En Route to Abeche

At last we’re on the plane flying out to Abeche on the Chad/Sudan border. Air France it certainly is not, but then they didn’t, like Air France, tell us that “You are being upgraded, but, sadly, to a worse seat.”

It’s all one grade on World Food Programme planes – cattle-class, but frankly, you’re so relieved to be on board, no-one complains.

This morning was typical. Up before five, to arrive at the airport by six, they then decide that we’re only allowed fifteen kilos of luggage each – including hand-baggage.

With cameras, laptops, wodges of paper (including twenty copies in French and English of our project), it’s pretty impossible to be within fifteen kilos. But we got our tickets, and Simon was off like a whippet after a rat, and through the security check. I was hauled back and told I was twelve kilos overweight. I would have to wait until the very end to see if there would be room for the extra weight. I was not alone – about a dozen others stood anxiously waiting for a decision. Never mind the sheer injustice of it all – Simon weighs over twenty kilos more than me, and I surely weighed a good ten kilos more than one of the women – but that’s the system.

Suddenly, a small man appeared, with a big badge hanging round his neck – clearly a sign of his huge importance. He looked at us as if we were something nasty that had got stuck on his boots, then pronounced that we were all very naughty, and he could not possibly accept any weight over ten kilos. I knew mine weighed twelve – so while he was distracted haranguing some unfortunate, I slipped the case open and magicked away what I hoped was two or three kilos of goodies – and asked one of the security men to stand in front of it.

Then the weighing. ‘Dix kilos’ he grunted ‘Bon. Allez’.

‘Merci, Monsieur’, I called back, disappearing with the all-important permit in my hand, and recovering the rest of my stuff in a plastic bag, disappeared out to the waiting plane. Small victories, but gratifying none-the-less.

Now it’s late afternoon in Abeche. It’s been a long day, discussing and arguing, hopefully passionately (but in French, so who knows?) for our project to look after all the livestock in Eastern Chad.

It’s what we were asked to do, but understandably, with perhaps a million head – if including those of the locals as well as the refugees – it’s a huge and expensive project. Probably three million dollars a year – and of course with the global financial meltdown – this could hardly be a worse time to be looking for funding.
But still, at least everyone is enthusiastic, (UNHCR has never considered livestock before), so we’re still optimistic. And also rather proud. To be the first animal charity to be asked to work with the UN is quite something.

But of course there has to be a downside.

There is a chronic shortage of accommodation here, so I am forced to share a room with Simon.

And boy, does he snore...


Jeremy Hulme

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Bullets in the Bath

Today was all about admin. If international flight bureacracy is a nightmare, then it's nothing compared to getting anything done in Chad. Firstly, we have to register with the Police on arrival - failing to do so results in all sorts of trouble when you try and leave the country. So our friendly crew from UNHCR guide us through the process, involving a visit to the Police compound in N'Djamena. This is a frantic, noisy, heaving mass of humanity all getting permits, paying fines, getting motor bike licences etc etc. Besides which it's 10.15am and already 40 degrees. I am not looking my best when we are ushered into a side room to have our permit photos taken, and as such the photographer even offers me his comb. I must look dreadful...

Registration secured we bounce out of the compound en route to the Ministry for our travel permits - these are something like the Holy Grail and we have been trying to secure them via various routes (again it's bureacracy, after all we are trying to help people and their animals here so it really SHOULDN'T be difficult).

That achieved and after a tortuous but frankly anticipated battle with reception staff at the Novotel Hotel over payment (every time we come here we have a similar problem) we decamp to the Meridien Hotel (which in any case is much nicer, cheaper and the wifi is free unlike the frankly extortionate £15 per hours the Novotel has thebrass neck to charge) -The Meridien bore the brunt of bombardment by various pieces of military equipment during the attempted coup in February. This manifests itself in my bathroom. On the metal exterior shutters opposite my room is a large hole around which the metal bars are bent inwards. This hole lines up with another in the wall beside my door and (inside my room), several replaced tiles on the bathroom wall. Finally there are a number of shrapnel holes in the bath mended ineffectually, since it leaks, with some sort of putty and blobs of silicon. Jeremy has to make do with a bullet hole in his door patched over with wood filler, and a hole in the ceiling.

Tomorrow we leave for Abeche for some real meetings and hopefully leave the bureacracy behind, at least for 24 hours...

Simon Pope

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Return to Chad

I'm sitting in the lobby of the Meridien hotel in N'Djamena, capital of Chad, where we arrived last night. This trip is the culmination of a lot of hard work by SPANA in drawing up proposals at the request of UNHCR regarding refugees from Darfur who are sheltering in the East of the country, and the IDP's (Internally Displaced People actually Chadian villagers) who have themselves left their homes as a knock-on effect from the problems in Darfur.

But first of all we had to get here...

Someone once said that it is better to travel than to arrive. Personally I'd like to take that deluded individual and drag him or her screaming through some of the tortuous 21st century travel bureacracy that exists now as an obligatory requirement of getting anywhere.

