremony at Geech village near to a campsite we stayed at. The fifteen year old girl who had invited us took us into a large circular hut with a high ceiling and enough room for the family’s animals to stay inside at night. It was dark and stained black with soot from the open wood fire that was being used for cooking. In the home was the young girl along with her father, who was keen on the idea of her going to Sudan to make her fortune. There was real beauty in the movement of her hands as she prepared the coffee in the way she had seen her mother do and had repeated some many times that she no longer needed to consider her physical actions, rather she was able to focus upon the ceremonial significance of the act, her hands performing a soft, smooth waltz. In this environment as in much of our time spent in the park, a sense of disruption in time was palpable. Days seemed minutes long and hours lasted for hours and all in what could have been anywhere between the middle ages and the present.<br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvduWCkUdExYIoGKIwGvUiwVEC_S_l1q50Mq7jtMODqcO7IU5qqEuiF69ArPGH67_Iwl8Gsx1GiVVoqk8V056XScPYzN3_yZU8yBmm-mFxAkFqdNaeO1wTT4bf96jZ5WEgxVgXSUbqkYE/s400/129+20080311+093336+Enjoying+a+traditional+coffee+ceremony+in+Geech+village.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5198398943401131106" /><br /><br />Another interesting aspect of the people in this area was revealed to us as we walked with our guide who told us how the area was once a homeland of a Jewish race, most of whom now reside in Israel. The Beta Israel as they are known claim to be from the tribes of Judah and Levi and to be direct descendants of Moses. During the eighties it was established using DNA testing the Beta Israel’s claim to Judaism was legitimate and were welcomed to reside in Israel. Most of the population took up the offer due to their religious isolation and prejudices they faced in Ethiopia. Israel set up Project Solomon and Moses which brought them to Israel where the majority now work menial jobs and live as second class citizens.<br /><br />After eight days of trekking we were glad to get back to Debark and a decent wash but we were left with a lasting impression and memories of a fascinating and dramatic environment. Comprehending the ways in which the people eke out a simple existence in such a harsh environment is not easy but their physical and mental adaptation was clear to see in more ways than the sight of them striding past us at 4000m or higher as if they had an important appointment to keep.<br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSlWtfT620omxmwIL0OpqyoWAybEiD3p5uXMwqrorfKkm8XuFdB3_GxECazsDbC8b20eYLBPMwzB1P3vWjwd_6CVBSGTXwQaCR1oMs-FJOIfxpU8NyL_XUhuGsMkzQnNF2ffTEt8DbQ4k/s400/133+20080312+085008+Toby+takes+a+break+on+one+of+the+peaks,+Simien+Mountains.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5198398947696098418" /><br /><br /><br /><strong>Bahir Dar<br />20/03/08<br />After a night back in Gondar, we took a minibus to Bahir Dar with one of the street urchins, Kibrit (or Pappi as he like to be called) who lived there, buying his ticket for him to return to his family.</strong> We may have been gullible to believe that he could not afford the ticket ($3) but we had built up a bit of a rapport with him and trusted him just about as far as Stuart could throw him. <br /><br />Bahir Dar, once considered by Haile Selassie as an alternate capital for Ethiopia sits on the banks of Lake Tana, the source of the Blue Nile. The lake is dotted with islands containing holy monasteries but Bahir Dar did have something of the Blackpool about it.<br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUcwg8YiYxmv2A3muZ5xnmiITtsGH8UQHsyAMw1ajPvdU1GaF77OPM6mJlrT9oINipWaGbWEVQ0SeINnf1lUeoso82DN8oGrKFDJeiFBJown47UqrxqDDWhlEkHm3dXmLDj4JDNWG7Wl4/s400/142+20080320+060819+Reed+boat+on+Lake+Tana,+Bahir+Dar.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5198398947696098434" /><br /><br />We took a motorboat out to one of the islands where we visited a truly strange church. Circular in design with the pointed roof of a mosque’s minaret, it was adorned with hundreds of small hand-made bells and two large stones hung from a frame that resonated with ominous thick notes. Inside a priest dressed in a complex shawl and hat of racing green showed us his treasures proudly. Sat on the stone floor he held a book up to us. He claimed it was nine hundred years old, written in Ge’ez, the precursor to Amharic, now only spoken by the clergy. Inside its dark animal hide covering were colourful, naïve paintings of Saint George, the Angel Gabriel and others we did not recognize. Their anatomies were highly stylized and vivid making up scenes of such fire and brimstone they were very effective at putting the fear of God into one. As we had eaten breakfast, and had hence broken our fast, we were not permitted to enter the church’s inner sanctum as the priest was concerned that its powers would make us ill. He would not say what was in there. He was the consummate ring master.<br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWIL_s7nFDM89_GcaegJIMEJ1yRYk-AKPfX2JKf-6OKxwB_yka4IbopIexTkELNxA9X7bvB4KZi2VKJR1n5xFbrLMNWOgD3wqpoLaQqrBAQKE1SQoi3D3HNO-skuZdqjZRJ80qRxPDlH8/s400/142z+125518a+Priest+with+900+year+old+bible+at+Lake+Tana+monastry,+Bahir+Dar.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5198398951991065746" /><br /><br />In the evening we sat in our hotel bar with a beer pondering the past few days. A priest with a huge, intricate silver cross that a rapper would be proud of, had been staring at us silently for the past forty minutes, while nursing his beer, as if we might spontaneously combust. He ordered one of the waitresses to bring us a plate of warmed, slated grains and grinned indulgently. Everything here is different enough to make one question one’s mental state.<br /><br /><strong>22/03/08<br />We visited an <em>arabia</em> of a different class: small rooms covered in cushions, shoes off at the door, each room with its own sound system and a buzzer to alert the staff if your every whim was not being catered for.</strong> We made our way through <em>t’chat</em>, peanuts, freshly roasted coffee and apple flavoured <em>shishas</em>. They were all brought to us by Heywot, an Oromo woman. The Oromos, who occupy the south of the country, make up the majority of the Ethiopian population and we have heard many conflicting stories about them mostly unflattering from Northerners. Heywot sat on her haunches and deftly prepared the coffee and <em>shishas</em> as if it were an art form. Her certainty and grace left the room with an overriding sense of peacefulness that was very powerful.<br /><br />About forty minutes bus ride outside Bahir Dar, we entered a small village by the Blue Nile Falls, or Tis Issat ‘waters that smokes’. It was market day and an endless stream of people travelled along the track towards us in quiet concentration, carrying grains, drinks and earthenware pots, vegetables and babies in papooses. Seeing a family unit trek along barefoot it was easy to romanticise about the kind of wordless conversation that they were carrying with them from their thatched hut to the market and back again. We passed them as we crossed the Portuguese Bridge with a procession of donkeys, sheep and goats clacking their hooves on the cobbles. In the image now seared on our memories there was nothing from the modern day, as the bridge’s low wall hid their plastic shoes, they could have walked straight out of the past. The falls themselves were impressive, although these days a large part of the water is diverted to a hydroelectric power station. The use of the Nile, although peaceful on the surface, seems to have underlying tension to it for some Ethiopians, particularly when referring to Egyptians.<br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibQQLM-7zOek1GM0lE0g25cYgp4dZWjyb8xGYIsWCK-A9Qgx8KbNKBSNYjrxDi2G5M7dOHyCEl5g9ZRT_Jnbi3P62gxeoAjAM5KPLY0CeZq-w6JEjD_b-JpuFiEWB00xKqdDHODTixAv0/s400/142z+125522a+Blue+Nile+Falls+near+Bahir+Dar.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5198400313495698594" /><br /><br /><br /><strong>Bahir Dar – Lalibela<br />25/03/08<br />At 5.00am (Western time) we found a government land cruiser that could take us to Lalibela in half the time rather than the whole day required for the bus ride.</strong> As the price was negotiated we heard Kibrit’s name repeated and we were finally given a very reasonable price, he was there in spirit clearly. The vehicle was driven by a playboy working for a man installing drinking water distribution facilities in Lalibela. Water is a real issue and was in fact only available for one day a week. It seemed strange at first to hear this Ethiopian driver talking so intently about the importance of water conservation but it was certainly refreshing to hear. The water problem was of course exacerbated by the influx of tourists who consume much more water than local people, with flushing toilets and showers, a guilt we could of course not separate ourselves from. <br /><br />The man and two women we shared the vehicle with were full of life, sharing their grains with us and gabbing away. After driving for a few hours we came to a steep sided valley and the road heaved with people in white robes. As the car came to a standstill the women became hysterical as it was clear what they had feared had already happened. The driver instructed us to shut the car doors as they left and drove off rapidly. Apparently the man’s father had died the previous night and they had just returned to find out. It was an unsettling scene as the women shrieked and beat the ground, the valley echoing with the word ‘Xavier’ or ‘God willing’. <br /><br />Upon arrival in Lalibela nine hours to the south-east of Bahir Dar we updated ourselves on world affairs with <em>Aljazeera TV</em> watching the news of Somalia, Kenya and Zimbabwe with trepidation.<br /><br /><strong>26/03/08<br />Lalibela was originally constructed as a New Jerusalem when the Muslims conquered the old.</strong> At the time of building they did not have the technology to build upwards as high as they wanted so they dug down, creating churches hewn from a single rock in the ground.<br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_tVriIR-tFFkcI0dUhrtPnewHsqVNyS7w6PprwynsrsV3NkZfHOmgsFCUUD0kid276POnCI9fmAdZ2hdHAE-IM0BbPwSdz1W0ThuJ5NoUE7dZO6r8uGTDFT4hoAi8h9tJyqCF3R7xy7Y/s400/145+20080326+074439+Priests+at+the+rock+hewn+churches+of+Lalibella.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5198400317790665906" /><br /><br />The churches were made up of mazes of tunnels leading to dark churches from which came the sound of the strange Ge’ez chants. Their history seems pretty hazy but most sources agree that they were completed in the fourteenth century, how many hundreds of years before this they were started who knows. The priests, trainee priests and monks ranging from early teenagers to blind old men sat together with the bibles reading inside and around the churches of Betes Amauel, Medhane Alem, Maryam and Golgotha. Although there were a few Ethiopians there receiving blessings, the majority of the traffic was foreign tourists. They took pictures of the remains of pilgrims left in a hole in the wall, their legs covered in dried flesh and their brittle toenails exposed. However, in the face of the flash photography the priests retained a stalwart, unblinking sense of dignity that was inspirational.<br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD5wkA_dfaSaACHmitiLow08Xz0WJItJ0d-ABskTvWF-0n5fO4ukcQ4mstYGplYHqbHugFDw04_nDXfW_Q8GoMOQaDqoYWidTnYAscIFqryRptbcLnfDRk-xy9euOrio9EZXScv7YWBSg/s400/146+20080326+080617+Lalibella+rock+hewn+church.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5198400317790665922" /><br /><br />Outside we met Gareth and Helen, Londoners from New Zealand who were travelling all over the place on motorbikes. We last saw them on the way back from Ras Dejen. We sat in a café and discussed issues of revelation over <em>macchiattos</em> (very milky, sweet coffees) and agreed that although awe-inspiring and atmospheric the place was not conducive to religious experience. Although the place reverberated with the sound of the priests and their pupils chanting ancient chants, it was cut through by the nasal twang of an American asking where the ‘goddamn’ toilet was.<br /><br /><br /><strong>Lalibela – Addis Ababa<br />27/03/08 – 28/03/08<br />We paid a bit extra to reserve the better seats on the bus requiring a young man to hold them for us when the bus opened before four in the morning, they are still quite a way away from a computerised ticketing system.</strong> We left at six on a Mercedes bus considerably older than either of us, adorned with so much Christian tat the unsaid message was that God’s help would be required for the journey, scheduled to be two days.<br /><br />Four hours down the road the bus would not enter second gear. With the use of a huge metal spike and a great deal of jiggling the problem was solved, until another two further hours down the road and in deepest darkest Hicksville when the problem seemed more severe. A crowd amassed around us as we read by the roadside giving us the same distance one might to a slow moving but potentially dangerous creature. They whispered gently to one another, a murmur of ‘what is name’ came across them like a cloud as they looked towards us with stony glares. Finally a small boy could not contain himself and was the point of release for the whole gathering. ‘What is name’ he said. Those children who giggled in the silence were brought quickly into line, this was a clearly an important moment. They were flabbergasted at our respective responses but seemed to be reassured that we actually had names and the children invited us to play football with them on the road with a ball of tied together rags.<br /><br />Next on the agenda was a puncture which was quickly fixed and we arrived in a small town where we ate strange food and slept in the second hotel we came to. The first was one we were taken to on the recommendation of one of our fellow passengers who was well dressed, well-spoken and accompanied by his wife so we assumed we might be taken somewhere beyond our budget. The place though turned out to be a brothel with only double beds, covered in pink silk effect sheets harbouring God knows what.<br /><br />The next morning at slightly before 5.00am after a Biblical entry into the bus station, with the crowd in white robes parting before us like the Red Sea, we parked our bruised selves on the same seats. At 5:00am the sea poured into the bus station to find their own seats on buses. As the sun rose over the mountains, down the sheer drop the bus veered towards every so often the cockerels onboard crowed above the tinny Ethiopian pop and the thunder of the engine.<br /><br />The road seemed to be tarmaced in random straights, much of it under construction by groups of Ethiopians led by mysterious Chinese men in dark glasses and using Chinese machinery. A theme which we have seen running throughout Africa so far and is perhaps still of dubious benefit to Africans. After twenty seven hours on the bus and a couple more minor problems we arrived in an overcast Addis Ababa – ‘New Flower’ in Amharic. The bus driver and his mechanics / conductors shook our hands heartily as we left, having shared a successful ordeal with them.</p></div></span>Carbon Explorershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11595610392269355741noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889550275996623826.post-67355355648166942732008-05-09T16:42:00.003+01:002008-05-11T16:54:11.567+01:00Taking Practical Action in Sudan<span style="font-family:verdana;"><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><p style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><br />In the western world 'energy efficiency' is a buzz term. Companies and environmentalists use it to refer to practices which will, in the long-term, help to prevent dangerous climate change and make good economic sense. In Darfur energy efficiency is a matter of survival.<br /><br /><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT0WMTqR931hDQe7PAJsgSOxgHbe7joU4WpKgG8gf7zaSGcs0ilKrxMvBSAu8fbwXlHC0g6dDRRCcCJ711BkUH_3hgWpn1EjfP-G_dtsO1R10LfgxzN9kmYObXacKcidD0gxUve1ifkeA/s400/Practical+Logo.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5198349654356441986" />Practical Action (PA) is a charity based in the UK, founded by E.F.Schumacher author of 'Small is Beautiful'. The approach PA takes is one of long term sustainability, which is often lacking in other NGO’s. It is particularly focused on technology's role in the alleviation of poverty, rather than its consequences. We spoke with the Country Director, Mohamed Majzoub Fidiel in Khartoum and with the staff at the Eastern Sudan office in Kassala, in order to better understand the work PA does and the environmental challenges Sudan faces. <br /><br /><img style="float:right; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIaanKxHkUHs32Q8xRwD0DRnpGlIuZWAw6wl80XGmp1qARQpDZj6n_DdagtKopx7lg0bd4N__JGeWyj8XmonQxDXD-2ZER5Rr74jMZceAum5NpPB-SlVrpgektdZQhHsXEJFTcOIvgsdM/s400/Practical+01.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5198349658651409298" />PA has been working for twenty years in North Darfur where wood is the only viable source of fuel for cooking. With the ongoing conflicts women who collect wood are extremely vulnerable to attacks by militias which can result in beatings, rape, mutilation and murder. It is important therefore to minimise the amount of time they are required to collect wood. Energy efficiency is therefore crucial for Darfurian women. With specialist local knowledge PA have developed a cooking stove made with local clay which is extremely energy efficient and can be moulded into individual pots. PA have then trained local people to teach others the relatively simple process of creating these stoves. Through their village networks this knowledge has spread through the region.<br /><br />The benefit of these stoves in Darfur is very specific as due to the war, people may be forced to leave their homes. The ability to create new cooking equipment from local materials is therefore invaluable. Other charities in the area are trying to promote mass produced efficient stoves which are proving successful under other conditions. However, in Darfur they are inappropriate for the situation because they are expensive and significantly less efficient. The local knowledge that PA utilises is vitally important as in these situations a 'one size fits all' approach is not the most effective. In Darfur PA is also helping by encouraging tree planting of native species and fruit trees providing shelter, food, fuel and potential income.<br /><br /><img style="float:left; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh84HnZhKtqXSk-PyecagMrVMQVkkm4Ukw8KNjCveVXf3TJJfjziqeofde94rfP6qd3CvuP3gZ30o4RRXYEIAX0zGWTKUhOKPsqGZqjH-8LChwtsbKDsy6h7nGGbSE8zftiVJb0_75t4Qw/s400/Practical+02.