This is education in Mali. Eighty children in this classroom - no resources, perhaps only four or five textbooks to go round the whole class.
No wonder they love the SPANA education proramme - they each get a book to keep and take home with them.
(Part of our cunning plan - their brothers and sisters get to read it as well - maybe even their parents).
But everyone seems to think it's great, particularly the Ministry of Education. And of course the main point of it for us is that it introduces the truly revolutionary concept that animals are sentient creatures. We even made a film of it - in Bambara - bound to be a big hit next year in Cannes.
Showing posts with label Mali. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mali. Show all posts
Thursday, 28 October 2010
Education is the key
Monday, 10 August 2009
Progress in Mali
We were away for the only nice week in June in Brit, and then we were in Ethiopia – rained every day, and now Mali. And guess what. Rainy season.
Deluges of the stuff. Flooding the streets and open sewers of Bamako, and running orange-brown torrents off the hills and down into the river
What a river it is too. Over half a mile wide in the city, the swirling pewter-grey mass of water sweeps under the two bridges where the traffic sits permanently gridlocked, belching out its evil clouds of diesel smoke into the damp grey air.
In the backstreets and slums, thousands of little beige donkeys battle to haul the piled-high two wheel carts that carry the city’s rubbish through the mud. Only a few of the main roads have tarmac.
These loads are carried to dumps around the city where the carts are tipped, and then owner and donkey set off for another load. Bizarrely, one of the biggest dumps, we were proudly told was twinned with Bordeaux.
The sad and angry young men who drive them, brutalised by their poverty and misery, wear Air France eye-shades as face masks against the stench and dirt. In summer they are dust bowls, now in the rainy season they’re rat infested, disease ridden swamps. Women and children, who actually live on the dumps, rake through each stinking, filthy load for whatever treasures they can find – God knows what that can be.
So we send our vet teams there, treating the harness wounds, cuts and sores that go with the job – but it’s harder to treat the malnutrition and fatigue – and in one of the paradoxes of Africa, the job has just got harder.
Someone decided that just tipping all the rubbish in the streets was not a good thing. It ought to be taken out and dumped in the poor benighted bush somewhere.
So it needs to go into trucks for the trip.
What a good idea. Even better, there are stacks of countries producing dumper trucks and loaders that they can’t shift at the moment. World wide recession and all that. Sell ‘em cheap to Mali. Keeps the export statistics up.
So now the donkey carts have to struggle up a steep ramp in order to tip into a skip. That last slope is often the final straw for an exhausted animal. If the balance on the cart is wrong sometimes the wretched creature is jack-knifed into the air and left hanging in the traces.
But there’s worse. Because of course the trucks break down and there’s no money for spares – even if they existed. So everyone waits for hours in long queues for a truck that may never arrive. Then when everyone finally loses patience, they just tip the stuff out on the ground like the old days, and then shove off home.
Somebody at SPANA had the bright idea of welding a hinged leg onto one of the shafts. It can be dropped down while the animal is queuing to take the weight off the poor old donk’s back.
In Mali, that’s real progress.
Jeremy Hulme
Friday, 7 November 2008
Next Stop - Mali and Mauritania
Sitting here in the rather charming departure ‘lounge’ of Nouakchott International Airport, Mauritania. There is no attempt at ‘duty free’ – they don’t do booze in Mauritania – except, whisper it not, we found a restaurant (the Salamander, if you’re ever stuck here and looking for somewhere really trendy), that somehow manages to produce beer, and even a little wine – in unmarked bottles.
There is also no air-conditioning, and even though it’s now ten pm, the sun blazing all day on the corrugated tin roof has produced a warmish, somewhat intimate, atmosphere. Of course there is also no attempt at a café or even soft-drinks – probably a good thing , as I’m keen to avoid visiting the rather interesting toilet system – of infamous repute from many earlier visits.
