Yup – freezing cold, peeing down with rain, electricity every second day – it must be July in Ethiopia. To be fair, they even call it their winter, but nothing quite prepares you for the sheer misery of it all.
The mighty Hotel Tommy in Debre Zeit, where we have just spent a luxurious week, doesn’t do hot water, and doesn’t even attempt breakfast on those days when electricity doesn’t make it down the grid.
So we just have to wait ‘til lunchtime for the next portion of Injura. Now there’s something pretty special. It’s the only thing the locals really love. They eat it for breakfast, they eat it for lunch, they eat it for tea. And if at any time they’re feeling a little bit peckish, the cry goes out “Why don’t we just have a little bit of that delicious Injura?”
The only way I can think of describing it to the uninitiated, is to imagine a cold, wet washing-up cloth, rolled up like a Swiss roll. And if you’re rich, you dollop a blob of meat sauce on it, or some raw mince. Mmmm, yummy!
Now to prepare this gastronomic miracle, you have to have Teff.
Teff is a cereal unique to Ethiopia – just can’t imagine why it hasn’t caught on in the rest of the world – and must be one of the lowest yielding and unproductive crops in the history of the world. It yields about ten per cent of what any other crop would do. And to get it in the ground, you plough the field six times with a maresha plough - SIX BLOOMING TIMES!
You do this with a team of oxen, or if they’ve given up the ghost, a couple of donkeys. I suppose that’s where we come in.
There are still something like eight million working animals in the place – though God knows noone’s ever really counted the teaming masses of donkeys – there’s probably twice as many.
These can be seen streaming along the roads into any of the towns, carrying loads of dried cow-pats. They use them for their fires to cook the blinking injura. Amazingly, a farmer with a cow can make more money selling the cow-pats than the milk.
But we’re really more concerned with the horses.
Donks are so tough and resilient, that given even the slightest chance, even just a sniff at a bit of feed, they will cope. They are the hardiest, most stoical creatures on the planet – they need to be.
But with horses, it’s a different ball-game. In the same conditions – poor food, endless work, pitiless heat in the summer, and wet and cold during the winter - horses really don’t cut the mustard.
So that’s what we do. Endlessly. We take a mobile clinic every day to one of the towns in central and southern Ethiopia, and try and help the endless queues of taxi and cart horses waiting for us.
What a job. Not only are most of them skin and bone – they’re covered in scabs and fly-blown harness sores, lame on as many feet as you can see, and a fair number will have an eye missing or a tooth abscess. What a crew.
Then there’s epizootic lymphangitis. This is where flies carry the infection onto an open wound and it gradually develops down the lymph tracks, until the poor wretched creature is a mass of suppurating boils and sores, and abandoned to die beside the road. Lovely.
Yet, when you look at their owners – wizened, starving looking things themselves, that don’t look as if they’ve got the strength to lift a cup of tea, it’s easier to understand. Poverty in their homes and children like I’ve never seen before.
And some of the kindest, gentlest people in the world.
What a country. I just love it.
Jeremy Hulme
Tuesday, 28 July 2009
Ethiopia
Monday, 1 June 2009
Life is a Big Beach in Tunisia
Well, there you go – airborne at last, and homeward bound on the mighty Tunis Air flight 790 – only an hour or so late, but hey, who’s complaining.
Morocco and Tunisia both do a really great line in bored, ‘I was meant for much greater things than this’ young ladies, who, in between yawns, replied vacantly to my enquiries as to why we were late, “Dix minutes en retard”. ("Ten Minutes late..")
Three times.
But as I said, who’s complaining. I certainly didn’t when we turned up at the hotel in Beija, with a fax confirming our reservation, to be told that the hotel was completely full, and they knew nothing of our reservation.
And when we’d finally found a couple of rooms in a dodgy looking ‘bar’ – with lots of strangely-painted girls, looking around them hopefully whilst talking into their mobiles – the shower attatchment in the bath was one of those that refused to be ever turned off, so when switched on, turned into a leaping, soaking, serpent of a thing thrashing around the walls. No matter I said.
The sun was still shining, and the ‘restaurant’ where we ate was showing Manchester United being thrashed by Barcelona. In Arabic. The place was packed of course, so we were given the only available space, right underneath the telly, and spent the next hour with the slightly strange sensation of having a hundred or so chain-smoking Tunisians apparently staring at us, and shrieking whenever Barcelona looked like scoring a goal. Perhaps they’d just put big money on Man Utd to win, or had bought one of their shirts. There are a lot of them about, hanging forlornly in the tourist-tat shops.
Finally, we ended up in the deep south – just on the edge of the beach there. Well, it’s a pretty major beach – stretching about two thousand miles due south to Timbuctou.
We treat the animals in the surrounding oasis – including the donkeys that get dental caries from eating too many dates, and of course the camels that get rolled out for the tourists that rock up here for their ‘desert expeience’.
As we were treating a group of complaining camels for sarcoptic mange - not surprisingly they don’t take injections very kindly – a bunch of French tourists arrived.
