Writing this at about 36,000 feet flying across southern Sudan – about 4 am UK time – courtesy of the magnificent BMI (Used to be British Midland, now 80% owned by Lufthansa).
Frankly it’s pretty grim – only one toilet working for 120 people and half the televisions not working. It was exactly the same on the way out here on Sunday night, so they’ve made absolutely no progress in the ensuing five days. (I wonder if the engineers take as much notice about engine problems).
But it’s all getting a bit predictable, isn’t it – if I’m not moaning about BMI, it’s likely to be my dear friends at Air France, or even Air Mauritanie. It’s all become a sort of ‘Mr Grumpy does air-travel in Africa’. But at least when you get to Ethiopia life cheers up a bit.
It really is wonderful.
Apart from the injura, obviously. (That’s the Ethiopian staple diet, made from tef, a cereal unique to the country, and served up in a sort of swiss-roll, that looks and tastes just like one of the ‘refreshment’ towels served up by air-lines).
We run a couple of mobile clinics, treating the horses that are used as taxis and general haulage in most towns across the country. The state of some of these animals has to be seen to be believed – but of course the owners that depend on them are not much better. Nice to report we’ve had some real success over the last couple of years with one particularly evil disease – epizootic lymphangitis – where septic abscesses burst out all over the poor wretched creature’s head and body leading to a long agonising death.
They would be abandoned and left by the roadside – in abject pain and misery, waiting for the end – which could take days or even weeks. We managed to get the municipal authorities to support us when we take these animals and put them out of their misery (in the past, an ‘owner’ would materialise out of the soil and demand immense sums of compensation).
So, no more of that rubbish now, and not only are we able to put a humane end to their suffering, but doing so cuts down the rate of infection to other animals – which anyway (provided treatment starts early enough) we have a good chance of curing.
And it has made a huge difference – which boosts everbody's morale.
We also have a great little education programme, where we built science classrooms in three schools – they have almost nothing normally – eighty kids in a class, no books, no teaching materials – but boy, do they want to learn things. So we have a series of lessons in animal husbandry, welfare etc, and they are fighting to get on the courses (we can only do fifty at a time). I don’t remember that enthusiasm, when long ago, I was facing double maths on a Thursday afternoon.
One of the schools is up in the highlands, and the trip there is always stunning. Especially so this year because they’ve had good rains and the crops are just starting to be harvested. Doesn’t seem to stop food aid though – WFP is still doshing out 40kg of wheat per family per month. A very mixed blessing really – not only does it keep everyone ‘dependent’ – it also destroys the sale value of any surplus the local farmers produce. How are they supposed to raise spare cash to buy shoes for their kids ?
It will be interesting to see whether it carries on when the harvest is al cut and carried.
Jeremy Hulme
Friday, 14 November 2008
Ethiopia
Friday, 19 September 2008
Tunisia
And if you want to know why there is a picture of an Ostrich here, you'll just have to read on...!
Hate to say anything good about Air France, but we actually managed to stage through Paris and arrived in Tunis, more or less on time, and with nearly all our luggage. There is now no way you can fly anywhere in North or West Africa by British Airways – really thoughtful business strategy that – for example now there’s three planefulls of Brits every day, direct to Marrakech, and Willie Walsh doesn’t think there’s any money in that.
From the man who organised the flawless opening of Terminal Five? Well, anyway, there it is, so Air France it has to be.
And Tunis is still 35 degrees even in the night, and of course deep into Ramadan, just to remind any non-muslims, that means not eating or drinking during the hours of daylight. Not drinking, even when it’s forty degrees plus at mid-day. So a certain degree of discomfort for all and sundry.
After doing the budget, and visiting the Education Bus – entertaining (and at the same time teaching) kids at the cultural centre in town during the summer holidays, we set off on the road north-east to Bou-salem.
This is the road the British Army fought its way down against the Deutsche Afrika Korps. All along the road are little green signs indicating Commonwealth War Graves cemeteries.