Just as well really, as last week’s visit to Chad and the food there, left a lasting souvenir, let’s just call it a ten-day dieting opportunity. Nice to be going home at last – overnight of course – hitting my beloved Charles De Gaulle airport at five o’clock tomorrow morning, where I believe they are (surprisingly) on strike anyway.
Ah, the joys of flying with Air France.
Because of the little bit of a misunderstanding here a couple of months ago (a coup d’etat – the newly ex-President now resting in chokey), all overseas aid – EU, World Bank, etc has been suspended, and all NGOs have pulled out and gone home.
Except for SPANA, of course.
In fact we’re doing rather well, although I say it myself.
We have a clinic and a mobile team trying to help the sixty thousand plus donkeys (and a few half-crippled horses) that deliver water round the city (they forgot to put in water pipes and drainage when they built the place after independence, fifty-odd years ago).
It’s hardly a well-paid job, as you might imagine – the youngsters who slave over this (and some are still, truly, slaves), live in almost indescribable squalor and misery. The donks are fed a mixture of torn-up cardboard and millet meal.
Recently we’ve been making (locally) a simple set of headcollar and reins and dishing them out free, (over six thousand so far), as up to now they’ve just steered the poor wretched creatures by beating them on one side of the head or other. What a mess of wounds and sores that caused.
So, after a year, it was nice to see a real difference.
Talking of differences, before here I was doing the budget in Mali – but also had time to visit the little ‘Riding for the Handicapped’ centre we run there. Don’t even think of asking how we got into it – but it is fantastic. Generally, children born damaged or handicapped in any way are abandoned. In the countryside many just die, but in Bamako they end up in one of the ‘Orphanages’.
They are fed and watered, but that’s about it. No school – no treatment.
We can help about twenty five of the wee scraps, who come three mornings a week, and ride around a sand-filled yard on two bomb-proof horses. There is also a physiotherapist, and we have toys and desks and paper and crayons, and they all just love it. Their faces light up when they get lifted onto the horse - suddenly they don’t have to look up at everything. It also makes a tremendous difference to their muscle control and co-ordination – after a year or so they’re almost unrecognisable.
But, I suppose due to the financial crisis, the partners we had in funding have pulled out (without warning). It’s not fair for SPANA to have to put in any extra – they’re doing enough already.
But if I can’t find some one or other to help out, I might well be having to tell them they can’t ride on the horses any more. We will have to stop making a difference for those few children.
Jeremy Hulme
Thursday, 31 July 2008
All Tuaregged Out
Finally got back from the desert this evening, and quite frankly I'm all Tuaregged out. We spent the weekend mucking about on camels, and my one - it actually goes by the rather catchy little moniker of Albajaz, did not respond to my overtures in quite the way I felt I could reasonably expect.
After a tolerably civilsed couple of days, I felt he let himself down at the end, by trying to bite me.
I have to say I was disappointed. Only my lightning reactions saved the day. Perhaps he was upset at watching some of his pals receive Ivermectin injections - this despite the Tuareg declaring that injections were bad for you because they drained your strength. But tablets are acceptable, apparently.
At one well we stopped at, word must have gone ahead, and about forty donkeys seemed to materialise out of the sand. Their owners seemed to think it would be ok if they had injections, after all, they're only donkeys. One poor thing arrived with an ear half hanging off. The owner said it was a bite - Amadou said, looking at the cut, it was a bite by a knife. Anyway, after some deliberation, he decided to take the risk of doing field surgery - we'd already seen that the owner had tried to treat it with sump-oil, and sooner or later it was bound to catch on a stick or branch. So the SPANA team went into action. Lots of local anaesthetic, then a long time trying to clean up the mess, before extensive suturing leading to successfully removing the remains of the ear. Anti-biotics and painkillers, then he was up on his feet, and without so much as a thank you, was running off home. But a nice way to finish, before we had to saddle up the camels again.
Then yesterday is probably better glossed over. We started six hours late! Six hours!