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5198349658651409314" />PA’s work is about more than just survival, it is about development. PA is making markets work for people in Darfur by improving their ability to sell their crops on the domestic and international market. Case in point is hibiscus, which is estimated currently at only 19% of its optimum productivity. By providing a very simple technological tool from Thailand: essentially a small metal pipe, the harvesting process is improved. This improvement allows the farmers to increase the quality of their crop and as a result its market value is increased by 30%. Darfurian farmers have modified the tool to make it more efficient in their environment and are now sharing this knowledge with one another with PA's help<br /><br /><img style="float:right; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgggNxyGZb1CrVRrxh_yMcEFmtO5-cvZ65Cdk0Xg1YP03LmF0oyKdlYNkNbkGTq50d_mVO5JQvRLMy-TPWXa-naFVhFr_bjkI4b7UWED6qfg69c8zcrrUT9i-6lJkNoZWTLYOazqGyp1Oo/s400/Practical+03.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5198349662946376626" />Climate change is a reality in Darfur, the question of whether or not the finger can be pointed at man made emissions for its cause is an impossible and slightly irrelevant one, but the necessity for adaptation to a changing climate is unquestionable. PA is helping local people to better utilise the natural resources available to them. In Darfur PA are focusing upon water, the drought being a contributing factor to the ongoing conflict. The ability given to people by PA to manage their resources properly means they can be sustained long-term.<br /><br />PA stresses the most important part of its work is capacity building inside villages and creating networks of villages, as well as empowering women by training them in management skills which can therefore allow them an income. This in turn reduces their vulnerability and means in many cases they no longer need the direct support of PA who can rarely travel to the area due to recent attacks upon their staff. Evidence of this includes the fact that villages have been fundraising for themselves, raising over $1 million for their schools.<br /><br /><img style="float:left; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz3p_ADjHtckSX5pw_hMOUWfiIZcw0hzUfqJ0rMyhcGCWU_x-Bl0dI13TANYBIHRBMlwB18VSnSksbAIvtwVOxV1Iia9fKhU-Fjs7Yh4XRcaWmEu6PE_NHfO1VM8Gie6pyT7UWIwpdGJI/s400/Practical+04.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5198349667241343938" />Through discussions of Sudan's general environmental situation it became apparent how vulnerable the population is to the effects of the climate, most evidently in the form of drought or floods. There is anecdotal evidence that deforestation has also had a major effect in Sudan, resulting in changing rainfall patterns. It seems people are far more aware of the changes in their environment because of their immediate reliance upon it. It directly provides them with food, shelter and fuel.<br /><br />There is a history of poor environmental management in Sudan which has caused significant problems. Just forty years ago the area near the border with Ethiopia was considered extremely agriculturally rich and it is now semi-desert. In the late 80's there was a significant drought in Sudan so the government decided to plant misquite trees to prevent desertification. While it succeeded in achieving this goal the misquite tree is an alien species that grows extremely rapidly and severely impairs the ability of other plants to grow. Because of the very deep nature of the roots it is also extremely hard to remove. Massive clearance programmes are being undertaken and people are having to adapt to use these trees for charcoal even though it is far poorer quality than traditional wood used. The legacy of these decisions taken decades ago with the best of intentions is causing significant hardship for people today.<br /><br />All over Sudan people are vulnerable, partly due to conflicts affecting the west, east and south of the country but also largely due to poor environmental management and a changing climate. The work PA is doing in all these areas is vitally important and their utilisation of local knowledge and long-term thinking means their programmes are achieving great success.<br /><br />For more information on Practical Actions work in Sudan please go to: <a href="http://www.practicalaction.org/?id=region_sudan">http://www.practicalaction.org/?id=region_sudan</a><br /></p></div></span>Carbon Explorershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11595610392269355741noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889550275996623826.post-44621285248762656232008-05-09T13:38:00.009+01:002008-05-11T16:55:10.440+01:00The Trouble with Sudan<span style="font-family:verdana;"><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><p style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><br /><strong>Our purpose</strong><br /><br />The land where Arabic Africa ends and Black Africa begins, where the Sahara ends and the Blue and White Niles converge has a long history of conflict, continuing into the present.<br /><br />In the north, Sudan bickers with Egypt over borders. In the west the France-sized region of Darfur is in a state of collapse, exacerbating tensions with neighbouring Chad. The southern region continues to bid for independence after signing a peace agreement dampening the fires of two civil wars lasting a total of thirty nine years. Rebel groups are gaining strength in the east. In the deep south the Ugandan Lord’s Resistance Army continue to pose a real threat.<br /><br />After spending a month travelling the length of a country the size of Europe by public transport we are in a position to better understand the political state of the country with the luxury of objectivity. Before arriving our knowledge of Sudan was of the conflict in Darfur and the U.S.’s catergorisation of the country as a rogue state. Speaking to people and seeing how they live painted a far more complex picture, although the constant threat of police intervention precluded free dialogue in many instances. Therefore this has been pieced together from half-finished, half-heard half-truths.<br /><br />Because the different perspectives on Sudan’s strife are so disparate and complex we can only recount what we saw, heard and read as generalisations. However, we will endeavour to relay them as impartially as possible.<br /><br /><br /><strong>Two hundred and forty three peoples and many perspectives</strong><br /><br />The Northern perspective is one of Sudan as a Muslim country under <em>sharia law</em> plagued by infidel insurgents in the east, south and west.<br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgExMW3H7gVIwXB0aTJpbj3gqdzmRSH4_NanrFadqTTi-wm5uZyMbgUYs5sFxabTX-50Hadnt2iAGyvBjPBydbFWkUM1GqjxbE1Or1hgP8SRmDcVmQOHAVQAMHwSC5v9TpiFnlPsrGTZ-s/s400/079+20080205+143433+Wadi+Halfa.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5198367396866341858" /><br /><br />The Southern and Nuba Mountains’ perspective is that it is a very different country with very different ideals, rich in resources which the North plunders without the due recompense of improving the infrastructure required to allow them to live within the parameters of their basic human rights.<br /><br />The Darfurian perspective is that the North is not providing them with what they require to survive, let alone progress.<br /><br />The Khartoum Press perspective was surprisingly freely voiced. An editorial in one paper described in detail the meddling of China into the Darfur region. A rival paper did however describe how the extent of Sudan’s problems were greatly inflated by the Western media. When we spoke to an individual in the Nuba Mountains about the upcoming referendum where the region will be able to vote for independence, he spoke of the Khartoum based radio propaganda which fills the airwaves. The Sudanese television channels were state controlled and generally featured Arabs in an idyllic country setting discussing how fantastically well Sudan was doing.<br /><br />The Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) in conjunction with the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) have the perspective that after the peace treaty with the Khartoum based government – the National Congress Party (NCP), to end the civil war was signed they failed to fulfill their promises of an improved infrastructure in the area. Although the area is providing the North with most of its resources and therefore capital, it continues to drag its heels with regards to investment. The SPLM describes the problem as follows,<br /><br /><ul>…the Sudanese state is essentially an alien political system with a institutional framework that excludes the vast majority of its citizens. The African Sudanese have been excluded from the centre of state power since 1956 while they constitute 69% of the population! How can there be peace? And after the 1989 NIF coup the system further excluded non-fundamentalist moslems, while women have always been excluded at all times. We call this political dispensation the "Old Sudan" based on religion (Islam) and race (Arabism). Some analysts have described the problem of Sudan as "Double Apartheid" or racial and religious apartheid. <em><a href="http://splmtoday.com/">http://splmtoday.com/</a></em></ul><br />The NGO perspective is that their help is sorely needed but their efforts are regularly thwarted by the National Congress. The UN peacekeeping force of 2006 deployed in an attempt to calm the situation in Darfur was described by the government as ‘foreign invaders’. When collating figures for the death-toll in Darfur the NGOs estimated between 200,000 and 400,000, the UN estimated 200,000 and the National Congress estimated 9000.<br /><br />The Western media’s perspective, upon which we based our preconceptions, seems to be one of Darfur as the focus of Sudan’s problems and for it to be one of absolute hopelessness, so far down the road to oblivion it is no longer worth the heart-break.<br /><br /><br /><strong>The cradle of conflict</strong><br /><br />Strategically Sudan has been dealt a bad hand. It nestles amongst warring and unstable nations on all sides. Its main conflicts are with Uganda and Chad. However conflict between Eritrea and Ethiopia is causing many people of the Beja tribe to cross the border into Sudan in Kassala where there are huge refugee camps.<br /><br /><br /><strong><u>Below is an approximate map of the conflicting regions in Sudan</u></strong><br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgz71sT62evbWOMFPJ3L0JXtlcm30V-Gb8Luzp3QnAaz0bVyllGw7RfT_eoXkadTroKpkLX3gZl4CUoUrgruNH2NV1991RT3hFfh9t7Jog4NNqgyQ33jFavIBCz-_q1gL_iOSgyXo-6nRc/s400/Sudan-mappoo.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5198367396866341842" /><br /><br /><br /><strong>A history of violence</strong><br /><br />Colonial rule by the British orginally administered the countries as two regions, the Arab North and the Black African South in order to slow the progress of Islam southwards and malaria which was threatening British troops, northwards. After pressure from the North to unite the two regions the Britsh agreed, placing them in charge in 1946. This inevitably led to an exploitation of the South – a wound which runs sore today. After colonial rule ended the country remained with the same administrative structure the British had left it with.<br /><br />The ‘religious apartheid’ the SPLM refers to is a particular problem as much of the south is Christian due to the work of British missionaries during Colonial rule. This causes conflict with the Muslim South which controlled the entire country under <em>sharia law</em>. It is estimated that Sudan is made up of over two hundred tribes with distinct cultural heritages and practices which are severely impinged upon by strict governmental controls. This also causes problems for many of those in the south who follow animist religions. A long history of slavery is something which the Southerners find hard to forget. It is not that long since the Northerners were systematically snatching young men and women from southern villages.<br /><br />The first Sudanese civil war (1955-1972), the Anyanya rebellion, ended with the signing of a peace agreement in Addis Ababa costing 500,000 lives. After the then president, Nimeiri, broke the Addis agreement war began again in 1983 and did not end until the death of 1,900,000 people and the displacement of 4,000,000 in 2005.<br /><br /><br /><strong>An uncivil war</strong><br /><br />The peace agreement which ended Sudan’s second civil war was signed in 2005. It dictated that in 2011 the people of Southern Sudan would be afforded the opportunity to vote on whether or not they want to split from the North and become and autonomous region.<br /><br />Those we spoke to in the South lived in anticipation of the day when they could make this decision but there was a great deal of trepidation. They feared a repeat of Kenya’s recent polling conflicts. They feared that the vote will be rigged, that they would be terrorised, they feared a lack of democracy and they prayed the West will support them by overseeing the proceedings.<br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWr4yb45i5qIBFentP3HgfJ30HfWTrNMNnBFKpO3noVEJcqUL5IAapfpDd87FPHGNHo0JbN_cnJcDGDrffD-VrWOb59KsoHVU3JZy2oNNEXZcQDt8X8QYBTONlV3KEEkEIDzpl4rEg02Q/s400/110+20080225+130305+little+girl+smiles+and+shouts+Hawadja+(white+man),+Hayban,+Nuba+Mountains,+Sudan.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5198367401161309170" /><br /><br /><br /><strong>Relations remain strained</strong><br /><br />A contentious point for Southerners is education. As their children are not being educated to a high enough standard there is fear that there will be yet another generation of people unaware of their rights and therefore unwilling to demand them. This lack of education is a concern for the referendum in which the South will be able to make its bid for independence. If people are not educated they will not be able to make a considered decision with an awareness of the North’s techniques to make a united Sudan sound more appealing. Many believe that Arabic is used as a controlling tool. Despite the presence of a few token Southerners in the parliament, the language is Arabic, while the main administrative language is English in the South. This is also the case in the country’s universities. We spoke to a man who was studying theology. One day a government decree dictated that the following day all lectures and writing would be in Arabic, which he did not know.<br /><br />There is also concern that Khartoum’s focus upon Darfur may be seen by southern and eastern rebels as a point of weakness and may result in a dramatic increase in hostilities. Many Northerners believe too many concessions have been made to the SPLA and many Southerners have never trusted the South to fulfill its promises. There are signs that new fronts in the North / South conflicts are opening up in the Nuba Mountains, Southern Blue Nile and the East. <em><i><a href=" http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=3043&l=1">‘Sudan’s Dual Crisis: refocusing on IGAD’ www.crisisgroup.org</a></i></em><br /><br /><strong>The Sudan we saw</strong><br /><br />Upon the SPLA controlled Nuba Mountains it felt very much like another country. The area patrolled by a different army, a different flag flew from the governmental buildings and people danced, sang and drank. The soldiers we travelled in a lorry with spoke of their hatred for the war. Many had lost family and livelihood to the conflict yet there was still a strong sense of a want for a united Sudan. ‘We are the same people’ was a repeated theme. Many wanted semi-autonomy in order for the plunder of their natural resources to be abated. They believed their land was rich and they should therefore get a bite of the pie. The north could provide the south with the infrastructure they required, and the south could provide the resources the north required.<br /><br /><br /><strong>Darfur’s dark horizon</strong><br /><br />The conflict in Darfur began in 2003 but tensions had been increasing long before that. The region is suffering from overpopulation and decades of drought and desertification.<br /><br />The conflict has arisen mainly between tribal groups with one side being composed of the Sudanese army and the Janjaweed, a militia taken from the Arab Baggara tribes of the Northern Rizeigat. The other side composes various rebel groups including the Sudan Liberation Movement and the justice and equality movement composed of the non-Arab Fur, Zaghawa and Massaleit ethnic groups. The lines are not clearly defined though and there is much infighting among rogue militias out to assert their power without any particular ideology.<br /><br />The independent advisory body Crisis Group in their 2006 report described the Sudanese government as bearing ‘primary responsibility for the deteriorating situation’ <em><a href=" http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=4027&l=1">’To Save Darfur’ www.crisisgroup.org</a></em> as they unofficially continue a policy of ‘supporting the well-armed Chadian rebels in Western Darfur.’ As the peace keeping troops on the ground are comprised of an ill-equipped African Union force of 7,000 troops there is a desperate need for international involvement. Suggestions as such have been met by Khartoum with threats of Darfur becoming a ‘graveyard’ for multinational forces and that their involvement would be tantamount to an act of colonialism. <br /><br />A second independent report (2007) describes Khartoum’s purpose in scuppering peace in Darfur as follows:<br /><br /><ul>The NCP [National Congress Party] wants Darfur in chaos to limit the room for an opposition to emerge, while resettling key allies on cleared land and defying Security Council resolutions by integrating its Janjaweed irregulars into official security structures… <em><a href=" http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=5180&l=1"”>’Darfur’s new Security Reality’ www.crisisgroup.org</a></em></ul><br />Tensions have been raised because of the drought forcing the Northern Arab tribes further south to search for water encroaching onto southern land. These tensions escalated into violence that is now being called genocide or ‘acts of genocide’ by members of the international community including George W. Bush.<br /><br />Calls from the International Criminal Court (ICC) to bring two leading figures in the atrocities in Darfur identified as Janjaweed commander Ali Kushayb and State Minister for Interior, Ahmed Harum are meeting vitriolic defiance. Khartoum responded to the calls with the threat that it would,<br /><br /><ul>cut the throat of any international official…who tries to jail a Sudanese official in order to present him<br /> to the international justice. <em><a href=" http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=4690&l=1">’Future of the World Court in Balance’ YaleGlobal</a></em></ul><br />This is of great concern internationally as it is seen as a test case for many more similar cases in the future. Khartoum claims that it can try these war criminals itself, with out international assistance yet it continues to bomb areas where peace talks are planned. There are calls for the international community to back the ICC, forcefully with the use of sanctions if necessary. This is not happening and will result in the ICC becoming an impotent talk shop.<br /><br />China’s involvement in Sudan is a particular concern. As we saw throughout Sudan there are Chinese constructions and firms everywhere and the influence is extending into Darfur. The Chinese supply the government with arms and then turn a blind eye to Darfur, partially as there are rich uranium resources which they hope to exploit in Darfur.