Is it just me, or is it hot in here?

International ponderings (ha!)

2009-10-08T17:26:00.000+01:00

One of the reasons for my recent silence on this forum is that I have been in Afghanistan since January and have not been sure how to really write about that. Another is things like this in my head:

It seems I started to write a blog story a month or so back (I have no recollection). This is how far I got:

International Ponderings

1. A

Pretty much sums it up I think. With genius analysis like this around, is it any wonder that all is marvellous in the world?

Back to the UK - efficiency, sophistication. I think not

2009-02-07T12:00:00.092Z

When abroad. And particularly when working in development abroad, I think back to the UK as a haven of efficiency, of achievement, a place which has gone though "development" and can now afford to send its people abroad to teach others how to do it.

I spent a lovely month back in the UK for xmas and new year before heading of for my next jaunt (more about that later). It was a wonderful period full of good food, good people and good times. Never before, I think have I enjoyed what the UK has to offer so much - the places to go, the ease of travel, the memories of old times. On the other hand, never before have I been so disappointed by so many aspects of life in the UK. With no exaggeration whatsoever, I felt more frustrated by inept processes and threatened in the UK for that short spell than I have at any time over the past two years. What has happened people?

I don't want this blog to be a rant, so lets start from the beginning. Anyone who has been away for a reasonable period of time will tell you that adjusting to life back in the UK is tricky. I'm not necessarily referring to people who do what I did and work abroad, but anyone who has been travelling for a few months etc. What most people I know find is that they become frustrated by what they perceive as the stagnancy of life at home since they have been away. The same people are in the same pubs, drinking the same drinks, having the same conversations. It used to really frustrate me too - I had seen so much of what was to offer, why are people not doing the same? Too many questions. The thing is, I have found on my last couple of trips home that this whole process has been completely turned on its head for me. The exact things which frustrated me so before are now the things that make home feel like home and the fact that I know the same people will be in the same pubs having the same conversations is a great great comfort to me. It gives some stability in my otherwise volatile existence.

Which is partly why these changes I saw recently were so disturbing. I shall now give the executive summary for three stories which happened in the space of a couple of weeks:

1. Small company can't be bothered
I ordered some soccer shirts of the nations of the various countries I had just travlled through (very creative, I hear you say. Well I am available for other gift advice). The on-line (alarm bells) retailer was not one I had come across before, but seemed reputable enough. Bank transaction went through very speedily indeed (doesn't it always when they are taking the money?)and the shirts arrived well in advance of the December 24th panic buying spree.

The problem arose when I saw that one of the shirts (Angola if you must know)was an old version which cost half the price of the version I ordered. No big deal. Honest mistake etc. Cue email to the tune that there seemed to have been a mistake, but I don;t mind that I had the 06-07 shirt rather than 07-08, but did mind the £20 difference. No reply. Ok, its xmas. Busy time. Second email sent a week or so later. No reply again. And third. Eventually a reply came. One line "We didn't actually have stock of the 06-07 shirt, are you sure there hasn't been an error?"

Yes. Yes. Quite sure. Photos then sent of the received shirt vs ordered shirt. No reply. I gave up three or four emails after that.

2. Big bank too distracted in making more money than doing job
Being prepared for another stint abroad, it seemed prudent to order some new bank cards. For some reason unbeknownst to anybody except possibly the bank owner (lets call him Mr Herbert Samuel Bartholemew Cardigan) I could only order one of the cards in branch, the other by telephone. In branch I was offered an upgrade to a different account ("at a rate of just £12.99 per month, sir. You get face to face meetings with a financial advisor" "In Afghanistan?" "Errm, no sir. But travel insurance is included also" "For Afghanistan?" "I'd have to look into that, sir"). On the phone I was offered protection for my card ("like condoms?" "No, sir").

Long story short. Both branch and phone forgot to order cards. A week before my departure and getting twitchy again I ordered again. One out of two arrived this time (branch wins). Frantic phone calls ensue and I have to wait in all day the day before I go to Afghanistan for the card to arrive by special courier. The card doesn't arrive by courier. Phonecall: - "we sent it today by first class mail, sir. It will be with you in 3 to 5 working days. Have a nice day sir"

3. Horsforth is more dangerous than Kabul. The end
Night out for new year. Fights. Threats. Intimidation. Glassing. Police. More fights. Women throwing bottles. Get me to Afghanistan, please.

I'm not naive. Of course I'm not. These things aren't new. Small businesses have and will always take the money then stall. Big businesses always "sell first, please later". And women in Horsforth always throw bottles into crowds of fighting people. For some reason it just stung a bit more this time than before.