I know they didn't want to do what we wanted to do - ie search for the elephants in the Gourma - but the Tuareg method of getting their own way is very frustrating, and exhausting. We had a stunning array of excuses given to us - the originality of which I haven't heard since school.
We had 'neighbours child was ill - had to be taken to hospital' and 'slight car accident - had to take car to police station', then 'couldn't find insurance papers' 'couldn't get any fuel, ice, water etc'. Finally, beaten and demoralized, we just headed off into the desert again - the only place they are truly happy. And I must say the stretch of rolling dunes we ended up in was very beautiful. So we had the campfire, cooked a meal aned then rolled up to sleep in our blankets.
Yes, of course you've guessed it. At four o'clock we were woken by a screaming gale, the sand streaming off the dunes, and hitting us like a sandblaster. But Chris was happy - he got wonderful film until the cameras seized up in protest at the sand-blasting - then we spent the rest of the night huddled in the 4x4 against the driven rain. And then of course the rain gave us problems the next morning, with all the nice flat plains - used as roadways - flooded. We had to dig the damn thing out seven times before we got to Goundam. Perhaps it was not helpful that our driver was much more at home on a camel than a 4x4. Still, we finally made it. And I've 'done' deserts for a bit, thank you very much. Tomorrow, we're off by canoe to see some of the river villages where we have para-vets. And it's the hippo breeding season. When they're at their testiest.
Jeremy Hulme
Monday, 28 July 2008
In Which We Find a Storm...Then Regret it Immediately
Gordon Bennett - what a night! Following right on from 'what a day'!
Yesterday morning we met up with our group of Tuareg - they introduced us to the camels - they even had names, but don't ask me to repeat them, something like 'Idlib'. But I do now know that the Tamasheq for donkey is 'esha', cow 'tess' and camel 'anniss'. There you are. If that comes up in a pub quiz this week, thanks to SPANA, you'll get really good marks.
Anyway, off we went up north, looking for a particular well. Ten camels and seven donks, women and kids on the donks, men (and contrary to what you might imagine, daughters rather than sons riding pillion) and tents and firewood on the camels.
Oh, and us of course.
My job is to film Chris Terrill filming the caravan. I know, I know, very complicated, but I just do as I'm told. As always. But it's not easy, lurching along, trying to keep the camera steady. I got lots of really good bits of the sky, and plenty of the sand, but very little of Chris. Must try harder. We got to the well, filled all the water containers and gave everything a drink, then put up the tents, and someone lit a fire and started cooking a meal.
Meanwhile, we did lots of lying around, wondering if the clouds on the horizon were getting any bigger, and arguing if the wind was getting stronger or weaker. Then, late afternoon, the kids ran off to catch up the livestock, we saddled up and headed off again.
Finally, just as it started to get dark, we stopped and unloaded everything, and people stated lighting fires again. Clearly the idea was to spend the night here. The old boys with us kept saying there was going to be a storm, but we'd got wise to that trick. They've been saying that ever since we arrived. Perhaps we should have taken more notice of the firework display on the horizon - sheet lightning and fork lightning at the same time - pretty impressive. But it looked as if it was passing us by.
Some clot even said they thought it was moving further away. So we took no notice, and just lay on the sand eating our gastronomic experience.
Then it hit us. Like a thunderbolt. Gale force winds blowing sand everywhere, in our eyes, mouths, nose - God knows what it's done to the cameras. And the noise makes it difficult to speak, hear, or even concentrate.
Eventually someone suggested we make for the little school room, on the other side of our particular sand-dune. They are relatively common - one room, walls and roof made of woven matting (the kids just sit on the sand, and can even write in it).
Once inside, it was fairly sand free and, by this time (around mid-night), exhaustion took over, and despite the howling gale (and the snoring) I dropped off to a fitful sleep on the sand (very hard). Then next thing I knew, waking to the sound of rain drumming on the roof. No problem, I thought, they've been coping with this for thousands of years - the weave will expand and become waterproof.
Splat, right on the face.