<br /><br />However, there are signs that China’s approach to the Darfur problem are changing for the better. Chinese President Hu Jintao is said to be pressuring Sudanese President Bashir to accept the UN’s plans for the installation of support in the region.<br /><br />It is perhaps possible to draw some parallels between the situation in Darfur and that in the south of Sudan. Both are calling out for equality and have been forced into the position of calling up arms and asking for it forcefully. Perhaps the fundamental difference and the reason that the Darfur conflict’s future is so much bleaker is that the region does not have oil. The south’s bargaining chip of black gold has perhaps saved many of its people’s lives. Darfur has come to the table relatively empty handed.<br /><br /><br /><strong>The most generous of peoples</strong><br /><br />Although Sudan’s lot seems almost hopeless and it seems damned to a future of conflict, its people remain optimistic. It is this optimism and defiance towards Sudan spiralling into the abyss which leaves one with a glimmer of hope. The further troubles associated with a future in which there will be further pressures on the country due to climate change will undoubtedly test the resolve of the Sudanese as well as the international committee to assist them into a state of democracy in which its citizens are able to live in accordance with their human rights. There was consensus amongst the people we met that Sudan’s politics had a rotten core. They were desperate to relay to us that this should not reflect the Sudanese people. They wanted us to know and tell those we knew that despite its problems and as a result of its wonderful people Sudan is both beautiful and life affirming. All the majority of the Sudanese people want is the opportunity to be treated with the dignity and respect they showed us as we passed through their country.</p></div></span>Carbon Explorershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11595610392269355741noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889550275996623826.post-59669583072406310792008-03-21T08:12:00.009+00:002008-04-05T09:36:54.988+01:00Travel Log 8 - Khartoum to Kadugli, Nuba Mountains, Kowda, Hayban and Kassala (Sudan)<span style="font-family:verdana;"><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><p style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><br /><strong>22/02/08<br />After two coaches, one car and fourteen hours we reached Kadugli approximately 800km South of Khartoum.</strong> The road from Dilling to Kadugli was in the process of being constructed (as part of the north / south peace agreement) so was regularly blocked by great mounds of dirt which our driver (in a small Kia) either ramped over or avoided by going off road, requiring us to get out and push. There was a great deal of anticipation as we tried to gauge the landscape in the moonlit, forested mountains which looked like the curves of a predator stalking its prey.<br /><br />We were driven to a <em>lakonda</em> to register with the police at midnight. The area was still fractious after the war between North and South, ending around five years previously: a man from the UN spoke of tribal skirmishing in the hills a few days previously. The area is jointly controlled by the Sudanese People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) with the backing of the Sudanese People's Liberation Army (SPLA) and the Northern run government. We had received permission to travel in the area after a day of traversing Khartoum from one government building of another in order to get the vital military stamp.<br /><br />On the way back to the <em>lakonda</em> after an uninspiring dinner of mashed beans and onion we followed the sound of distorted music to a tent in which a mass of people were dancing raucously. The music stopped dramatically and they piled out with whoops and yells of intoxication, it seemed like we had arrived in another country.<br /><br /><br /><strong>23/02/08<br />In the sweltering Kadugli afternoon a man dressed in army fatigues smashed off his face on something mimed swinging a stick at our heads.</strong> He lambasted us in a mixture of languages then raised to strike, it was a stark reminder that we needed to watch our backs, although he was an exception judging by the shocked expressions of onlookers.<br /><br />We spent the day talking around the town, as we had become quite accustomed to doing, even mastering the art of scanning cafés for someone with an authoritative air and a good command of English. We came to the decision that Hayban would give us what we wanted from the few days we had in the Nuba Mountains. So we set about receiving permission to travel there from the SPLA.<br /><br />We spent our time in the office of first lieutenant Khamis Mugagdam. He made the process as smooth as possible for us and gave us the details of his brother who had a shop in Hayban who would help us find accommodation.<br /><br /><br /><strong>24/02/08<br />We sat playing cards in the market and visiting the stalls piled high with clothes donated by Americans, until we could find transport to Kowda –further into the mountains and closer to Hayban.</strong><br /><br />The seven hour Bedford truck ride was in the company of a twenty plus strong division of the SPLA. They wore a mish-mash of uniforms, some in berets some in green baseball caps, some just nonchalantly soaked up the intense sunlight. The only consistency was in the SPLA stamped patent leather boots. Many wore the tassels of a tin pot general, but theirs were hand knitted from wool, strung to the shoulders which were adorned with beads making up vibrant patterns, including the Saint George’s Cross. All carried Kalashnikovs, some were left to bounce around in the spare tire where there safety catches flicked on and off with the uneven track. The truck already created quite a spectacle with the soldiers shouting obscenities at passers by, which they found hilarious, particularly when an old man responded with the apparently uncouth placement of his ring finger into his mouth. The additional presence of three <em>hawajas</em> onboard sent many of the children wild. Unfortunately either modesty or fear of reprisal made the soldiers camera shy.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5180108293479489634" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn0E24yzAhXe0yskmbEsM_eosCIjaZmMz0EMoZFhRogrVnPoVeyBEro2Tc1wSQCDxYsjK_TbBznQ4zWHRp_Ta12XbMCQn6hk5x4igb7x7lVVQH8Q0bIS6jcizErbo3wZxfhZu668K8Dz0/s400/1.jpg" border="0" /><br /><br />The mountains were not huge but were still grand as they sprouted from the eerie plains dotted with double headed coconut palms, the baobab or upside down tree and trees without leaves that were covered in bright pink flowers. The villages we passed through were small and a sure sign of the distress the area had suffered was visible not only in the large number of NGOs present but in the abundance of UNICEF tarpaulins covering many of the shelters. The road in points could hardly be described as much more than a steep mountain track. For the last part of the journey a woman got onboard at the German NGO hospital carrying a small package, wrapped in a blanket. The soldiers gave her a great deal of reverence, clearing space in the cab for her. A man who was returning to his village on holiday from his job as the Recreation Manager at the Khartoum Hilton explained that she had given birth that morning. We watched as she clambered down the side of the truck left the truck to show her mother her new grandchild for the first time.<br /><br />Upon arrival in Kowda we were taken to the police / NGO compound. After the police read through our security passes thoroughly, then thoroughly read the photocopies it was deemed acceptable for us to spend the night there for $20 a discount from the usual $35. The most we had paid in Sudan for accommodation had been the equivalent of $3.50 and this was nothing special so it seemed extortionate. After a great deal of awkward silences, the scraping of chairs the police chief left. The Recreation Manager apologised profusely for the police chief’s behavior saying that he was known locally as ‘Mosquito’ because ‘he is only small but he causes many men a lot of problems.’ He suggested we spend the night in his house. As we left the compound, walking the sandy path back towards the market by torch light Mosquito came tearing up to us on his motorbike and furiously lambasted us over the sound of his engine which he revved angrily, he had come to the conclusion that we were, ‘very bad people!’ The upshot of it all was the security pass given to us by the SPLA stated that our safety was his responsibility and he was therefore obliged to put us up for the night for free. We spent the evening eating the food we had bought in the market under supervision, wondering who was in the wrong because although this man was an annoyance and it was satisfying to get one over on him, there is the potential for huge tourist crop bringing money into the area and our actions may have damaged it. We were reprieved though a few days later upon meeting the Canadian in charge of the compound who explained it is church run and should be free to all.<br /><br /><br /><strong>25/02/08<br />Over a breakfast of cold, fried dough balls and a slab of pink sogum dumpling in okra stew we discussed Sudanese politics with the Hilton Recreation Manager.</strong> Reading about the subject was a very different experience: putting faces to what were previously numbers was an uncomfortable experience. One of the soldiers on the truck had described how he fought on behalf of his brother who was killed in a random act of violence during the war with the North, during the same incident all of his cows had been taken so he was now also poor. He explained how he wanted to learn English and Toby gave him a collection of Yeats poems he had finished. He was very taken by the following lines from ‘He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven’:<br /><br /><em>But I, being poor, have only my dreams;<br />I have spread my dreams under your feet,<br />Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.</em><br /><br />The South of Sudan which is predominantly Black Christian is rich in resources such as oil which the Northern, developed, predominantly Arab, Muslim part of Sudan was exploiting but without returning any of the revenues or development benefits. This disparity was the cause of the war between the North and South. In the peace agreement after the war the North promised an equal share of the revenues and development, however, there is still a great deal of friction in the area because these promises are not being fulfilled, the North is dragging its heels.<br /><br />The people we met recommended that Yuya (the only remaining tortoise with us) ensured that people we met should realise that he is Japanese because the Chinese support of the Khartoum government is making them very unpopular and Arab people are still unwelcome in the areas we passed through, it would likely be dangerous for them to go there.<br /><br />We managed to hop a lift on a landcruiser heading to Hayban found for us by the helpful Recreation Manger.<br /><br /><br /><strong>26/02/08<br />There would be no transport to the following village of Delami because market was not until the 28th so we would be in Hayban for at least two days.</strong><br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5180108302069424258" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeQhoYRxiN7CjQUxi1i0CUUerc7mXNfEBTPewmEtuDYZXBe7nqkQyAl2X4z4AHEyJqka-SM2azlzdoXQH1KZy7aR3uXKEMbrIqM6RhjdyWLa9T18wi4FSExNjEAGvNuGtTird_rFoObOo/s400/3.jpg" border="0" /><br /><br />Watching the people going about their business was fascinating. Electricity was at a premium and set aside mainly for lighting the cafes and the three ‘video clubs’; one for eighties blockbusters, one for kung fu and one for Bollywood. We watched as they baked bread in a community oven, transported water to the houses and shops from a storage tank by ingenious donkey carts, repaired rickety Chinese bikes with hammers, cooked food with utensils made from tomato tins, fashioned spears from metal construction poles and drank freshly roasted coffee by the light of gas lamps. It was like a post-apocalyptic vision of the future.<br /><br />The whole village had a lingering smell of jasmine as many of the old trees were in bloom. The village square was a large flat patch of sand dotted with old trees under which shawled women sat heating various mysterious teas.<br /><br />We were put up by the ‘Norwegian Church Aid’ who had a series of squat, thatched huts a short walk across the tree lined football pitch. Under the boughs of these huge dark trees which were hung with heavy roots to the ground, was the town’s barber. As we went about the place we were treated with looks of disbelief and fear. The younger children followed us in procession singing <em>hawaja!</em> The adults would look at one another and with a flash of teeth and a clap of the hands for acknowledgement of the strangeness of the situation. This was especially the case when we borrowed Victorian style, Chinese bicycles and cycled about the place like country gents. Those we met in more Western dress treated what we said with undue gravitas.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5180108302069424242" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNFkfYZcVbHYtBLNwXZT0TyFuYMs1chiMFEBpJJzvdrhtH6nsIivrmZQZPALwyKFeo6q102y9OL_Slhpjyktbxbd7kJciagmn7HgPTGeYvZqPPej9emPFMt_UgS3IjLwpZz5xxMfnUNhs/s400/2.jpg" border="0" /><br /><br />Wandering about the village deciding which of the many, identical eateries in which to have <em>fu’ul</em>, we came across a group in the ruins of a school building drinking sogum wine called <em>assalia</em>. As the women put henna on the soles of one another’s feet and sorted through bowls of peanuts the men drank heavily. They were determined to prove the freedom of the South to us by getting us plastered. We were still unsure whether the sharia law of Khartoum was nationwide so we were a little uncomfortable with the situation. However, the chief drinker’s claim that he was a general in the SPLA was partly confirmed by the arrival of a man in army uniform saluting him stoically who was promptly handed a jam jar to drink from, which made it all slightly less worrying. This soldier was a member of a tribe from the deep south of Sudan where the four bottom lower teeth are ceremonially removed. They showed us a series of mud pots they used to distill a date spirit that they insisted we try. When the finished jam jars of a clear liquid emerge, it became clear that this was no longer a matter of hospitality but a test of our metal and a matter of national pride. The fact that the British had constructed the school we sat in the ruins of, helped stiffen our backs. It had been ruined when commandeered by the army during the war.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5184188482345918674" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: pointer; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPdt95af2HzVuBx_peIdqbhjkiYXzZ6shaFDvYceQiQEPMNSLeh0gEYdrRuY0E5mUAcscjrT3o2xwveW16rhZ31QeaFFlJFEeuqtYOvMzFSQ6SYTN5aMuV-DtvBfTzVa9FDfeag7VZA1Q/s400/5.jpg" border="0" /><br /><br />At the point when everyone decided they could trust one another, Toby was renamed <em>enfouko</em> which roughly translates as both naked and mad, there was uproar as Stuart attempted to balance on a very small stool and the expression on Yuya’s face when he downed his shots. They explained the <em>kirang</em> festival, which can cover eventualities such as the coming of rain, the harvesting of a crop or a marriage. It generally involves a lot of singing, dancing and alcohol. In the case of a funeral, a bull is locked in a darkened cage at the time of death and fed only milk. Upon the three year anniversary of the death the cow is killed with a spear like the one we saw being made and it is eaten by the whole village. This was all explained in faltering and slurred English so it is difficult to known its accuracy but it made interesting listening. As did the magician who could cure AIDS and the giant snake which lived in a square cave in the mountain which loomed over the village and who had a fist sized diamond in its belly which the general told us about. We tentatively and unsteadily headed back into the town to eat <em>fu’ul</em> with tinned tuna and it never tasted so good.<br /><br /><br /><strong>27/02/08<br />All of a sudden there was a lift for us to Delami with two women from Save the Children and their driver in a pickup.</strong> Raja and Aza were touring the area to promote landmine education project, part of a wider program of child soldier community reintegration.<br /><br />We stopped in the middle of nowhere for lunch and sat in a shack constructed from branches and World Food Program sacks, the table molded from the earth beneath us. As we ate a woman repaired Toby's flip-flop with a knife heated in the fire. Outside there was a market of three different items; bread, mangoes and grasshoppers. The mangoes went down far easier than the latter. The taste was taken out of our mouths by the surrogate travel sweets – sour yellow berries they collected from a tree.<br /><br />In the next village we stopped in, a court was in session in a shop. Most of the village vied for a good view of the sentencing. Apparently a man had ‘a problem’ with his wife and the judge (apparently more senior than the village’s two chiefs) was to decide whether or not she should be beaten. Throughout our time in this village we were followed by a ghost-like child, emaciated and covered in a pale dust. <br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5180108306364391586" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIYVobGr_AecBzRWJDJ9VcU96zhsh7Emrv8ue0tjuRBAlVPQKtdyefZn4h2OE0o0d6pzovRDVuRnWV7ImfSUWDZBfJIo-kf7iCgsqg-LOP2W5z_P_NTSqQ-yj0FeZnW6tkYD-L_cvKJuE/s400/6.jpg" border="0" /><br /><br />In Delami it transpired that the information we had been given was wrong and after tomorrow the next truck out of the village would not be until the next week, taking us dangerously close to end of our Sudanese visa. With the help of the two women we got a lift on the back of a pickup owned by the Catholic Church carrying plastic chairs to Dilling, driven by the pastor. As the fat sun set we could see a sea of savannah with a wake of bright flame moving over the light grass like a tide.<br /><br />Before Dilling we dropped some passengers in a village where we stopped for tea and we moved inside the cabin. The pastor explained that he had his calling after surviving a collision with a landmine in his pickup, which had left him with a deeply scarred face. Our other passenger wrote for various Khartoum papers on politics and described to us his hopes for a new, united Sudan in which Jesus would play an important role. He waited with baited breath for the 2011 referendum in which the South would be offered the opportunity to vote for independence.<br /><br /><br /><strong>28/02/08 – 01/03/08<br />In Dilling market we found the Nuban knives we had been looking for and we watched a man sharpen them with great skill using a hammer and the dirt below his engine part anvil.</strong> The market also offered shoes made from car tires, jewelry made in a hand operated press and all the goat organs you could ever need.