All are swathed in Arab cloaks and turban-like headscarves – giving a somewhat incongruous appearance with their trainers and shorts underneath, and the ‘shades’ cigarettes and cans of diet coke. Very cool. The fat ones have to be pushed and shoved into the camel saddles, and then they’re off, lurching into the distance on their ‘one-hour camel-trek’.
Well, perhaps the pretty little chestnut mare who had panicked the night before and kicked a disc plough, severing all the tendons and nerves of her rear, right leg.
Nothing we can do for her, we told the owner.
He just stood with the tears streaming down over his cheeks.
Jeremy Hulme
Monday, 18 May 2009
Back to Morocco
Spending a week in Morocco once again confirms why I love the place for its quirkiness – but also why it can drive people absolutely crazy.
We came for a host of reasons, which involved driving practically the length and breadth of the country – visiting SPANA’s most northerly, and southerly clinics.
Now, anyone who has had any doings with Morocco’s roads, and the unusual style and driving skills of its drivers, will confirm that it is an interesting experience.
I mean, call me old fashioned if you will, but would you expect vehicles, including mule and donkey drawn carts to regularly approach you coming the wrong way down the motorway, passing our astonished stares with nothing more than a cheery waive?
Or to see sheep and cows grazing on the central reservation – after all you wouldn’t want to waste all that lovely grass.
And if you happen to live on the other side of the main (very busy) Casablanca/Rabat motorway , what could possibly be more normal than a mother dispatching her children to run across, dodging the juggernauts, to get to the school on the other side?
But then, you drive down the Casablanca Avenue in Marrakech – it’s mid May – and the Jacarandas lining each side of the street are in their full glory. They create a thick haze of cobalt blue stretching into the far distance.
As we pass a bloke is painting the walls of a house and spills half the paint across the pavement. He doesn’t even notice.
Going up into the mountains the Tamarisk trees are also in full flower, and just for once, after exceptional rains this year, cattle and sheep are lying contentedly it their dappled shade, chewing the cud.
Even the poor old broken-down horses, mules and donkeys waiting stoically in our hospital in Marrakech look a little bit better than normal. Their owners ask pathetically for our help, but sadly there is no miracle injection we can give to make these animals young again.
But we do what we can – especially to try and ease the pain of old wounds and injuries. In that respect, I feel a certain kinship with them. I know old wounds and injuries I thought long since healed, come back to haunt us as we age. At least I feel I can look the trudging, loaded donkeys in the eye now, after trudging myself round the Marathon. And I only had to do it once – and then had to spend a week nursing the blisters.
Still, it did make an impression on the people. They now know that the English are completely mad – shaking their heads in disbelief at the photos of the three of us in our donkey outfits.
But we raised over two thousand pounds at a fundraiser in Tangier, and at the AGM in Rabat last night, people stood to applaud the donors of SPANA in Britain for their generosity.
So, who cares about their unusual driving habits?
Jeremy Hulme
Wednesday, 29 April 2009
I'm Finished.....but perhaps not (Simon's Marathon Blog)
It has to be said I was pretty nervous at the beginning. The wonderful Olivia Belle of Help the Hospices appeared out of nowhere, gave me a hug and wished me good luck. It helped that we were shuffling along next to one of the Save the Rhino International (SRI) costumes - I remember first seeing one of these in the original SRI office near Marble Arch back in 1992 when SRI was just Johnny Roberts and David Stirling. "What are you going to do with this?" I said to David. "Someone's got this rather bonkers idea about running a Marathon it it.." he replied. The awareness created by SRI for what they do by using the costumes in the marathon has been at the back of my mind nearly ever since....but with SPANA the beauty is that the costumes, the straining effort of the weight the donkeys/runners are carrying and the distance they are walking all ties together very neatly.
And then we were off. Although we were at the back, there was still a good crowd as we came through Blackheath, down towards the river and back through Charlton, but by the Cutty Sark it was all beginning to get very quiet. Pedestrians were using the route and as I came out of Greenwich, a long, straight almost deserted road opened up in front of me. The only evidence that a marathon had just swept by was a road covered in squashed jelly babies and discarded carbo gel tubes. And things were closing down - the lorries were out picking up crash barriers and it was difficult to see where they were inside the costume, although you could hear them loudly enough. Water points were packing up, the micro-chip counters rolled away and even the mile counters taken down - it began to get a very lonely experience. But its absolutely true what every participant says about the crowd. I didn't hear one "Come on Donkey!" that wasn't heartfelt, genuine or unappreciative, more so since it had now been some 4 hours since the elite atheletes had passed by. Every pub cheered us on. One, near Tower Bridge, even roared as I stopped to dance to Aretha Franklin's "Respect" which was booming out of loudspeakers - to the amusement (or possibly embarrasment..) of my colleague Jo who was now able with almost empty roads, to walk alongside me. And then once over Tower Bridge, with all the more serious runners coming the other way, all the cheering teams from Shelter, Merlin, and even the runners themsleves (including ex-Eastenders and "The Bill" actress. Lucy Speed..) were clapping and shouting encouragement. This was the best part of the marathon for me...