Next hour, rain pouring in on sad-looking huddled pilgrims trying to doze through the drips and the sopping wet clothes. Ye Gods. There must be easier ways to earn a living. Then at dawn, rain stopped at last, we struggled out, looking like the last five miles of Napoleon's retreat from Moscow, and tried to warm ourselves up catching and worming goats and donkeys.
Don't showbiz people keep saying "the show must go on"?
Jeremy Hulme
Thursday, 24 July 2008
Not Too Old For A Camel Ride - Part II
Emboldened by yesterday's success, I'm having another go. Also, let's be honest, as tomorrow we are starting the big camel trek, judging by what the troops here seem to think of my physical prowess, it might be the last thing I ever write.
The dear Oloulu was an hour late this morning - pretty good time-keeping for him. Then he decided we'd better get some fuel. Then he decided we'd better get some water.
Then finally we left for the bled.
We arrived eventually at some non-descript bit of sand - but it is apparently home to the same group of Tuareg we met last time; Cue lots of dancing and singing round the camels - we have a paravet there and generally look after them. Everyone is in traditional dress, so we are also made to conform.
Much laughter at last visit's photos I'd brought along - 'that can't possibly be our Mohammed, he doesn't really have a crap camel like that' or 'gosh, look at me, doesn't my hair-do look great'.
Also nice to dish out the specs to the oldies. I have cousins in Winnipeg with an aged Dad in an Old People's Home, and as is the way of things, they end up with lots of un-needed pairs of specs. I get the same from my poor old mother's home. So it's great to make good use of them. I bring out a bagfull, and the old and bold rake through them until they finally find something that works. Eureka! They can suddenly see again, perhaps for the first time in twenty years. Then, in the midst of all the jollity, with absolutely no warning at all, my Tuareg trousers fell down. Round the ankles. Finally convincing the tribesmen that these unpredictable English, are really, truly, stark raving mad.
Jeremy Hulme
Wednesday, 23 July 2008
Not Too Old For A Camel Ride
I'm writing this in a cyber cafe opposite the 'grand mosque' in downtown Timbuctou, which frankly, constitutes something of a miracle. Firstly that such things exist in this somewhat out of the way neck of the woods, and secondly, that I have been able to cope with the technology required, and worst of all, trying to type on a French keyboard, and one that is so old, all the letters on the plastic keys have been worn away.
Still, at least we've got here, not the easiest place to get to as there is no proper road, no bridge over the river, and 'planes don't really like to land here as they can't refuel - fuel tankers can't get here.
And not the easiest of starts either - reveille at 4 o'clock, no breakfast, arriving at the airport about five-thirty - too early for the police, immigration people, security etc, so we just went ahead and took off without them. Not quite Heathrow, but then not British Airways either.The airhostess helped us on with the three cameras, then put them in the cockpit with the pilot, so they wouldn't be any inconvenience to us!
Mark you, none of that 'Business Class' stuff.
When we finally arrive, we are met by Uloulu - Tuareg chief for the region, and prime 'fixer'. But sadly he hasn't yet been able to fix the sandstorm we've come all this way to find. Still there's plenty of time yet. And frankly they all think we're completely bonkers anyway - they spend their lives trying to avoid storms - they kill people! Still, we've arranged to hire six camels, and travel with a Tuareg family as they search for water and food for their livestock.
This is the very worst time of the year - the end of the dry season - everything, animals and humans are practically at the end of their tether. Apart from the drought in Northern Kenya two years ago, I've never seen animals look so thin, and starting to see dead livestock everywhere. We drove down to the river to look at someone's cattle - like walking skeletons and even the camels have used up all their fat.
And when you see camels with no humps, you know things are tough.
One small compensation - a hippo had calved in a shallow of the river yesterday, making her doubly dangerous (everybody is terrified of 'les bangas' and the crazy Jeremy who keeps wanting to take the canoe really close to film them). Sweet, watching her immense head loom out of the water warning us off, and then suddenly, little junior popping up to watch at her side.