<br /><br />From Dilling we caught the seven hour bus to Khartoum where we parted from Yuya and caught the eight hour bus to Gederaf, slept on the parked bus once we arrived in Gederaf for four hours then caught the two hour bus to Kassala in the East, at six in the morning.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5180108920544714930" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXzQq0UQkdS9V7fgXh048bzVqfGNBpAVLoTjUSfYZTQW_KItiW0w5oBx63EqMCRjoWp8hfL0R1oMdZq0-cORDCJBlpzswy-opa42tP1Mmn_96w8xb5LePxfEZ195NqO_RV2fCWjMHedJU/s400/7.jpg" border="0" /><br /><br />With its large population of Yemenis, Eritrean refugees and Internally Displaced People Kassala was a vibrant place. The most prominent groups were the Bija women with their large, gold, hooped nose rings and the Bija man with their dark waistcoat and four foot swords strapped to their belt. The Rashaida women had spectacular jewelry hanging from their bhurkas. Groups of men with similar hairstyles hung about together, box shaped afros and strange European curls. Many of them carried boomerang shaped sticks with animal skin grips. A man on a bus said he used his to kill cows, which seemed a little unlikely, later we saw it being use as a seat, its two ends resting on the ground.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5180108924839682242" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJTlBtL3VtrHLYGj2j7DZDOIhs8R_spXM_tCoHc0UGXYStFaskzHzMyfQmG2l_zi9OuixMxgFp5nFHoUvoz3fBezQj78C8Deo_QbZSFnxWkrHWsqxz35CLXmvhffh7LgMgxsU31iRN7NM/s400/8.jpg" border="0" /><br /><br />After a couple of days in Kassala we were heading back to Gedaref to cross to Ethiopia, we had hoped to cross at Kassala to Eritrea but we had no luck with the visa. Taking a small bus to Gederaf seemed like a simple enough journey but half an hour outside Kassala the inner tube of the front tire inexplicably exploded causing the outer tire to also fly off the wheel. We swerved dramatically off the road towards the embankment, the drop onto the dessert plain was undoubtedly steep enough to have tipped us over. However, the driver fought bravely and when we came to rest everyone shook hands with one another and repeated <em>inshallah</em>, meaning 'god willing', joyfully. We sat outside the bus looking out towards Aweitila, Totil and Taka, the three dramatic mountains which dominated the landscape. When asked a lengthy and complex question about our opinion of the accident, the response, <em>inshallah</em> was met with great uproar. In Gedaref there was no room at the inn, we wandered about the stinking town for a hotel where the manager could be bothered to find the forms that would be necessary to accommodate a couple of hawajas. First prize for worst accommodation goes to the beds we were given in the corridor outside the toilets. The Spanish and German tortoises we had been travelling with previously were staying in the same place so we went with them the next morning in a minibus to the border with Ethiopia.</p></div></span>Carbon Explorershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11595610392269355741noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889550275996623826.post-68388893981623520192008-03-02T11:13:00.012+00:002008-03-02T11:40:44.856+00:00Travel log 7 - Dongola, Karima and Khartoum<div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong></strong></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong></strong></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong></strong></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong></strong></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>12/02/08 – 13/02/08</strong></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>From Dongola we took a bus without windows across the desert to Karima where we were offered the opportunity to climb the towns hill, for $20 (free for Sudanese), which we declined.</strong> The next day we took the seven hour luxury bus ride to Khartoum. The first class atmosphere was maintained by spraying air freshener into the air conditioner system periodically and the complimentary sweets and ‘Mikey Juice’. As usual, sitting and watching the landscape slip past was exhausting so we arrived in Khartoum in no mood to negotiate its hectic and dusty streets in search of a hotel.<br /></span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>14/02/08 – 21/02/08<br /></strong></span><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>There were too many crippled people on the streets. There were children who crawled across the road with flip-flops on their hands. People with missing limbs, blind, no toes, broken backs.</strong> When we ate at one particular restaurant a silent procession of mutilated people stood looking in at us, arms outstretched until they were moved on by the management. </span></div><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /><div align="justify">Our time was spent failing, after waiting a week, to get an Eritrean visa, getting an Ethiopian visa in three hours and getting a travel permit to visit the Nuba Mountains, South of Khartoum. This was all interspered with drinking tea and coffee at the many roadside squats consisting of a woman hostess, charcoal stove and plastic furniture all the time trying to get a better understanding of the political situation in Sudan and the life of ordinary Sudanese.<br /></div><div align="justify"></div><p align="justify"></p><p align="justify"></p><p align="justify"></p><p align="justify"></p><p align="justify"></p><p align="justify"></p><p align="justify"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5173103199528915266" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpTiyjHCUaJ2IuS-dlo3iYCFyEj1SNIZ6tzRvtThVc6sgNJSYYhp5ASiOmMCt6hJFslojlol8XtMngX7KfKsMRS5FgREzsEqMcLFxHYsNmGa-lnuWPjIYa0D-xPMjo01HxcqJGAo-iHq4/s400/1.jpg" border="0" /><br />During one night, Khartoum’s power went out. There was a stillness over the city that made it clear that everyone had been shouting. It coughed back into life as thousands of generators started up, providing power for the classy hotels and big shops. The cities refuse system appeared to involving putting rubbish into the street and then at night the outcasts in green boiler suits collect it. One such man, bearded, with one milky eye and child’s flip flops stood too close to us as we sat in stools on the curb drinking tea in the night, ‘Where is God? God has left Sudan! …You will find God in Africa’ he proclaimed, jabbing at us and the heavens.<br /></p><p align="justify">As with most developing nations cities there is a huge gulf between rich and poor and between modern and old but they all get thrown in together. Women in burkas on cell phones, the minimalist, iridescent blue ‘Ministry for Justice’ which administers lashes to criminals above the age of ten, amputations for robbery and women are sentenced to being stoned to death for adultery. All part of sharia law which is supposed to govern the land although it is more relaxed these days than it used to be. </p><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">On a Friday afternoon we jouneyed to the outskirts of Khartoum to watch Sudanese wrestling. The wrestling was held in an enclosure, pegged out with brightly colored fabric and in the centre two concentric circles were painted. Two teams fought for supremacy of the arena as each half of the crowd cheered on their side flamboyantly. While the wrestling was easy to understand, the selection of fighters which sent the crowd into paroxysm of outrage and delight was more cryptic. Three from one team entered the inner ring - one standing, the others crouching as members from the other team then entered and pointed at their opponents, goading them who then either fought or backed off, this processed continued for a while, then all of a sudden two were fighting as we were trying to appreciate the subtle movements the wrestlers made which suddnely exploded to reach a climax with the victor emerging triumphant to be carried on the shoulders of his team mates. A clip can be seen on the right of the blog. </span></div><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /><div align="justify"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5173103203823882578" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOT2_zMdeFqrmSQU4RaaLPcZKFGEe3-MG8QKSH9bWYMIQ760mpAaggQTsltnSXadZvpbb4Ml2GCguX6LSPcDs3R1HuYZ_gaV9kK0cwjiSGJgp5SYC0IC91AhTi3e79rZVLi0TgbUmWFhY/s400/2.jpg" border="0" /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Excluding the wrestling Khartoum was a relatively uninteresting place and although appreciating more about the reality of modern Sudanese life. We were looking forward to heading South of Khartoum to escape the dreariness and bureaucracy that’s has plauged our time here.</span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">We will soon post up an article about the political reality of Sudan, Darfur and the ongoing conflicts.</span></span></div>Carbon Explorershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11595610392269355741noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889550275996623826.post-90973652334240094692008-02-20T18:23:00.006+00:002008-02-21T17:07:15.596+00:00Environmental Log 1 - A few environmental issues in North Africa<div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">For the first month of our trip we have been traveling quickly to reach the 'real' Africa popular consensus agrees, is south of Egypt. One of the purposes of our trip is to investigate the social and environmental issues that we come across and although we are just beginning to investigate a few areas in depth, future Environmental Logs will focus more upon specific issues and/or projects we visit on our way down the continent. As we have been traveling we have seen two general environmental issues clearly lain before us: waste and water.<br /><br /><strong>Waste</strong><br />Everywhere we have traveled throughout the North of Africa, rubbish has been strewn throughout the streets, river banks, roads, roadsides and anywhere the wind so chooses to place it. Obviously, the root cause of this is the lack of proper waste disposal system. However, it has surprised us the lack of concern the general population show for the issue. The attitude of the general populous clearly led the Sudanese teachers we met in the Northern Village of Kerma some despair: the rubbish was providing an environment for a glaucoma causing fly. In previous travels and living in Guyana we found that in the absence of a proper disposal system people generally devise a system to prevent their village / town from stinking, be it something as simple as putting the rubbish in one place, often in a pit essentially creating their own landfill / incinerator. For some reason this mentality simply does not exist in the places we have been through. </span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span> </div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"></div><div align="justify"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5169131500619975346" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1MlwA6DXQuRuWyPbNgsb0GX9RAPKDPwuFrvYyL1OPVskDPLVrmvPECmfXXD1eImChyphenhyphenmR4qChQnwVXLQkaxWOvQYWcXWh-TuhLSFnBGBKe-dlGaR8m_MwSJEogJINQlFEBz1RBPtIeLNw/s400/n685000450_2124638_6614.jpg" border="0" /><br /><strong>Water<br /></strong>The most prevalent and pressing issue we have encountered on our travels has undoubtedly been water. In Libya the construction of the Great Man Made River demonstrates a country under severe water stress. The long term environmental impact of this is unclear but unlikely to be without consequences. Necessitating a 2000km pipe, 4m in diameter to pump into a reservoir with a capacity of 6.8 million cubic metres smacks of a country with a drink problem that needs to be addressed to achieve a sustainable balance.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLPb9IHSYg-wOG-rnev9hVQ863yECyMea54ndzoTomln57118jaVe483Ug0SpRtb0ra5_h8iSfZDgeUceon9Jjp8EwiQaTgy9rL8U28q_CXjACOXTFCU92DRqAJuaI460VMQh8utspKh4/s1600-h/ankh.h1.gif"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5169478933409450754" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 109px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 179px" height="256" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLPb9IHSYg-wOG-rnev9hVQ863yECyMea54ndzoTomln57118jaVe483Ug0SpRtb0ra5_h8iSfZDgeUceon9Jjp8EwiQaTgy9rL8U28q_CXjACOXTFCU92DRqAJuaI460VMQh8utspKh4/s320/ankh.h1.gif" width="156" border="0" /></a>The Ankh we saw adorning the wall of pharaoh's tomb was the symbol of life for the Ancient Egyptians, it is in fact a representation of the Nile and its delta. This is still the case in modern day Egypt, the country is utterly dependent upon it as a provider food and electricity. If one is to look at Egypt from above, it is clear that there is not much else other than desert over the rest of the country. As we travel we will be reaching the sources of both the Blue and White Nile as far south as Uganda and we currently sit at the confluence of these rivers in Khartoum. The number of countries that the river runs through makes Egypt precariously dependant on the agreements that are in place over the management of the river. At present the agreements appear strong but if water demand begins to dramatically out way supply it is hard to imagine this becoming a source of friction in the region. </span></div><span style="font-family:verdana;"><div align="justify"><br /></div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5169131500619975362" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFi1PyUFseUn4wP9ii6n8MHGN4qn4doXLHiLKQX-o7IcJjjB35uhIHwwcOqEPhSjhBeWskvRO4jajvvIOawCVnMRVvKr8vs4jvNEnRzp8NJ2yvB4TW7LoTYSwi1ftJZfVvUZcRWhHifHg/s400/n685000450_2231552_1420.jpg" border="0" /> <p align="justify">The building of Aswan high dam in 1973 was Egypt’s attempt to master the Nile, a sign describing the wonders of the dam, strategically placed at the tourist friendly viewing point, proudly proclaimed, 'The High Dam project is considered the Egyptian challenge against the silent nature.' The social impact of the dam was dramatic: hundreds of hugely significant monuments and historic sights were only saved from submerging by a unprecedented international rescue effort (including Abu Simbel temple below). The dam also internally displaced 40,000 people who the Sudanese government forcefully relocated to the present day Wadi Halfa, where the ferry from Egypt docks. The dam now blocks vital sediment from traveling down river. This has lead to the erosion of farmland at the Nile Delta. Unquestionably the dam has made Egypt more productive at the present but if there is more erosion as a result of a reduction in volume of sediment being transported, then this productivity will be short lived. The cheap electricity the dam and the old dam provide is central to the functioning of the country but, once again, the dam appears to be a relatively short term solution to a long term environmental issue. </span><span style="font-family:verdana;"></p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5169131504914942674" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggovDKmlXmKdukGSbBhuCsejLbm6zVLAQYMDZSIAtyLt5Hkv02JaZwIqlu0XXfpwkuV7WluZDZSpIcEnfzOpr1e_sk-oRaMLNtGHeOzfnpFbxw-CkJhcyo6LwnRfq1cudIyxCNX4RfuwA/s400/n685000450_2289759_1164.jpg" border="0" /> <p align="justify"><strong>Short term needs against long term sustainability</strong><br />A key question that arises again and again is, how do you balance the short term needs of the people against the needs of future generations to be able to continue to use the land and be productive? We cannot claim to have answers and in our brief time traveling we cannot claim to know if these issues are being addressed, we would be interested to hear if anyone reading this has greater knowledge. Short term thinking in the developed world is driven by profit or election cycles but in the developing world it is driven also by survival. This was something made patently clear when we walked through the slums of Cairo. An obvious and legitimate culprit for a major stress on the environment is the human population. Once we find the human population guilty, it is very hard to see how population can be part of any solution.<br /><br /><strong>Environmental awareness<br /></strong>It’s hard to judge the level of environmental awareness in countries where you don't speak the language or spend much time. However it is clearly in the public consciousness, in Egypt we did speak to a number of people with an awareness of and concern for environmental issues. In the weekly Al Ahram English newspaper there was a big article about climate change focusing on the effects on Cairo. Particularly it commented on the increased rainfall over the past few years which the drainage system has not been able to cope with, something we paid testament to with sodden feet. In Sudan we have also encountered anecdotal evidence from farmers that in recent years it rains a lot less in the North and more in the South. In the North at least this has not had any effect yet as the crops grown are entirely dependent on irrigation using diesel pumps to draw water from the Nile. It has also been said that the conflict in Darfur was in part caused by climate change and China’s interest in the area are both issues we shall return to in a later log.<br /><br />In both Sudan and Egypt we have noticed an under utilization of naturally available renewable sources of energy, in particular solar hot water. This was a cost effective and common sense solution to a everyday problem we saw in Tunisia but not elsewhere. The areas we have traveled through are obvious candidates for solar panels, which we have seen used minimally, attached to telecommunication masts. It is an encouraging sign that the Sudanese five pound note carries images of wind turbines and solar panels. How much this is talking the talk as opposed to walking the walk we do not yet know. What is not in doubt is that there are powerful resources available which need to be utilised. </span><br /></p><p><span style="font-family:verdana;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5169131487735073426" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJw0-9n4IlCYeGZbBL_S4sBxx-NfHP6Q9AlnUJqmL4nw9YQUgbLSlN05zgiH0EpWzNcDstpvurws9gU7EBjGywBVpc73IDnmut5bM6O0dXc1q4JX8SS0I3AmpkJko5tl11x6g5gR69fI4/s400/DSCF0088.JPG" border="0" /></span></p>Carbon Explorershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11595610392269355741noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889550275996623826.post-69543349927908092482008-02-16T09:11:00.007+00:002008-02-16T09:41:46.252+00:00Travel Log 6 - Aswan to Sudan, Wadi Halfa, Abri, Kerma and Dongola<div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>04/02/08<br />We woke early and caught the rickety train with its doors wedged open and all of its fabric, ceiling mounted handles severed, as if it had traveled as slowly as it was taking us from Aswan to the High Dam, all the way from some distant metropolis.</strong> We were fast tracked through the passport control to leave Egypt, joined by a different breed of tortoise (traveler / backpacker), two Peruvians (smartly dressed and seeming out of place), two Japanese, two Spaniards and one German (The last three nationalities of which we would travel with on and off till at least Khartoum). Later we also met the three Russian cyclists we had met at the Sudanese Embassy.