After this the routes split and with SPANA colleagues Kat and Nicola (who had relieved Jo at Tower Bridge) we headed down into Canary Wharf and the Isle of Dogs - I hadn't been looking forward to this bit, but once again the crowd was amazing, and in a burst of energy brought on by a cocktail of bananas and Lucozade I did 4 miles in about an hour...before I knew it I was facing home!
But then everything went a bit pear shaped. It became almost impossible in places to figure out where the route was. Roads were variously closed, semi-open or wholly opened. Attendant rather vague policemen unhelpfully waved us off empty roads onto busy pavements with the excuse that "We're just about to open it.." and then no traffic came along whatsoever while we battled with uneven paving slabs, traffic lights, bouncing off lamposts, phone boxes and drunk people.
This was all largely forgotten once the friendly sight of Tower Bridge loomed up again along with the return of car-free, closed roads.
And then it nearly all came completely unstuck.
As I headed into the underpass alongside the Thames something smacked into the costume and nearly bowled me over. Somehow I just managed to stay on my feet and instead knocked down and trampled underfoot a very drunk non-English-speaking tourist. All I saw as I continued on my way was a shocked face looking up from the ground which although its owner could speak nothing I could have understood, still spoke volumes - It said "I am a tourist in this country. I have had way too much to drink. And I am now struggling to understand whether I really have just been run over by a donkey."
Another diversion, but only onto the broad Thames-side embankment all the way to Westminster. Alongside Big Ben, across Parliament Square and down Birdcage Walk. With Buckingham Palalce now on my left, a few yards and I'm into the Mall and then a few yards on and I've finished.
Or I'm finished. Or both. More later.
Simon Pope
Sunday, 26 April 2009
We did it!
Only, now it’s not a training blog anymore, but the real McCoy. Well, I wasn’t disappointed – it was just as awful as I’d expected.
Starting with Mr. Plod closing all the roads in London before seven-thirty AM, so we had to get the train. Carrying the donkey heads.
People thought we were going to some abattoir training session.
Then, after getting kitted out in Greenwich Park, it took us nearly three-quarters of an hour to shuffle across the startline. I was knackered before we even got going.
And it’s pretty dull stuff, because I was so slow, everyone had gone off to the pub by the time I got there, and all you can see, wearing all that junk, is just a little square of tarmac - covered with empty water bottles.
Apparently, we passed the Cutty Sark, Tower Bridge, Canary Wharf, Buckingham Palace – me, I saw nothing, just a million plastic bottles.
And let’s just not mention the problems of trying to go to the loo. The Portaloos are not designed for Pack Donkeys. Then at about mile seven, the whole lot fell apart. Nightmare. I had aluminium rods poking into my neck, and all the weight on my head while hips and bum were trailing in the road.
I really thought that was it. The end. Then my daughter’s husband, who happens to be an engineer hove in sight, and with just a bit of pulling and shoving, tying and fixing, sorted it all out.
Then it was just a matter of slogging on. Of course the other two donkeys, aka Simon and Peter were off like whippets – but then I had been chosen especially as being old and worn-out, to represent the worn-out, knackered, geriatric donkeys of Africa and the Third World. A role I was able to take on with no acting ability whatsoever.
Naturally, the BBC weather forecast was totally wrong – overcast with light rain – actually it became the hottest day this year, with a blazing sun on us for the whole run.
But at least that brought out the crowds. A million people on the streets. By about two o’clock, half of them were ratted, and being England, it brought out the best and the worst from people. Lots of people cheering and shouting encouragement – and a few making dodgy jokes about donkey anatomy.
Fortunately Team SPANA realised how knackered I really was, and secretly a group was organised to walk alongside me, beating me with whips and sticks, just like the real thing, whenever I seemed to falter. Actually, they relented occasionally, and gave me drinks of Lucozade and such. But I never ever want to see another blinking Tracker Bar in my life.
What they didn’t realise was that I had secreted away inside the donkey neck a large bottle of gin and tonic – the only thing that really kept me going. Then comes “the Wall”. (Some of you might remember the Jasper Carrot bit about it.) This hits home about eighteen/nineteen miles, when you’re absolutely shattered, and you know you’ve still got miles and miles to go. And you realise how bloody stupid you are to be doing it at all.
Then, after Tower Bridge, the second time, you can just see Big Ben in the distance, and you start to think, ‘I might just make it, after all’. Reeling and staggering, I finally crossed the finishing line in a sizzling, personal best time of ten hours, twelve minutes, five times longer than the winning runner (2hrs05mins). Sores on the sores, blisters on blisters. But, like banging your head against the wall, it’s just great when you stop.
Last thing, and a bit spooky, really:
I had a much loved Uncle, who was killed in the First World War. He had been a marathon runner, and I still have a silver cup he won for it. I imagine he has been looking down at my efforts, and shaking his head sadly.
He was killed in action near Ypres.
On April 26th.
Jeremy Hulme