Also, a bit worrying to hear Amadou and Uloulo muttering together. Turns out they think I'm too old and knackered to spend days on end in the bush on a camel. Bloody cheek!
Jeremy Hulme
Tuesday, 22 July 2008
Arriving in Style
As predicted, the baggage area at the airport was extremely ‘colourful’. And ‘dead ethnic' – as another English traveller once said.
About 35 degrees, a hundred percent humidity, it’s the height of the rainy season, hordes of people, all shouting at each other, battling to get huge trunks and cases onto the three available trolleys.
Not surprisingly, one of our nine boxes was missing – finally after a despairing hour, I saw the towering figure of Dr. Amadou, our director here, fighting his way through the throng. Then, after just the merest bit of shouting at obviously just the right people, the lost box appeared.
Then comes the battle with the customs. Again Amadou saves the day – with just the right mix of yelling, contrition and back-slapping, and the head honcho gets his magic stamp out of the drawer, applies it to our many papers, and Bingo ! (or Voila !, whichever you prefer).
Then all that has to happen is for all the boxes to pass through the x-ray machine.
This used to be the most dangerous job in Mali, as some poor bloke had to actually push it all through by hand. They only used to last about six weeks, but now they’ve installed a motor-driven conveyor belt, and life is easy. So then all that’s needed is a half-hour shouting match with the ‘helpers’, who loaded the boxes onto the belt, over their due payment, and then we’re off. A mere two hours after landing.
This morning, after a few hours much needed sleep, it was off to the police station for the confirmation of our visas (there is unsurprisingly no Malian Embassy in London).
Amazingly easy this time – once they told us it would take a week – then off to meet up with the SPANA team treating animals in one of the city’s poorer districts.
As usual, they are hard at it, with about sixty donks and half a dozen horses. On the whole the donkeys are in pretty good nick – Amadou says it’s not surprising after more than ten years of bullying their owners into looking after them a bit better.
One woman proudly shows me her donkey mare – apparently she’d lost four foals in successive years – salmonella in her milk – then after SPANA’s treatment she at last reared a colt-foal successfully.
She announced loudly she’d therefore called it Amadou. Much falling about with laughter.
Then the heavens opened, the rain came down like stair-rods and a vicious wind tore the leaves from the trees and sent the plastic bags swirling up into the leaden skies.
Rain stopped play.
Jeremy Hulme
Monday, 21 July 2008
Storm Warnings in Mali
Well, here I am, at about 35,000 feet, just finishing my meal in, wait for it, Air France Club Class. Now, before you get all upset and hair-shirtish, and rush off to complain to the Charity Commission, I must insist, that SPANA has not paid a penny for all this. So, I have just finished my ‘garantit ce repas sans viande de porc’ and endured the cultural and culinary disaster of having the cheese BEFORE the dessert (no wonder the French colonies rebelled so violently) – let me explain.
ITV (or award-winning film-maker Chris Terrill to be precise) are making a series of films on ‘storms’.
They’ve already done tornados in Kansas, white-outs in Norway, gales in the southern oceans, now they want to do sand-storms in the Sahara.
So who better to contact than SPANA? And as they will also show us working with the Tuareg, training para-vets and looking after their herds of camels, sheep and goats (pretty impressive free publicity) – and as I said earlier – paying for it all, how could I say ‘no’ ?
But it’s no holiday. Five O’clock start this morning, dragging seventy kilos of baggage (yes, how could we not take advantage of the opportunity of taking stacks of medicines and goodies out with us ?), across London to Heathrow. Then, when film-maker Chris Terrill finally arrived, he had seven boxes of filming equipment!
Air France, having weighed and labelled all the stuff, suddenly decided that they had a rule that only three pieces of baggage were allowed per person.
So off it all came again.
Then after frantic phone calls, and offers of bucket loads of money, they decided it ‘might be possible’ after all. So, all the boxes got weighed and labelled a second time.