<br /><br />We were scheduled to leave at 12.00 and instructed by the man who sold us the tickets to be at the ferry at 10.00 to get seats. We eventually set off at 21.00 on our seventeen hour ride to Sudan. We successfully vied for a bench each to sleep on and took it in shifts to guard as we the other took the opportunity to get some air. The wait for departure was a wait without air. With the boat stationary and the low-ceilinged seating area rammed with people, many of whom were smoking the air was clammy and toxic.<br /><br />There was an uplifting atmosphere where we sat. A powerful lady led a group of passengers in a song which she MCed over with high-pitched, rapid 'lalalalalala's. The whole thing kept together with ingenious clapping rhythms, skipping on and off the beat. There was a colorful array of passengers – a brightly dressed woman with henna covered feet (meaning she was recently married), there was a man in a huge head scarf and an ill fitting Mafioso blazer, staring toddlers all vied for space. The space on the luggage racks was at a premium, as it meant the passenger would not have to wait for their luggage to leave the cramped hold, it was therefore the source of a great deal of heated arguments, placated and in some cases compeered by a tiny waif of a man. His job was to shout louder than anyone else, strutting around the boat with veins bulging from the side of his delicate head.<br /><br />When we got moving some cool air came from Lake Nasser came through the portholes but it was not enough to prevent it from feeling like a steaming, mildewed flannel on the face. </span><span style="font-family:verdana;">Above deck was an encampment floored with individuals blankets, surrounded by boxed held together with string, the lucky ones in the shade below the lifeboats. To get hold of our in-flight meals we handed in a ticket we had previously exchanged for a different ticket – presumably to keep a ferry official's relative in work.<br /></span><br /></div><div align="justify"><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Upon returning to our bench from the café on the mid-deck (a million miles from the Marseilles – Tunis ferry café) a man who had earlier positioned himself at the end of the bench and had been sleeping on it while we were away, insisted on positioning himself on the floor. </span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><div align="justify"><br /></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"></div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5167507444636338706" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5e8_wAn07haYfFvSTULZ9QDCkjaL8q-o3o-RTD1scIQ34ETTLSYyTE82je7XzzffVz2StuetzTcwtJc8RVE744a_lvrQ3JuVIj-jqzuUZPkeUA0EMbURQBegMlRMWF_zlHLCGg64t87I/s400/1.jpg" border="0" /> <p align="justify"><br />It is likely that actions of this man and a holy man in the café who bought us tea are more to do with the way of life of the passengers of the boat – being mainly vendors of wares for natives of their country as opposed to tourists but we felt a warm glow at the possibility that we were traveling to a place where people had a different mindset to that which we knew. This transition mindset was something we were privileged enough to feel change with the landscape, gradually.<br /></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /><strong>05/02/08<br />We caught a lift in the back of a pickup from the Sudanese passport control to Wadi Halfa and after almost a month of travel, we found ourselves in what we had expected to find when we came to Africa.</strong> We left our bags in the mud brick hotel and went in search of food. A boy stood outside a darkened room with newspaper piled high with fried fish, seemed indifferent to our decision to come to his restaurant. Inside, there was a welcoming silence presided over by three men in immaculately white robes who responded to our <em>salaams</em> (hellos) with undue reverence.<br /></span><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></p><div align="justify"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5167507444636338722" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM_VDGiUjTqrl_3UPvx93ZsMn6jBN9sllF7J4-lJVfWbg9im0fzNnEG_h6l8aVSpraiTDHNCspv1EtUfBQ8xCib8jT6ZubVZ6i2u2kD4noTKeBr2EQVBvjhHn6iBrP0U9PTiCj_a6Odd8/s400/2.jpg" border="0" /><br /><strong>06/02/08<br />From 8.30 till 12.00 we moved from room to room with in the police station in order to fulfil the required registration process.</strong> Our paths crossed those of the other tortoises, occasionally overtaking one another and keeping each other up-dated on how many officials we had seen.<br /><br />The day before we had written our names in the book of a bus driver who said he would take us to the next significant village, eight hours away Abri for SP15 (about £3.20) but we had found a Bedford truck driver who would let us sit on his bags of cement for SP5 which would be far less stuffy. As we set off with some of the other tortoises four hours late (roughly on time, African time) the bus we had put our names down for pulled up in front of lorry. A great deal of shouting and shoving ensued and the bus driver offered us a ride in his heaving carriage for SP5 which we declined and he got in quite a huff. </span></div><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /><p align="justify"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5167507448931306034" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnQDrlGxhTw0cphaoNhcAD3ew6Zy7Iiyjss6A5Vw2A7hEPcnYmpalnU8R7N3EKzHr-d62GidHAwTir0pJVlbKHWfvG7fQoMjI59CheYY0jnJh9P5s_wEv_qNrqWKaF7qnGbgd97g0VXDw/s400/2a.jpg" border="0" /><br />At the back of the lorry was a white robed man with a strange arrangement of material on his head. He remained cross-legged in a Zen –like state of peace, seemingly motionless and unblinking in the clouds of dust. Periodically we stopped to refill the radiator and our bellies. It was good to enjoy the rough ride provided by the road which will soon be paved as Sudan is currently doing rapidly with all its major roads. The landscape was harsh desert but yet there was an alluring appeal to it, perhaps more of a sense of adventure.<br /><br />As dusk rose from the horizon like ink on blotting paper, we were able to watch the stars fade into the blue sky to accompany the sliver of moon. When darkness fell the desert sky was so full of stars it looked deep as if it were the sea and we were fish held above its surface.<br /><br />In the dead of night we passed what looked like a staged crime scene. Three people stood solemly watching the back of the head of a man on the ground, lit by the lights of their stationary truck in the middle of nowhere. One of our passengers mimed that they were praying<br /><br />We spent the night in Abri's only <em>lokanda</em> (a very basic hostel) and ate the only thing on the restaurants menu, fu'ul (beans mashed with the bottom of a glass Pepsi bottle with oil and chopped onions and tomatoes with bread. We spent the night talking to a man from Darfur who eulogized about Sudan.<br /></p><p align="justify"><br /> </p><p align="justify"><strong>07/02/08<br />Our day spent unsuccessfully looking for a lift to Kerma by <em>boksi</em> (Toyota pickup with improvised roof rack and benches) lorry or bus turned out to be a good way of meeting the people of the village which had been built upon its market of ten or so stalls and people stopping on their way to Dongola and then to Khartoum. </strong></span></p><span style="font-family:verdana;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5167507448931306050" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijMuD2J0UHt0tvYvShXeVs7jKSEfcXfbRbjhya5uWblRRdhIfvtX67EuTBknUffRsvW2j4e7opRlwvKQQRsTd5afrLLXC6kd6Uqgit_C1N9ggAEpLQI9HVw34Cu1CF8-V5Qoegvc_zBL4/s400/3.jpg" border="0" /> <p align="justify"><br />We were sent from person to person about the town, fuelled by the tea they gave us. We were given high fives by the police who talked to us about the Queen Mother. A female teacher in the school instructed her prize pupil to speak English to us. We were told that we would be able to leave on Sunday at the earliest (two days time) so we prepared ourselves for another night in the mud brick hotel. Showering from a bucket in a silver basin used for mashing <em>fu'ul</em>, in the stinking toilet.<br /><br />We spent the evening watching the semi-finals of the African Cup with most of the village, who all paid the equivalent of two cups of tea for the privilege and were boisterous company. It was strange to see the reverence with which they watched the premium adverts which were offering Saudi golfing and bespoke bathrooms and brought to mind the question of how these people perceive the world base upon the information received by State Radio, BBC Arabic service and satellite TV for Arabia.<br /><br />Spectators with and without English were keen to speak to us. The police captain, then wearing his <em>garabea</em> moved the tobacco wad behind his bottom lip slowly smiling at us like Little John. He stood by us dumbly as if his very presence spoke for its self, shifting the weight on his feet several times then mooching off with the same grin fixed across his face.<br /><br />That evening we were treated to an unexpected appearance of local hero on television – Muhammed Wordi. An eighty year old Nubian crooner sat upon a wooden throne with an extensive backing group sat in front of 1970's Top of the Pops backdrop, singing to the Sudanese glitterati who were sat upon plastic garden furniture. He had an impressive voice and sang in Nubian and Arabic.<br /></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /><strong>08/2/08<br />We were woken by an irritating runt repeating ‘Now truck!’ We followed him outside, ‘When is the truck?’, ‘Eight’, ‘Its nine now’, ‘Yes’, ‘Where is it?’, ‘Here’, ‘Where?’.</strong> At this point the farce was ended by a half Egyptian half Sudanese pizza chef from Berlin who translated for us via our German traveling companion, Johan, that the bus would come tomorrow.<br /><br />A seemingly dead day was put to good use as there would not be transport on this day being Friday (the Muslim day of rest). We paid a man to take us down the Nile to look for crocodiles. The crocs nervousness was explained as he pointed towards them and mimed that they tasted delicious. As they came into view they shuffled awkwardly into the dark water. They seemed far from threatening despite their relatively large size (7ftish).<br /><br /></p><div align="justify"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5167507453226273362" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhrLtVyOogdWbCJ9b0zDfoZPMIF9_5E_1-5q_nprYsO5KRmLUMA-cDRifxqc7acBq-ae0fg0VJwGh-TBJ2JN68vQWAhybtgOHohqS4eriGQqJ8IOvWH9u9oNZ5hBI9tp54m0WL9Q6aEYw/s400/4.jpg" border="0" /></div><br /><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">He dropped us by the river bank and upon mounting the river bank were encountered by a vast sandy wilderness, our guide pointed at the horizon enigmatically. Upon following his finger for a kilometre through the desert we came upon the ruins of a Nubian temple, its columns withered away by the sand but its mud brick roads still visible and no one as far as the eye could see.<br /></div><br /><p align="justify"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5167507783938755170" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgouVb_GnLDP_tXTsFnqdYiALaeE3mDJGEY6RfbqtMSTcuSA9LoFSP2HogFpqQYB-lGw6ovmmeLq9w1c-mt4jojNie-3cICZwlBrIZbuNu4HSycm7_G3EqNN878Bou8zhkK3j1Af2DOcqo/s400/5.jpg" border="0" /><br />Upon our return to the hotel a man with the drooping moustache and facial scars of a panto villain bundled us into a <em>boksi</em> and all of a sudden, we were on our way to Kerma, just as we had relaxed into the <em>bokra</em> (tomorrow or <em>bokra bokra</em> for the day after and so on) mentality. Johan took exception to the driver’s technique of generally off road, straight through the desert sand, very fast and stopping at most of the hamlets to embrace friends and family. At regular intervals he would say, ‘this man is so stupid! No? He is crazy!’, he repeated this like a mantra it is interesting to see different people coping mechanisms for quite a rough journey. The sugar coated peanuts were got in Cairo went down well with the children who came running to the back of the boksi when it stopped as we shook hands with the men authoritatively and the women tittered from behind their veils , chasing us down the road through he clouds of dust the children were filmic. The sight of women in jet black hijabs bordered in colors, iridescent like beetle backs gliding through the yellow of the desert was beautiful. We ate <em>fu'ul</em> and slept in a room with ten other snoring men.<br /><br /><br /><strong>09/02/08<br />The Spanish German extremely tight budget prevented then from seeing the Deffufa, a mud temple built three thousand years BC.</strong> After a session of lackadaisical bargaining with the armed guar we were allowed clamber all over it. It was reminiscent of the twenty foot tall contemporary mud domes we had seen in the graveyards we had passed. Inside the thick towers hundreds of birds nested and shot out as we passed under. There did not seem to be an inside to it – it was all wall and crevice. Any explanation we may have received in the recently opened museum was denied as the guards could not find the key.<br /><br />The Spanish and German tortoises headed for Dongola while we and Yuya (Japanese) decided to stay another night in order to see the market the next day. We found a café and sat by the Nile drinking guava juice. We watched as three people within ten metres of one another, one fished, the other bathed and the other threw in the waste from his restaurant. Our lunchtime mission to find something other than <em>fu’ul</em> was a success. We were invited in the kitchen of the restaurant and pointed out what we wanted – omelet, goat, fried fish, beans, rice and lettuce. Our stomachs were very pleased with us.<br /><br />To walk it off, we headed out of town and came across a maze of brightly painted houses and alleys ruled by gangs of small children who darted from building to building, peering around corners. We were greeted on the road by a lanky man in a <em>garreba</em> (local dress, long flowing gown) and wrap-around sunglasses. He invited us to his relatively grand house and plied us with spiced tea, telling us about his farm and life. More men from the village turned up and tried their hand at speaking English. This continued until dusk, all the while, a stream of women passed in front of us, through our host’s garden. From our laid back chairs and with the conversation flowing sedately from the universal humor of mild sexism to matters of gravity we got a glimpse at what they got up to. Within the context of the history of conflict between the north and the south it was interesting to hear that it was invariably Southerners who were given the public whipping. As they did not have houses to stay in, they were seen on the streets drunk and punished. </p><p align="justify"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5167510266429852290" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKJMlNm10scd53KAihHedaZW0ZciwcVG4K9uBbKIi_HdMk86W865dGgciagsO4SKehyphenhyphenHzXeZ2mbkVvPYpr42TLlHOZTEkyDO2sMWuzytJVX9LSBWLJDmqsXbVES0XuPFFHBohOzJkVAmk/s400/7.jpg" border="0" /><br />We were offered a date alcohol but declined as no one else was drinking it. Maybe we were overcautious but the penalty for drinking in Sudan is forty lashes. Our host offered to take us his farm on an island in the Nile the following day. A teacher who had joined us suggested we visit the school he taught at – Sukdo Primary.<br /><br /><br /><strong>10/02/08<br />A man in Western dress and very proper English ushered us into the school. We were brought to the headmistress’ office and were given tea and toffee and introduced to all the school’s teachers.</strong> It transpired that Said (the teacher from the previous day) taught in the boy’s school and we were in the girl’s. Said would arrive shortly, as was explained to us with all finger-tips of one hand touching and pointing upwards like a sleeping snake. Until he arrived we were taken from class to class to give our royal approval to the students. They were instructed to sing songs for us as we stood at the front of the class, after introducing ourselves. We clapped politely as and nodded approvingly, relishing the smiling awkwardness of it all.<br /><br />Said arrived and took us to his school where lessons were postponed and we ate a delicious breakfast of <em>grahna</em> (pancake-like bread and mashed, spiced okra)with all of the schools teachers. Everyone was keen to emphasize that not all of Sudan was like what we had seen on TV, that was the west and we were in the north – a reasonable point in a country the size of Western Europe, Darfur alone the size of France. Several teachers walked with us to the riverbank to catch the boat to the island where we had arranged to visit the farm previously. </p><p align="justify"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5167507792528689778" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs-YhoXm9KRtOF5l2MJ60oAmWHTAiU7G3khG9j5Uy_-bn88X9ytZMSnMTRdOfju1kwa7ClGEuiHJYfhQDBTp1v41CB51KbVCL5lS3fPxA_z6tBxU61UAGzf9Qf6iCL7bdzzo6GhfEYF4A/s400/6.jpg" border="0" /><br />We sat below the date palms and ate what the teachers had knocked down with rocks. They explained they did not talk about politics in general as we probed as this would lead to a jail sentence. One of our company, wearing fetching mock leopard skin shoes, explained the scarring we had seen on many people’s faces. This practice was unusual in the north but still widespread in the south. All over Sudan people still used ritualistic burning for its medicinal qualities, which does not seem that dissimilar to acupuncture. A burn to the arm for stomach aliments, a burn to the back of the head for throat problems, two burns to the temple for eye problems. On dark skin these burns did not look as gruesome as they might on white, no more obtrusive than a tattoo.<br /><br />We retuned to our hostel by donkey cart hoping to find transport to Dongola. We headed for the market while our <em>boksi</em> driver ate his lunch before departing. The market was a meeting for people all over the area who brought their fruit, vegetable, spices and cakes to sell to one another. The small stringed instruments some men from our room had been making at the hotel seemed to go down well, with people, perhaps a little too old, strutting about the place, playing them enthusiastically. There was a great deal of bawdy slapstick that could have been lifted from the Canterbury Tales, like the midget selling papers from the back of his cart was taunted by a group of teenagers and retaliated with his donkey whip.<br /><br />To enter the town we took a ferry across the Nile where we met a man with a fancy Chinese motorbike and either an overactive imagination or an amazing tale. Perhaps, he had studied in California and Russia and received is PhD in New Dehli. Perhaps for a time he shared a house with a man who flew one of 9/11 planes. Perhaps, as a result of this he was kidnapped in Sri Lanka, almost shot and ended up spending three years in Guantánamo Bay, then the police took us into an office to take our passport details so we never got to hear the end of his articulate and well told story even if the reality of it is in doubt.