Immaculately kept, they chart the battles against General Von Arnim and the heavy price that had to be paid in young men’s lives. There are many graves of Black Watch soldiers, my old outfit, all the more tragic by the simple inscriptions on the plain stones - ‘Our only child’, ‘Farewell Daddy’, or ‘Aged 18 years’. And all killed in the last days of April and early May 1943 – it was all over on May the 8th.
Now, they really did have a degree of discomfort.
All a bit humbling and deflating as we continued visiting our three centres in the country. Bou-salem in the north, Kasserine in the dry, bleak middle, and Kebili down on the edge of the Sahara in the south.
We built a little hospital there in the sand of the palmerie – just half a dozen stables, and a classroom over the top of the surgery. And a pond of course – and boy, you should see the colours of the dragonflies. Oh, I nearly forgot, two ostriches as well. And before you ask, no, I’ve no idea how we end up with two ostriches. But I bet the eggs make a hell of a big omelette.
What a place this is. In the hotel we stay in in Douz, a village about ten miles further south, you look out of the window, across a little road, and that’s it. Sand. Miles and miles and miles of it. About two thousand in fact, of wonderful, rolling dunes before you hit the Niger River (remember that?) on the other side. Some beach.
And lots and lots of camels.
But of course all this comes at a price. Tourists. Thousands of them.
Working with the mobile clinic amongst the camels (mostly treating them for mange), we watch as streams of tourists – usually Italian or French, stream by for their ‘desert experience’. They appear to have to wear a brightly coloured tea-towel wrapped around their heads, and a stripy sort of cloak thing - makes them look like convicts on a chain gang. One can only imagine it’s meant to make them look like some kind of Arab warrior. But as most of them are fat, wearing trainers, baseball caps (yes, under the tea-towel), and smoking or chewing gum – it somewhat fails to capture the desired romance and mystery.
Oh, what a piece of work is man!
Jeremy Hulme
Monday, 21 April 2008
Jordan & Syria
Yet look north, across the Syrian border and there are fields of green, orchards and market gardens, before crossing the long sandy coast-line and out over the Mediterranean Sea.
On the ground it is even more striking. There are huge fertile plains around Damascus, along the coast, and in the northern half of the country – we drove past irrigated crops of cotton, tobacco, wheat and barley. Sleek fat Friesian cows graze in long grass beside the road. Bedouin shepherds tend their sheep (the lead sheep is in fact a donkey, who the herd follows wherever he goes).
There is oil and gas, minerals under the soil, and a long coast-line for fishing and tourism. In contrast Jordan has almost nothing – no gas or oil, no coast apart from its port at Aqaba, and so little rain that most of the country is parched desert.
Yet Jordan’s standard of living is about three times higher than Syria.
Investment finance pours into Jordan from the Arab world as well as the west - Jordan’s position as trusted ally of the US has given it a huge economic advantage, but of course at a price. The hated Bush/Blair partnership, makes Jordan a target for Islamic extremists, and the authorities have to be constantly on their guard.
We held a prize-giving for the three hundred animal clubs we have set up in schools all over the country. Princess San’a gave the prizes, Lord Newall, SPANA’s President, and the Minister of Education made speeches, and the children performed songs, dances and plays. Sadly, the British Embassy in Amman was too busy to send a representative.
Meanwhile in Syria, things are not quite the same. We spent a couple of days in the coastal resort of Tartous – ‘Jewel of Western Syria’. Well, not exactly.
The seafront is a five mile stretch of rubble. The city’s sewage system empties directly onto the ‘beaches’. Rusting boats and laid-up tankers sit rotting just offshore. Litter and rubbish clog the open waterways through the town.
Yet at the Education Centre up in the hills above the city, a group of biology teachers listen raptly as Diana gives them new ideas for teaching children. We are struggling to introduce the idea of empathy – difficult in any culture. Yet here, there is an almost overwhelming eagerness to try new concepts and ideas – and a welcome and friendliness to us as outsiders that is truly humbling. My stumbling Arabic is gleefully applauded.
SPANA is probably the only British Charity working in Syria. Sadly, the British Embassy in Damascus were too busy to help in any way.
It’s difficult to pin down, but despite all the obvious problems, there is something very special about Syria and its people.
Jeremy Hulme