Then they all had to be taken off again. Wrong shapes and sizes.
Finally we waved goodbye to them, at ‘special bagage’. By this time we only had about ten minutes to get through the traumas of ‘security’, and run to the boarding gate and get on the plane – just to find someone already in my seat.
But did I complain? Very much aware of the ‘Entente Cordiale’, I just said ‘n’importe quoi’ to the very large Malian lady, and found somewhere else.
Now the trick in Charles de Gaulle Airport, is not minding very much if your luggage doesn’t make it ‘en correspondance’ to the onwards flight. Or maybe it’s just with the flights from England, a sort of revenge for Agincourt or Waterloo or whatever.
But when I asked at the Bamako check-in desk, if our luggage had made it across, she replied ‘Biensur, monsieur, - and by the way, you ‘ave been up-graded’.
Zut alors!
But not my chum from ITV. So after some pretty feeble protestations, that, er, by right he should have the exalted position, here I am. Can’t think why,
Maybe they think I’m some sort of trouble-maker.!
What fun it’s going to be getting all those boxes through the customs in Bamako.
Jeremy Hulme
Wednesday, 13 February 2008
Mali and Paris - February 2008
Somebody once said ‘It’s a wonderful thing travel, it confirms all your prejudices'. Certainly, at five o’clock in the morning, on a freezing Sunday pre-dawn, I know exactly what they mean. Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris is far and away the worst airport in the world – and that’s up against some pretty stiff opposition – including gems like Heathrow, Algiers and not to mention Nouakchott, Mauritania.
I’m sitting writing this in Terminal ‘E’, after arriving over an hour and a half ago – there was only one bus to unload the whole plane, so we waited twenty minutes to get off, then were bussed for another twenty minutes around the airfield, waving at terminal ‘E’ as we whizzed past the first time, before being dropped at terminal ‘F’.
There a couple of nice secret policemen checked all our passports in case we were trying to invade France illegally. Then we tried to make our way back to ‘E’, being told (gleefully), that the navettes (connecting buses) were probably on strike this morning – having a little go at Sarko and his new bride. Eventually we were dumped at the end of a cold, damp, grey concrete tunnel, to fight our way up and through the next security screen into the mythical Terminal ‘E’.
It all seemed a long way away from north Mali, forty-eight hours earlier. We were doing a check (following a formal evaluation) of the Para-Vet project around Tombuctou and Gao that we started about ten years ago.
There had been a long and bloody civil war between the Tuareg, ‘Arab’ nomads in the north – and the black, West African Malian government based in Bamako.
The UN persuaded the Tuareg to accept a peace deal, and in return they were to get some health-care, a few schools and some veterinary input. SPANA was already established in Mali, so we were asked if we could help.
Over the years since then we’ve trained over fifty of the local tribesmen – they all had to be registered ex-terrorists - provided them with an initial ‘bank’ of basic veterinary
Medicines, established a price scale with the people, and set them going. We still do free prophylactic treatment for the donkeys and camels and follow-up training courses, but apart from that the whole thing is self-sustainable. Of course there have been a few disasters, and unsurprisingly some of the men are better and more dynamic than others, but in general it’s made a big difference to the people of the desert, and along the river, who are totally dependent on their livestock.
This time, we first went to see a Tuareg camp, away up in the sand dunes north of Tomuctou. We had a film producer with us wanting to make a series about Working Animals. After worming some of the camels (they suffer quite badly from mange), we were eating the obligatory goat together, when Mr. BBC asked the Tuareg headman, if the camels were important to him.
He looked at me in amazement. Was this stupid foreigner completely mad?
‘Of course we can’t live without them. Most days we just have camel milk and yoghurt to eat. Any grain has to be transported back on them from town. We ride them up deep into the Sahara to bring back salt. They are our transport when we move camp, carry water, gather firewood, or if one of the women is sick. Then when they are too old we eat them. Without them there can be no Tuareg’.
I wish I could say the same about Air France.
Jeremy Hulme
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