<br /><br />Three of us, luggage included, just about fitted into the tuk-tuk the police instructed us to get into. Upon arrival at the hotel we walked for half an hour to find the police station to register ourselves in the town. We spent the night watching Rigobert Song loose the Africa Cup for Cameroon in a gloomy club, where people smoked and watched TV as if they were in an opium den, on a TV balanced on a bottle crate.<br /><br /><strong>11/02/08<br />Dongla was an unappealing place interested in the shifting of Chinese tat.</strong> When we met our <em>lokanda</em> owner he would get us to repeat the Nubian ‘hello’, ‘Mescargis’ we had originally greeted him with, as it was a joke which did not grow old for him. We spent our time mooching from shade to shade drinking tea. We met a student of pharmaceuticals a lawyer who told us legally, we could drink alcohol in Sudan and a very short man with a huge gold-buttoned blazer who thoroughly confused us.<br /></span></p>Carbon Explorershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11595610392269355741noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889550275996623826.post-11478599043866452142008-02-03T16:38:00.000+00:002008-02-03T16:51:26.623+00:00Travel Log 5 - Cairo to Luxor and Aswan<div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>28/01/09<br />The train ride from Cairo to Luxor was relatively comfy and mildly amusing.</strong> Before boarding the train we thanked our lucky stars that we had asked someone to right the Arabic numbers down for us. The station was a mass of confusion. During the hour delay, as we fretted about whether we were going to be getting on the right train, we were able to watch some kind of ruckus involving wailing women and a surging crowd forming around one man. Men in various uniforms (navy, army, dog handler, police), tourism police nonchalantly crossed the train track and had a look. Upon arrival, the heavily armed guards at either end of the train gave a sense that were going to be entering Red Indian country. The carriage TVs were not working, and looked as if they had not, for quite some time. Our alternative entertainment was a group of young Muslim girls playing charades.<br /><br /><strong>29/01/08 – 31/01/08<br />The boat from Aswan to Sudan would not leave until Monday so we saw the standard Luxor sites as part of a group; Valley of the Kings, Valley of the Queens and the Hatshepsut Temple.<br /></strong><br />After sixty tourists were shot ten years ago, one left with a note stuffed inside his eviscerated body reading 'no tourists' the crowds at the sites were a quarter of what they had been a few years before. Even so, they heaved with all nationalities. The sugar cane on the roads to these sites was cut back to make an area of no mans land, twenty metres in width, in order to discourage terrorists from attacking the buses. This seemed like a rather cosmetic solution.<br /><br />The first tomb we entered was the most spectacular – that of Rameses II. Much of the colour was as fresh as that of Egyptian shop fronts a few years in age. It was the first occasion when the imaginary and garish Egypt of school books was in any way realised. The imagery and repetition of imagery was even more alien than that of the Islamic art.</span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br />A man with an elongated head (a hereditary condition and in some cases, induced with the use of a wooden press) was offered a symbolic feather by a god with a beetle for a head.<br /><br />The anatomical accuracy of the horses and be-headed Nubian slaves far exceeded any of the Roman art we saw in Libya. However, we did pine for the empty ruins to saunter through. </span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"> </div><div align="justify"></div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5162796503300099826" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQTIotTxIZhX6tj8q2OVBDznDBpWdBjtJ5UoeQ69FA1vKCeHKHaswFaPy0N6LWjfL_0iB7p8P5gaYgCJYNn_BHBJkMFQk4oMq0izKeV8Fuft4KQLOH_jhXLGK3SVmoLeGYaX4gkFOfMNA/s400/3.jpg" border="0" /> <p align="justify">The graffiti from antiquity had rendered many of the depicted faceless and the fertility god with one arm, one leg and a giant penis had been castrated. It seemed to be lacklustre defacement because everything above arm height was in tact.<br /><br />We visited the temple of Hatshepsut or ­'hot chicken soup' as she is otherwise known by tour guides who took advanced humour in their tourism certificates. She ruled Egypt as the daughter of a god and her embalming temple of three stories which took eighteen years to build and was closed after the seventy days required to complete the embalming process.<br /><br />Although these sites were busy and our guide seemed far more interested in selling us key rings than anything else, it was hard not to find the enormity of their vision and execution of it awe inspiring. Trying to imagine these places at there respective times of construction (a time period spanning several hundred years, yet with such an unnervingly consistent perception and depiction of the sublunary and preternatural) was like looking over the edge of precipice.<br /><br />We hired clapped out bikes and negotiated the assault course of Luxor's roads to the temple of Karnak with its hall of a hundred and thirty four huge lotus or papyrus pillars (depending on your source). The way the afternoon light presented them and the hieroglyphs, statues and obelisks gave the place a forceful air made it partly unwelcoming, like a proud old man in his sick bed, who did not want visitors. This was compounded by tourists who did not treat the sites with a semblance of the tact usually associated with holy places, irrespective of religion.<br /><br />Cycling along the Continental side of the Nile in the with hot sun and a cool breeze, lined with globe shaped street lighting and absurdly uniformed cruise ship workmen, allowed the cries of the felucca sailors (the felucca is a white, curve-masted, single sailed Egpytian boat), taxi drivers and the horse drawn carriage drivers float gently out of ear shot. </p><div align="justify"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5162796494710165202" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAvFrqxMr3Pfg-1tjtD_K-3ZDYLW-Xyh60YuF2LEHSnkBrOwagr1uWjPXUhMbJu1w_3rVlZwxaSq46Yzy9kvczFEXtV4ntMds4fqqlVLo4vWoWgM4VUxTNjDIk6Bpm6dwlBVjqqnFMBN4/s400/1.jpg" border="0" /><br /><strong>01/02/08 – 02/02/08<br />We went on the train from Luxor to Aswan, along a track following the Nile as in gently meandered through the landscape.</strong> We were able to watch the architecture become more Nubian as we headed south.<br /><br />We later visited the Nubian Museum to find out more about this intriguing and persecuted ethnic group that was almost decimated by the construction of the Aswan Dam. Its construction forced them to relocate and much of their homeland and culture was submerged by Lake Nasser. We saw thousands of years of their beautiful jewellery and painting and statues. There were descriptions of the incredible feats of engineering performed by international teams of engineers and scientists to preserve Nubian monuments, which in one case involved the winching of a temple to higher ground.<br />It would be nice to think that the Czech funding of the museum was inspired by an ancient Eastern European atonement – it was a group of marauding Bosnians who deposed one of the Nubian kings as part of the expansion of the Byzantine Empire. It was clear as well from the pictures of the Nubian people, that there faces are quite un-Arabian alluding to the next phase we waited for with baited breath as we prepared to travel further south.<br /><br />Aswan was picturesque enough to warrant it banks to be rammed with cruise ships. As light flickered on the Nile excitedly like millions of silver fish leaping above the surface, with feluccas in the background and an old man fishing with a simple line from a boat in the foreground, it was all a little saccharine. It may have been cynical to think so, but surely the very same image from the perspective of someone in his position would be to think, that man has a hard life, I bet he wishes he had a trawler. Profiting from poverty via tourism seemed unsustainable, but with tourism as Egypt's primary source of income, something for the time being, unavoidable.<br /><br />We managed to reduce the increasing annoyance of the curb-crawling, hooting taxis and felucca sailors and shop owners by treating their monotonous questions, 'hello my friend, where you from?', 'what you want?' and 'where you going?' as an opportunity to give more and more brazened answers.<br /><br />Our top three Egyptian sales patters are as follows;<br />΄Bedouin coffee never end, you stop when you see the pink elephant΄<br />΄What you want?΄ ΄Nothing΄ ΄I have nothing!΄<br />΄How can I take your money?΄<br /><br />During our visit Aswan was a hive of activity as the school children were in there winter holidays. It was interesting to see how the resort treated them differently to the non-Africans. It would be unfair to begrudge the Egyptians whatever money they can harvest from the tourist crop because it the same crop that sails around in cruise ships that are polluting the Nile. Having spent relatively little time in Egypt though and only at major tourist destinations it feels like we have not been able to see a genuine side to Egypt as we understandably are seen immediately as a source of cash and along with the language barrier which makes interesting debate and gaining a real insight pretty much impossible. </div><p align="justify"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5162796499005132514" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT5LuJy05hE5y7Bgrmu7eWhP4Rgk0rXQrNAdfn4P1zXxyvsovVx9tcixlOi0DQaaBbKFTui6nsQ72dU5kpJEQpQdvfJ_gskPxt6iqcz_Ywcct1234ecVs_OvccIS6wpKJnWFq8kbuhUIg/s400/2.jpg" border="0" /><br />A Canadian man we met who visited the town thirty five years ago had seen it without the cruise ships and without its riverside promenade an extremely different vision, although, how different were most places thirty five years ago. When we took a boat to the west bank of the Nile it was just about possible to imagine what he had seen. After the initial nonsense of being told that the hill we wanted to climb closed at four and we were only permitted out of the village on camel back, we sneaked our way through the back of the village. The pace of life after a five minute boat ride was entirely different. There were children playing football under the date palms and old women huddled together, dressed head to toe in jet black chuckling away and finding the very sight of us hilarious, in a joyful and inclusive way. Of course the children chasing us through the streets asked us for money but when we declined, they did not take it as a personal affront, it was more of a game than a career. As the sun set we had birds eye view of both banks from our unauthorised hill, backing onto the endless desert, it was a chance to ponder which side of the Nile had it better, the one with the big road and the railway line or the one without.</span></p>Carbon Explorershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11595610392269355741noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889550275996623826.post-79659476994953023092008-01-28T10:55:00.000+00:002008-01-28T11:18:55.854+00:00Travel Log 4 - Marsa Mutrah to Cairo<div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>21/01/08</strong></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>Alexandria’s ancient layout was not well equipped for the hordes of ancient, garishly painted Lada taxis.</strong> We arrived in Alexandria en route to Cairo on the bus we took that morning. </span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">The aged trams crept beneath the monstrous high rise housing and the sad, faded glory of the Colonial architecture. It was a sensory overload with most spivs, goldbricks and wheeler dealers having a strong enough command of the English to play their angle. </span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">It was only when out on the sea front and with a bit of objectivity that we could really appreciate what a startling place it was – it looked as if it had and would be there for ever. </span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">We only had a few hours to spend in Alexandria though before heading off to Cairo. Another four hours on the bus, this time sat next to a man relishing his own obesity with a melodramatic snore that kept me on edge for most of the journey. </span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">The Arabic chant which was invariably put on over the bus speakers at top whack was at first irritating began to take on a new light when in the context of the more desert like landscape. The two are well suited. </span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Upon arrival in Cairo we decided to shirk the taxi drivers and make our way to a hostel on foot. Crossing eight lanes of traffic while feeling like poorly balanced tortoises with our cumbersome backpacks on, was a good way of waking up after the drowsiness of the bus. </span></div><br /><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>22/01/08</strong></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>We had a grand old room at the hostel with lofty ceilings and a balcony with palatial views of the up-market shopping district.</strong> That is not say that the streets were not a moral / social / physical slalom of cars, carts, amputees, guides, papyrus salesmen, mud and cats.</span></div><div align="justify"> </div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5160482576784477890" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN721s275r9RJROOvyDUmDfwjTiNXxlY-Ezy7BfdRgU3LtCVjBYARdXFBsHlxUDnHIeoJduyWJvT1Aqd4KyhKLDd9n-xN3dRd7O1Ry3MlNOb5kdZ9GlQJSX64x8Sz23C-5HYgL5FVy6K0/s400/3.jpg" border="0" /><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">We paid an extortionate amount of money at the British Embassy for a letter of recommendation to take to the Sudanese in order to apply for a visa. We were on edge as we headed over to the Sudanese Embassy because of the tales about one month waits for a visa – apparently it all being down to the whim of the bureaucrat who processes your application. </span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br />We arrived in our smart shirts and grinned inanely at everyone we met. The bureaucrat responsible for the application form did not raise his gaze from his newspaper at any point in our conversation, just barked at others who told us what to do. On completion of the forms we were sent from bureaucrat to bureaucrat all over the embassy, upstairs and down stairs. When we finally reached the bureaucrat with his own office and it was decreed that our visas would be ready on Sunday, just five days. It would be nice to think our Arabic 'hellos' swayed him.</span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">The evening was spent in the city's Islamic District which was clearly delineated between those areas within a few metre radius of where the coach tours stopped and everywhere else. Within the radius it was a manic and headache inducing melee of whining pleas to look at tat but as the sun began to set we lost ourselves in the crooked, medieval streets away from it all. Although it was a hive of activity it seemed far more honest and it therefore seemed more of a privilege to see this way of life in action. Just as the quantum mechanic alters the results of their experiment through observation, we changed what occurred around us by our presence in something more 'real' than what those on the coach tours saw. This is a pretentious fear as it is condescending to imagine that the individuals observed are not able to cope with change. </span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">What we saw was steam and dust lit from the open fires of soot machines. Pigeons and canaries darting around in wicker cages. Brightly lit rooms displaying sacks bursting with cotton and giant cakes of soap. A smoking cooper hammering away exuberantly. During dusk we climbed the pitch black steps of the city's oldest mosque's tallest minaret and watched the city teem amongst the rubbish below the skyline of optimistic sky scrapers, half demolished buildings and grand colonial architecture, all shrouded in smog. The city's 'song' as a Cairoan later described the incessant yet strangely expressive hooting of car horns, was interrupted by the piercing call to prayer that jolted through the rickety speakers by our heads.</span></div><span style="font-family:verdana;"><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"><br /><strong>23/01/08 - 24/01/08</strong></div><div align="justify"><strong>We got the standard pyramids and Sphinx over and done with.</strong> There seemed to be a wave of touristic hostility towards these sites with in the 'real' traveling fraternity who now consider them passé sites. However, the pyramids are the only remaining member of the Seven Wonders of the World club. Of course the coach parties were a distraction to the awesome and imposing nature of the structures but we were not pretentious enough to consider ourselves detached from them. </div><div align="justify"><br /></div><p align="justify"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5160482563899575970" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWGWgT-HaURRfbSTMykQeOTfm7jWUUO0uC3XW5CXWWQfmOn-PTb4SLjyDcg5Uo5Z3Ty7cSB_UnQnTViyRNzN-RrXs4se2t7tq8YLtzKZVDwAHTzUj48CVnNXDEAJvEZ7myZSF7x1d3DmE/s400/1.jpg" border="0" /><br />Almost more interesting than the pyramids was our guide Wasim and beside his knowledge of Ancient Egypt, the frank and honest picture he painted of modern life in Egypt was fascinating. Ranging from politics, religion and relationships it was a true insight.<br /><br />In the evening we met Adam a secondary school Arabic Teacher on the street. We shared karkaday (hibiscus tea) with him – sweet and pungent, fitting preconceptions of a dark, mysterious and opulent Arabia. Before wandering the streets with him shaking hands with everyone we met followed by a gaggle of children. He took us to an empty mosque and we sat below its grand chandelier on garden furniture and marveled at its design. We followed him round a small leather jacket workshop still working strong late into the evening. We did end up paying quite a large amount for some sweets it was suggested we give to Sudanese people by way of thanking them for things. This may well have been his pay off - something, according to a man from the British Council we met later, indicative of the Egyptian mentality. We took it in good humor and we left with his phone number and address should we ever need anything in Cairo, having had a memorable night.<br /><br /><br /><strong>25/01/08 – 26/01/08<br />The Coptic Christian region of the city was not treated with a great deal of reverence.</strong> The churches and mausoleums were clearly of great religious significance and there were worshippers who could read the Arabic language written with the Greek alphabet, kissing the icons and rocking back and forth but cackling cameramen and women took centre stage. We got there by hopping on the city's metro system and it had to be a fast hop because the doors remained open for an unreasonable length of time so everyone scrambled like mad. It is a very British trait to demand order in these kinds of situations as it is to get uppity when people invariably push in front in queues, but watching the back of the head of an individual who has deemed themselves more important than you is infuriating.