In Heathrow I sailed through the x-ray machine with a Karabineer clip attached to my camera case with no problems. In the duty free I also bought some mouthwash and hair gel which I dutifully got sealed up in a security bag proving that it is not hydrochloric acid in anticipation of transit security at Paris airport. Of course, on arrival at the Paris transit desk my steel clip elicits sour looks from the x-ray operator, and a surly "Non." "Why? Porquoi? What's the problem?" I ask...

There is not an immediate response. The x-ray operator mutters to herself "Pourquoi? Pourquoi. Ah, well you may use it to punch someone with!"

The natural extension of such logic is that I should proffer my hands out to the representative of a nation that after all invented the guillotine and say "Alors! Then you must do away with these. I may after all punch someone with them but since it is the rules, I must comply." My steel clip was dropped into the bin with a clunk and a smug grin momentarily lit up the sour operators face, until she then happened upon my mouthwash and hair gel, after which she returned to a pensive frown.

"These are not allowed." she said.

"Yes they are. I bought them in duty free in Heathrow. Yes they are allowed..."

"No they are not!"

She became quite gleeful and began tearing the bag apart ready to drop then into the naughty bin, before Jeremy arrived and explained. At this point she became morose, and could barely look at me as she handed the bag back.

I might have said that I could have ignored this incident in light of the fact that on checking in at departure gate at Heathrow we were told we were going to be upgraded. I became quite elated at the prospect. You do hear about such things happening at random to fortunate individuals but it never seems to happen to you. I mentioned this to the check-in steward. "Ah yes" she replied "But unfortunately the seats you are being upgraded to are not as good as the ones you had originally." I'm still waiting for my brain to figure out the logic in this so if anyone can help me...

On the flight down to N'Djamena I sat next to a man who was wearing the latest fashion in eau de toilette. The advertising blurb for this might well have read "Stand out from the crowd. Leave a lasting impression. The new fragrance that's bound to create a stir - Eau de Stilton." So eager was he to share this new creation that he decided to unselfishly take up half my seat as well in an effort to impress on me the full effect of the aroma, which was particularly powerful at the moment he removed his shoes. Clearly he had also bathed his feet in it.

And on the flight to N'Djamena, Air France happily served up an excellent in-flight meal replete with a free bottle of wine (glass) and sharp knife (metal). I felt obliged somehow to point out to the cabin staff the potential harm that these could do to them in the hands of a crazed individual, and much more harm than someone armed with, say, a Karabineer clip. But instead, intoxicated by the subtle charms of my neighbours apres rasage, I just went to sleep.

Simon Pope

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In the Capital of Cool

It’s always difficult visiting a place that’s highly recommended. I know, I know. Barcelona is currently the capital of cool. But frankly, it’s not doing much for me.
For a start, most of it is brand new. Trendy architecture – rusting metal sculpture all over the place – it looks like Birmingham or Milton Keynes. And Gaudi’s famous ‘Temple de la Sagrada Familia’ always looks like something out of a Disney cartoon – all those funny little turrets with curly bits and knobs on, in a sickly brown, diarrhoea colour.

The taxi drivers set whole new standards of rudeness and incompetence, making our London black-cab drivers seem like veritable geniuses. They all seem reluctant to pick anyone up, and then have absolutely no idea of where anywhere is. The IUCN meeting I’m (reluctantly) here for meets in the World International Congress Centre – covers about ten square miles – but have the taxi drivers ever heard of it? In six trips, we’ve gone a different way each time – usually with the driver having to shout across to a pal, or squint at the map I handily produce. You must remember the Fawlty Towers line ‘I must apologise for him – he’s from Barcelona’.

They organised a visit to the zoo before I arrived – apparently there are some good rare species breeding programmes in progress – but sadly, it was at night, and the lights weren’t working. So the learned visitors did the tour in pitch darkness, slightly spoiling the effect.

But what a meeting. Eight thousand visitors and delegates here for a ten-day ego trip and jolly. Hundreds of resolutions are discussed and decided as they were at the previous meeting in Thailand four years ago (I couldn’t afford to go), and Jordan four years before that. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think very much has been achieved in that time – orang-utans are still having their habitat destroyed, tigers are still being poached, Amazon rain-forest still being cut down.

For example, one little effort. Apparently, in Chile, they’re building a cellulose factory on a lake, which happens to be a (highly protected) RAMSAR site. Everybody got into a major tizz, and it was unanimously decided that action must be taken. IUCN wrote a letter to the Chilean President. Wow! I bet that shook him.

So there we are. I’m just here for two days, and the only thing that seemed important was a vote about protecting whales. Predictably the Japanese and Norwegians objected, so it got shelved.

But I suppose we have to keep on trying. The whole thing has cost twelve million Euro apparently, three-quarters of which put up by grateful Spanish taxpayers. The day after Black Friday, you could probably buy Iceland twice over for that. I hope they think they’ve got value for money.

Anyway, this being Barcelona, and to cheer us all up, do you remember the bit with Manuel in Fawlty Towers?

O’Reilly (to Manuel) “I need to speak to the boss, where is he?”
Manuel “Mrs Fawlty, she not here”
O’Reilly “ No, the Boss…… the Chief, the Gaffer, the Guvnor…… the Generalissimo…where is he?”
Manuel (pause, looks nervously about him)) “……in Madrid!”

Jeremy Hulme

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