<br /><br />We spent time wandering the streets of Cairo, observing the chasm of inequality that plagues the city. Just a few kilometers separated the grand houses and the 5 star hotels from people living inside a cemetery. </p><p align="justify"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5160482576784477874" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjklV-46S3DxxKoT1vtA8eZxyJsk0cUBoIDvg4UORC1EzwFtRxQxjYHbvWcrIlx7eb4G431eWHl0VeQO5oLPVLmZyxlpyNyEoKc0SCEQL8OsAuIoNnx-oX2o8hrJKbH-kqt1SVWIifGj8g/s400/2.jpg" border="0" /><br />For some sorely needed escapism we headed for the music of <em>After Eight</em> where a DJ played Stevie Wonder and James Brown. It was a night put on by a man from the British Council, chatting with him at the beautiful old mirror and wood bar, waited on hand and foot by men wearing bow ties, it was good to play the Colonial part for a night.<br /></p><p align="justify"><br /><strong>27/01/08<br />It was time to head back to the Sudanese Embassy to see if we had got our promised visas.</strong> It turned out not to have been a problem and from the date on the visa it looked like it had actually been completed the same day we first applied. We gave our condolences to the Russian cyclists who were still waiting after a week and headed off to get a train to Luxor in the south. This proved a lot harder than anticipated as it seemed there were not going to be tickets for a week. This was not for a lack of service, but due to the sheer volume of tourists plying the route. We admitted defeat and retreated to the hostel and let the hostel manager and his 'commission' take over, getting tickets through contacts and under the table. We expected delays in our trip but in post-colonial Cairo it was a bit of a surprise. </span></p>Carbon Explorershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11595610392269355741noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889550275996623826.post-40449743648064136752008-01-23T15:53:00.000+00:002008-01-26T15:06:46.739+00:00Travel Log 3 - Libya<div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>16/01/08<br />Our only option was to take a taxi to the border and take the long, dramatic walk to the Libyan side.</strong> The first of seven passport checks was made by a Tunisian official with a faintly ridiculous uniform. Getting out of Tunisia was easy enough though it was getting into Libya that was going to be hard. The second to last check was made by the non-uniformed (therefore assumedly, more senior) Libyan with the best coiffured moustache. We were left on tenterhooks for nearly an hour in no man's land as he drove off with our passports, assumedly because our required tour guide had our visas and seemed not to have turned up. We spent our time watching the expensive cars slip through and ancient Peugeot pick ups with filigreed rear ends and an ancient man who looked as if he had walked straight from the desert with only the stick in his hand and the blanket around his shoulders, all gesticulate wildly with the officials. Our guide, Mohammed, arrived and promptly asked us 'where is your car?'…oh dear. It was another half an hour and a final passport check by the 'Police Tourist' before we set off in Mohammed's neighbor's flash Mitsubishi.<br /><br />Mohammed was a delicate looking man with an ill-fitting suit and his neighbor, was a bit of a player with a leather jacket and hood permanently raised. We stopped for lunch in an empty restaurant for apparently traditional Libyan food of spicy couscous and bean tomatoey soup followed by minced spiced meats and rice with fizzy drinks a pattern that was to be repeated. The was a strange awkward dynamic at the table in the echoey restaurant as the neighbor spoke no English and Mohammed very little.<br /><br />Libya seemed to be a building site of a country. The green of the Libyan flag was visible everywhere. Nearly all woodwork is painted in it. The living standard here seemed generally high, on an economy fuelled by oil visible widely throughout the country.<br /><br />The amount of money which must be spent on keeping the innumerate guards, soldiers and police in work and the huge posters must be huge. Also Libya's rejection of liberalising tourism which could bring a lot of money in a county with several World Heritage Sites and vast desert wilderness is intriguing. The hassle we had to go though and hit to our budget was huge and left us needing to cross the country almost as quickly as possible. It makes you realize how much oil Libya has. </span></div><span style="font-family:verdana;"><div align="justify"><br /></div><p align="justify"></span><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5158702544768519762" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM86Fu9jyLMQ1nshk6Ajq1o71Psvb8aFdP0_t4AnamsYrN1b3sih0zY-zH6MNqtwyaB_g78aod0jMeeuqvL1jW8FaOZ4FILjofE2zHQlEViY-lXcEba1KufoB_U0OO2H0ICcIVwqv5NEE/s400/DSCF0643.JPG" border="0" /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">The surge in construction all over Libya is due to the recent lifting of the trade embargos and the influx of foreign investment but my god, are the buildings ugly and it is hard to imagine any of them lasting any length of time.<br /><br />On the way to Tripoli we stopped at the Roman city of Sabratha where we walked down its original streets past bath houses with mosaiced floors. Mohammed insisted on clambering over everything, throwing bits of what I handed him the intention of finding out if they were Roman pottery into the bushes, scooting about on the mosaiced floors and sitting on the Roman toilets (the mime of him defecating being the closest we have experienced to real communication with Mohammed) . Its second century amphitheatre, established by the Phoenicians then re-settled by the Greeks then Romans, was a three story construction dubiously reconstructed by the Italians when they were the ones running the show. </span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5158703167538777698" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrRuk4_EAIlXerNc11PrrPReWNpF__N6yGYfoORw4eeruQJdSkGroeE61shWimQpHYqc6FrSaYuXO-Pdxk26pdZZQwCosCOjQE49Q28TyC-IHaaAjp2dv-o0xElbw_rjN6mmtlNrfapVo/s400/DSCF0672.JPG" border="0" /><br />It seemed ironic that the reconstruction was discernable by its worse craftsmanship. It did not entirely make sense that the reason given for us requiring a guide with us at all times while traveling through Libya was that Western tourist had been found to be stealing artifacts yet no one seemed in the least bit interested in the World Heritage Sites maintenance.<br /><br />The road to Tripoli, which loomed from the arid ground like a sun bleached skeleton, was regularly punctuated with Gaddafi’s image, either cheery with arms outstretched like an advert for a hotel or sternly looking skyward, wearing a pair of aviator sunglasses like a Top Gun pilot. In both cases it was all rather disarmed by the government issue clip art backdrops. </p><p align="justify"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5158704610647789170" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd3TZ4f_civ0j7e8L6iQcP-PGRDPpFATNGZZSQitbogHAQtZfWlGesTw5dkR12WmDRQ8BPxRLc_jwM-QGMuPYuiwdKzDgie8nsL0p0tSWqBkHBy2pqe8-xVox9JsfsFdX08NfVxICK-jw/s400/DSCF0698.JPG" border="0" /><br />From the ground level Tripoli could be Whitechapel. It had a similar level of uncleanliness and similarly dressed people selling similar things but with the addition of white gloved traffic police and far more bloodthirsty driving.<br /><br />We met Mohammed’s boss, Mahmood in our flash hotel. It had the same air of grandeur about it as the Roman City with none of the class. The crumbling teeth in Mahmood’s fixed grin did not detract from his snake eyes.. We spent quite some time faffing around with him and his boss Sami, trying to get what we paid for (all accommodation food and travel) as they attempted to give us less with more an more preposterous excuses.<br /><br />There was a strong sense of the ‘gilded cage’ very reminiscent of that described in Hergé’s <em>Land of Black Gold </em>in which an almost identical situation is described, Tripoli is our San Theodore and Gaddafi our Colonel Sponsz. We are similarly unable to leave the hotel or eat what we want or drink what we want or talk to who we want. We are getting the full socialist dictatorship experience as described in a text written over half a century ago, at the height of the Cold War.<br /><br /><br /><strong>17/01/08<br />We visited a city with the same empty sense as the one the humans return to in <em>Planet of the Apes</em>, named Leptis Magna, a 7th century city and the crown of Rome's African empire, under the leadership of Septimus Severus.</strong> Its central point a senate / market and a walled area as big as a football pitch and strewn with headless and castrated statues and broken columns. The whole place was almost empty. It is perhaps a trite point to make but a decadent society consumed by its own greed did ring certain pertinent bells. </p><p align="justify"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5158704645007527570" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEbCC7HspX1XEg01CoPp63ZUnR08USYzEJDSNvuSa8oNPFP-L7b6Uk-B2VEfy3PeN6ehd4G0fkMBC_ItetdJyIYPsuOlo-cz7s9lPRcs-IsnqtHeaUqpl7dE517bjK0HUb1_YVGjUI3e0/s400/DSCF0739.JPG" border="0" /><br />We spent the night in the eerie town of Sirt which was under siege from a motorcade of excitable wedding revelers hooting their horns and setting off fireworks we at first assumed to be firearms. People were evidently having fun in this country and we were not getting any of it. Our meal times with Mohammed and his neighbor were becoming filled with more and more awkward silences partly due to the language barrier and partly due to failed attempts to ask probing questions about the country’s regime and possible dissent. The closest we heard to acknowledgment of dissent was rather convoluted. We noticed the neighbor's car has displaying a Brazilian football air freshener from its rear view mirror and yes, it turned out that the neighbor enjoyed watching football on the TV. But, in Gaddafi’s <em>Green Book- The Answer to the Problem of Democracy</em> (his answer to Mao’s little red book, and our answer to long car journeys) it states that, ‘sporting clubs… are rapacious social instruments, not unlike the dictatorial political instruments which monopolize power’, to which Mohammed conceded that these days Libya is more modern than it once was. </p><p align="justify"><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5158704632122625666" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5UULmQu-fM79OsDoXUaMPiG5eJhLv06LAzlQTZsK6gg5-kOo5lPmelH6XzpR6M3i5-zAf_1uYJKLvpjVB9C4SRK2I_VIsjzt4kteSq3amBwXEQxYtRM7TAaM2o_Bdeik1jiJgnNjKj08/s400/DSCF0743.JPG" border="0" /><br /><br /><strong>18/01/08<br />The days became a saga –the food was repetitive and plain and eaten in specially designated, empty tourist restaurants.</strong> We do not speak to anyone other the Mohammed who’s English is worse than our French and we are having to endure the driver’s same six CDs, although one of them is a by the Berber musicians, <em>N’Tayaden</em>, which is a ray of light. We are forever being stopped at checkpoints where Mohammed handed over one of his stack of copies of our details in Arabic. What on earth was being done with all this information? Was it going into some vast filing cabinet in one of the mysterious buildings we have passed?<br /><br />The drive from Sirt to Bengazi was over by early afternoon. The landscape had been quite monotonous; flat arid land and a covering of rubbish that lay for fifteen metres either side of the road. After a great deal of cajoling Mohammed let us leave the hotel we were stationed in by ourselves. We walked down what was to all intents and purposes an Eastern Block sea front replete with mandatory crumbling concrete, but it lacked the grand communal areas. We made our way to the naval base in order to take pictures of the boats to spite the Orwellian ‘administration’.<br /><br />On the drive we had tried to find out more information about The Great Man Made River. A giant pipe running from the interior of the country to provide water to vast dry arid reasons. Quite how big the environmental impact of this quick fix solution will be is unclear but if it's to be believed, Gadaffi's son has a big job to make this country green.<br /><br /><br /><strong>19/01/08<br />We visited Cyrene on the way to the border and as uncultured as it sounds, unlabelled Roman remains described by a man clearly making it up as he went and saying it in a made-up language, started to loose some of its original charm.</strong> Apollo’s fountain was striking as it trickled out of the mountain into a jet black, man made pool and through the city in irrigation channels. Also the vista out across the miles of flat land out to the sea was spectacular. Mohammed told us ‘UNESCO will make him nice’ some time in the future.<br /><br />The drive did provide one surprising aspect a sudden change to a Mediterranean climate with all around being green and dramatic and cavernous gorges which provide a welcome break from the flat arid landscape of the past few days.<br /><br />During the evening in the hotel with a red interiors the Egyptian proprietor overheard our conversation and said to us privately, ‘you will like Egypt, there are plenty of women and you can have beer. It is not Guantanamo’.<br /><br /><br /><strong>20/01/08<br />We were driven to the border and eventually allowed to leave Libya. On the Egyptian side we very easily bought visas and passed through into a whole new country and mindset.</strong> As we walked through no man’s land the people behind the fence were very keen to practice their English on us and smiles on peoples face was quite different to the reserved nature of the Libyans, it was good to have some interaction. We took the relatively plush bus four hours to Marsa Mutrah and over-nighted in a pound a night hostel run by lonely looking man and his knot-backed father. It was an all time low on the cleanliness front but it had a certain Parisian struggling artist's charm to it. Egypt immediately seemed to have a greater deal of poverty than Libya but a good infrastructure, and certainly a more welcoming people.</span></p>Carbon Explorershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11595610392269355741noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889550275996623826.post-61740120205701102982008-01-23T11:51:00.000+00:002008-01-26T15:07:02.881+00:00Travel Log 2 - Djerba to Ben Guerdane, Tunisia<div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>13/01/08 – 15/01/08</strong><br /><strong>We spent the first morning in Djerba pacing the tourist beach which in the gloom, swarmed with agéd German tourists with ruddy faces in tracksuits walking as silent couples being smarmed by two greased-back-hair Tunisians on horseback.</strong> When unsuccessful in luring a punter into paying for a ride along the beach, they were placated by their in-on-the-scam horses that bit playfully at the shoulders of their handlers. We left the beach passing through the huge construction sites of holiday complexes comprising of bizarre concrete monstrosities patrolled by men in army boots. It was easy to see why this huge development has put such a strain on the islands water resources, the trouble is all there was to the island was the tourist industry.</span></div><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /><div align="justify">One of the island's lesser advertised and more interesting ports of call was the mysterious El Ghriba synagogue, apparently home to the world's oldest Torah. The Jewish population was shaken in 2002 during a terrorist attack causing many people to leave the island and it therefore required strict security checks to gain entry. Inside in a corner of the building men with small very similar features on their large faces were absorbed in prayer led by the man with a long wispy beard and wizened features. The building's interior was a visual overload of intricate silver and colored glass. Upon leaving in the taxi we were struck by a moment the likes of which are only indelibly etched upon the memory when there is a serendipitous hand at play – the sound of children laughing in the school, melodramatic 70's French pop on the taxi's radio, the sea blue of the Jewish quarters, the stark white of the synagogue and the yellow of the flowers in the meadow surrounding it. </div><br /><div align="justify">The vast Monday night market back in town was an impressive sight. Tables heaved with piles of second hand clothes and dates and pick up trucks displayed their cargoes of oranges. Spice stalls filled the air with reminisces of foods from all over the world. On our way to get a bite to eat we were got talking to a pair of likely lads named Omar and Rauph, who fitted the mold of Del Boy and Rodney snuggly. One had a Polish wife and the other a degree in sociology and they were in the process of setting a business selling camel tooth jewelry. It was hard not to be wary of them with their complex haircuts and fake Ray Bans, but we shared sweet, smoky, grainy black coffee with them, invariably in brightly lit cafes with smartly dressed, smoking waiters and raucous card games all about. We really need not have worried, but it’s a mentality that is the curse of the guide book.<br /></div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"></div><br /><div align="justify">Leaving Djerba we took a cramped louage (minibus) to Ben Guerdane – the last town before Libya, and over-nighted in a clammy little hotel with a mischievous proprietor who pulled faces behind the police while they checked our passports.</div><br /><div align="justify">It was a cowboy town of unpaved street, stinking sewers and immaculately turned out Libyans strolling about the place posturing widely in fake designer wear and in flashy cars, while many of the townsfolk scooted about on horse drawn carts. While one street was entirely dedicated to small huts containing an oversized calculator, bed, TV and drawer of money for exchanging Tunisian Dinars for Libyan.</span> </div>Carbon Explorershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11595610392269355741noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889550275996623826.post-53030794817326735602008-01-14T11:15:00.000+00:002008-01-26T15:07:22.285+00:00Travel Log 1 London to Djerba, Tunisia<div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>09/01/08</strong><br /></span><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>With an overbearing sense of bewilderment we began our journey proper from London.</strong> Other than the hour lunch in Paris we headed straight for the ultra efficient TGV to Marseille. The Eurostar afforded us enough time not to complete the day’s crossword. As we crossed France looking out as the countryside gradually change from the train’s second deck we were left thinking, the French know how to organise their public transport. </span></div><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5155305206841349778" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHfRMTdQqZ1jAHjPY8WbA3fFmb8mHiW6yNZWxx9inVnZsWifkfv0nmPQI7b5zQ9s9OqMpI1ALdzdGSfKdDkKZsf0ThG6IAkiErvUfB2lEQuEX_ph8QCnqpM8LLthQM99U7SL9oSN3UUVY/s400/2188960607_1b57bfc062.jpg" border="0" /><br /><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>10/01/08</strong></span><br /></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>Marseille seemed to be a city of lax planning regulations.</strong> Austere colonial architecture was interjected by Fraco-esque high rise modern living. The dark take on modern living continued into the city’s bowels where the metro seemed to be in a state of 1970’s stasis with everything in a shade of orange which assumed the city’s citizens would be taking public transport to Mars by now. This however is not a fair reflection on some of the beautiful buildings and churches we passed by, it just difficult to appreciate them in the January gloom that smacked of Blackpool.<br /></span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">The hour delay for the ferry to Tunis was the first taster of the waiting game we are sure we will have to play again and again with forty or so foot passengers for company, most of who appeared to be shopkeepers with huge loads of goods. It was a good opportunity to pick up some clues on how Tunisians operate because we were unlikely to pick much up with our broken French and a complete lack of Arabic (thus far). There did not seem to be a rule as to the number of kisses they gave each other on the cheeks. The question that arose was, how do they avoid the embarrassment of leaning in for a kiss that the other party is not willing to reciprocate? Their personal space seemed even smaller than that of the French and their gesticulations all the more categorical, with an emphasis upon an out stretched arm with all fingers brought together as if plucking a grape from a vine. As they talked it seemed as if from sentence to sentence the flipped from telling one another their house was going to be repossessed, to them letting them know that they would be marrying into the other party’s family with their own fortune. </span><br /><br /></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">It will be intriguing to see these minutiae in cultures change as the landscape does as we travel towards South Africa. </span><br /><br /></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">There must have been five hundred berths onboard the ferry, most of which were empty and seemed to be in a state of being cleaned for the entire journey. There was a definite sense of colonial era travel, with the waiter service and entertainment, but the long curving staircase to the bar with a dance floor had a filthy carpet more reminiscent of the Dover to Calais experience. That night we were treated to a set of what were evidently Tunisian classics, by the reactions of the tipsy gentlemen pulling shapes such as the ’measure the arm length at the tailors’ and the ’wafting of a burn on the forehead with outstretched arms’ on the dance floor. The sleep we got that night was un-funnily hysterical. The ship’s syncopated judder felt like the sofa upon which another person is sitting and who is finding something inappropriate hysterical and remains on the brink of guffaw. As this reverberated through us as we slept on the floor of the ’quiet’ lounge a group of shopkeepers entered and conducted some kind of anarchic tea party at top volume. It became clear we were already a long way from home. </span><br /><br /></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>11/01/08<br />We awoke to the sound of Hoovers and the sun rising over the Northern tip Africa.</strong> It was upon arrival at passport control that we were definitely not yet in the zone because we had not filled in the appropriate pass cards while onboard. After sorting out the issue we declined the offers of the cawing taxi drivers intent on taking us into Central Tunis and walked off to try and find the train station. This was the first instance of troublesome public transport not being the easy option. The train took us to the centre of Tunis where we walked to the medina to find our accommodation for the night. The Medina was a set of high, narrow streets filled with Chinese plastic from different moulds to those were accustomed to, the intrigue of which was lost, as there was a overriding sense of being perpetually swindled by people bumping into us and just so happening to the location of King Ottoman’s wife’s bed above a rug shop and so on. One Fagin / Oddjob character we allowed to boss us around for a while, telling us to take pictures of seemingly random objects who we managed to placate, unsurprisingly, with money, put it well when he said ‘Tourist love Tunis, Tunis love tourist’. He also said ‘You not catch plane? You not capitalist!’, which was even better. </span><br /><br /></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Being engulfed in Islamic architecture and interiors has left me feeling that I am missing out on something. I am sure that there is something to see in the intricate repetitions of patterns on tiles and in the symmetry of the domes and pillar alignment that I cannot see.<br /></div></span><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">What I can see in this environment is something far more repetitious - a regurgitated aesthetic ideal marketed at individuals such as myself, the model of which I have seen countless images customised to. It is the image with the pretence of being un-sanitised and authentic. It is the perfectly ‘antiqued’ archway framing a poor child in ‘distressed’ clothing playing with a ‘crossbreed’ cat on a ‘traditional’ road I saw today and wished I had my camera with me.<br /></span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">A concerted effort is going to be required to accommodate other culture’s take upon beauty and not have my field of vision narrowed down by search for it improbable places. Stuart does not entirely agree with this, hence it being in the first person.<br /><br /><strong>12/01/08</strong><br /><strong>One of our Australian dorm mates found the throwing of shoes at the snoring Stuart even more amusing than Toby.</strong> An early rise and off to see the Grand Mosque which was both peaceful and grand at once, which is quite an achievement. </span><br /><br /></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">We planned to reach Djerba today, an island in the South of Tunisia popular with package holidays that while benefiting the island’s economy, are apparently severely affecting the island’s water supply. To get to Djerba we were going to get the train to Sfax, Tunisia's second city. On the way to the station we happened upon an impressive market behind an unassuming entrance way. There were bull heads in buckets, mountains and olives and fruits and a cheeky lady who let us try some different cheeses. After a wander round we were well stocked for the travel ahead. </span></div><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5155305528963896994" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9UDFijAnA5I0gbFtV4tIV4YgPr-QaqTXSsbPM7KUt9vOX9r6HIbSdTyjTfgRqqQbO9Ofj3djy4EJsT96aWD88EopvNuyhUOhJWkefKY4oCvlA1HDXO1Pb7HbAVOartSoo-2fj2JxG8g4/s400/2189075521_91a7319e15.jpg" border="0" /><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">From Sfax we caught the Louage (minibus) to Djerba. The Louage ‘station’ was fairly chaotic with bus drivers attempting to fill there bus in order for them to travel economically. The bus journey was an interesting experience in its own right. We shot down arrow straight roads cutting through the olive groves, weaving through the traffic. Stopping abruptly for yet more coffee and cigarettes then shooting off again. During the night, we passed eerie restaurants illuminated by fluorescent bulbs of various garish colours hung from the beams of their outdoor seating areas. Men ate below the carcass of an eviscerated sheep with its fleece still upon its back, which dangled from a chain on the ceiling. This scene was repeated in restaurant after restaurant in what seemed like installation art. </span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">The man running the Youth Hostel in the islands capital was an amazing character with full Tunisian garb, shin length hooded fleece top with tassels and Yassar Arafat style head scarf and requisite dusty laminate shoes and no socks. We are pretty sure when he was younger he was a fearsome character. That night we ate like kings on roadside tuna and almost raw egg pizza followed by shish and coffee.<br /><br />The next few days are to be getting an idea of Djerba before heading for the Libyan border and Allah willing we will have visas given to us on the border by the tour company you are required to have. </span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Until we work out how to get all the photos on the blog you can see them at;</span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/africacarbonodyssey/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/africacarbonodyssey/</a></span></div><div align="justify"></div>Carbon Explorershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11595610392269355741noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889550275996623826.post-52647054310899987682007-12-30T17:41:00.001+00:002008-01-26T15:07:40.353+00:00Toby and Stuart prepare for the unknown<div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">The first time we talked about going to Africa was at a beer festival in Faversham. Over a few pints the idea started to form, the acid test would be whether or not it seemed quite so reasonable the next morning, nursing hangovers. Over the next few days we talked the idea over and it became apparent that it was not only a viable trip but a potentially valuable experience. It had the ideal purpose, the ideal itinerary and had come at the ideal time, and more importantly, it was going to be worthwhile. We later met in the British Library and worked out why exactly we were going to embark upon this potentially cavalier, ill-conceived and selfish trip, and the small matter of its logistics. We also went over some of the things we wanted to achieve from the trip to ensure that we had similar motivations. We decided the impetus should be upon investigating environmental and environmentally associated issues that countries in Africa are facing. We ensured that we would both be able to achieve what we wanted from the trip with a surprisingly amicable session of compromising resulting in an agreement upon what the main focus of our investigations should be. What follows therefore is not a manifesto, it is more a set of guidelines which outline what we aim to achieve: </span><br /><br /><br /></div><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">- To ingratiate and engross ourselves into other cultures and customs, therefore allowing ourselves the opportunity to learn from them.<br />- To take public transport wherever possible to maximise our ability to meet local people and to better understand their way of life.<br />- To minimise the environmental impact of our travel and to prove that slow travel is feasible on a tight budget.<br />- To understand the reality of environmental issues for Africans, specifically related to climate change and its implications for future generations.<br />- To see how environmental issues have affected communities and the ways in which they have learnt to cope. - To investigate the response of governments, the international community, business and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to environmental issues.<br />- To investigate the role of aid in Africa.<br />- To investigate the effects of carbon finance in Africa; strengths, weaknesses and barriers to implementation and the ways in which it can bring increased benefits to local communities.<br />- To experience and relay the realities and personalities of the Africa we experience.<br /><br /></p></span><div align="justify"><br /><br /></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>The Route</strong><br />The following is the route that we are currently aiming for. However, many of the details are far from concluded, much of it will have to be played by ear. Obviously we will be trying to avoid the areas where there is a high likelihood of getting shot and many of the areas we hope to pass through are so volatile it can change from week to week. You also might think we have been planning this trip for years the reality is nearer a few days flicking through guidebooks as the window within which we could embark was so close to the date on which we agreed to jump head first into the whole business. At present, the plan is as follows; </span></div><div align="justify"><br /><br /></div><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">UK – France – Tunisia – Libya – Egypt – Sudan – Eritrea – Djibouti – Somaliland – Ethiopia – Kenya – Uganda – Rwanda – Tanzania – Malawi – Mozambique – Swaziland – South Africa – Lesotho – South Africa</span><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5155288074216806018" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH9Wy55i8owmRJetUZaGZCl11r6U-yTeLk5Z06PwQHHJSXxrLY5AbClZdnqjM0WPY3gFdHuWPUffRRXR5CIVaNd5NA9BXfKLtt8QbXaLx4Vhbwri0UgZbXe7LrWASJZXGcVIyg5gsM8ds/s400/route.jpg" border="0" /> <p align="justify"><br /><br />We are going to avoid flying for a couple of reasons. Firstly, we want to try and meet as many people as possible and learn as much as we can from them, we do not want a sanitised version. This also precludes taking our own transport. Secondly, we want to take responsibility for our own actions in relation to climate change and minimise our own impact. This doesn’t mean we’re part of the anti-flying Gestapo, we see it more as a reality that we have to be responsible for our actions and if there’s a viable alternative that has significantly less impact on the planet then we believe we should take it. It just so happens that we are privileged enough to be able set aside enough time to go about our journey in this way. For us it is not the getting there that is important but what happens on the way.<br /><br />We’re getting to Tunisia through France by train and then ferry before heading along the North coast of Africa to Egypt. Travelling in this way will hopefully allow us to be able to feel places change as we travel further South with the climate and people gradually altering in order to better suit their environment and how it is changing.<br /><br />We are planning to take about six months for the trip and with regards t what we are going to do when we reach South Africa, that is a bridge we will cross when we come to it. Ideally we’d love to explore further up the west coast. Returning to the UK without flying is hard and we will search for alternatives but so far cargo ships seem way beyond our budget.<br /><br /><br /><strong>Who are we?</strong><br />We have known each other since we undertook training on Isle of Coll in North-West Scotland over five years ago for a year away in Guyana. We lived in a remote region of savannah interspersed with virgin rainforest in the South of the country teaching local Macushi children at Annai Secondary School. Our living conditions were very basic, we were without electricity or running water and yet we managed the entire year living in a cockroach, bat and rat infested concrete shell without any kind of serious disagreement. The only minor incidents usually revolved around biscuits and who’s turn is was to cycle for half an hour to get them from the local shop, but we were both mildly delirious with malnutrition, so it was excusable and quickly forgotten when we got our hands on a giant block of cheese.<br /><br />Since then Stuart has gone onto complete a degree in Environmental Geoscience at Bristol University and more recently a Sustainable Development Masters Degree with Forum for the Future. Since graduating Stuart has been working for Climate Care an organisation that funds greenhouse gas emission reduction around the world. Stuart hopes to be able to make the biggest impact possible on climate justice, individuals and countries that will suffer most without significantly causing the problem.<br /><br />Toby has graduated with a degree in English from the University of London and has since worked in the national and local press and on the radio. He is currently working in the University of Kent and is working to become a writer with a particular emphasis upon environmental journalism. Toby aims to communicate environmental issues to a wide audience in a comprehendible manner which does not patronise, dehumanise or hyperbolise, approaching the subject global but not distant.<br /><br />We have a good set of complementary skills that give us the ability to get on and get through tough situations.<br /><br /><br /><strong>Purpose of this Blog</strong><br />Climate change is the biggest issue facing the future of humankind as it encompasses many other issues including poverty, water supply and disease. Climate change has very much been the flavour of the year for the press and of course it is positive to have it in the forefront of the public consciousness. However, people are becoming turned off by the enormity of the issue and it is likely it won’t be long before it disappears from the front pages. The intention of this blog is not to ‘raise the profile of climate change’, there are enough resources and information out there explaining the science of climate change. We are going to be looking at the solutions to climate change whether through prevention or adaptation and the reality of climate change in the places that are on the front line.<br /><br />We would be going with or without the blog though so the trip is not entirely an activity in communication, it is a fortunate by-product of what we are doing. We both hope that what we experience will better equip us for futures combating climate change. The process of this ‘journey’ (and we mean that in the most pretentious sense of the word) will ‘change’ (and we also mean that in the most pretentious sense of that of the word) both of us for the better and we hope we can in some way reciprocate (and we mean that in the most pompous sense of the word) along the way. We would like to imagine that someone somewhere might read this blog and consider whether or not their quality of life will be dramatically be improved by replacing their current TV with a HD version, even if it much cheaper in the January sales. Someone might even read this and try and do something, that would be amazing.<br /><br />We will update this blog as often as we can, keeping you up to date with our experiences and adventures; the characters we meet, the cruel, unusual and fantastical forms of transport, the highs and the lows that will go along with travelling into the unknown. We hope you will come back and visit this page and add your own thoughts and opinions to our pieces and the issues we are discussing. Also there will be photos and hopefully videos uploaded for you to follow our progress.<br /><br />So for us it’s all hands to the pump trying to get organised before we head off on January 9th 2008. Going to the doctors, sorting out the jabs, anti-malarials. Trying to figure out exactly what needs done and when to obtain visas and how exactly we get the Arabic translations of our passports the Libyans are asking for.<br /><br />All the best,<br /><br />Toby and Stuart<br /></p></span><span style="font-size:85%;"></span>Carbon Explorershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11595610392269355741noreply@blogger.com7