That being said I did find time in the UK to discover pear cider, the ipod touch, the wondrous comfort (and timekeeping) of national express coaches and the capacity of my stomach to eat brandy sauces in a day. So in balance, I'd say that in the wise words on Arnold Schwarzenegger: "Please vote for me as Governor of California" (or, alternatively, "I'll be back")

So now I wander again. Those more on the ball may have picked up on the numerous references to Afghanistan. I wasn't using them to be ironic. I'm going there. Soon. I'll try to let you know how it goes.

Mali - laiM on the road, but then again, not so.

2008-12-22T09:28:00.000Z

Six weeks of intensive, gruelling travel on public transport through West Africa and I think it is fair to say I now know a thing or two about bus services in this continent. I know, for instance, that a country with tar roads running throughout it should mean that you will get places quicker and smoother. It will also mean less wear and tear on smoother roads, dramatically reducing your chances of breaking down. I also know that western style long coaches, particularly those that look shiny and new, advertise air conditioning and run to a vague timetable rather than the usual African “leave once we are full” timetable, all suggest a more joyous, comfortable and reliable travel experience. Mali, we heard, had all of these features and how we were looking forward to utilising them.

How wrong we were…

24 hours our first journey took. To get 600km. Straight. On tar. Those astute mathematicians amongst you will have calculated that at an average speed of 25 kph. Christ. The causes for these delays were plentiful: breakdowns, police checkpoints, said police at checkpoints watching a football match, the driver stopping to sleep, the driver stopping to chat to his mates, the driver stopping to have a cup of coffee, and another. The list goes on. Despite my experiences of the past few weeks, and knowing how painfully long seemingly simple journeys take in Africa, this one just wrangled that little bit more. Rose managed to stay sane, mostly by laughing at my growing impatience, irritation and irrationalization. Which helped.

In spite of this start and a couple of shorter trips evolving almost seamlessly into medium sized ones, I still failed to believe the information that it would take 48 hours to go from Bamako to Dakar. How was that possible? Yes the first journey took 24, but that was on a pretty rickety vehicle from a border town to a second town. This new journey was a different league – capital to capital, on a coach I had seen with my own eyes and had greyhound/national express proportions. Surely this was gonna be a breeze? Surely fate was going to deliver us a merciful final leg for me and not throw up any unplanned deviations into the jungle, no unexpected 15km treks with our baggage, no rebels, no overzealous border guards, no loss of baggage, life or plot. Surely just a simple and smooth departure of Mali, straightforward crossing into Senegal followed by a mellow cruise to Dakar. What could be easier? Surely? Surely not…

The first hour went well. I won’t prattle on with the full 56 hours of the journey soon to become known as this effing journey. Suffice to say the two guys in front of us who were smuggling whatever they were smuggling eventually managed to pay enough to the police that they didn’t spend too long around their baggage, the driver did eventually realize that yes: 17 breakdowns in the first five hours is sufficient justification to get a new coach, I ascertained a number of times that no: I’m definitely not from Algeria and, woo hoo, we finally made it to Dakar.

Mali itself was pretty good. I posted some Mail, ate some meat that was particularly laMi and did not get il, Ma. Apologies, couldn’t resist – laiM I know.

It proved the first opportunity to do proper, proper tourist things. And mix with proper, proper tourists. Even of they didn’t especially want to mix with us. The thing with travellers in these sort of places – slightly off the beaten track, but still a bit touristy, is that everyone wants to discover their own thing in their own space and get away from home. Having not seen many other people for a couple of months, all Rose and I wanted to do was discover these things with other people and talk about home. What we did do was take a breathtaking 2 day trek through the dogon country – where houses are built into the cliff sides, outpacing our guide on a number of occasions, and also visit the mud mosque at Djenne, with market to boot – quite simply, quite stunning.

Burkina Faso - you little beauty

2008-12-18T11:14:00.000Z

The sound of distant drumming intertwined with the atmospheric Islamic calls to prayer booming out of over cities country wide. Colourful street merchants approach, trying to sell their wares, but back away quickly when you give a polite shake of the head. "Tranquil", they say - "easy". And it sums up Burkina Faso to a tee. This is the place we had been waiting for. This was Africa in the raw, but tamed, accessible, beautiful. And easy.

All I can say is go there. Now. Seriously, right now, open a new page on the internet and look up flights. Better yet, go to you nearest travel agents and start to enjoy your Burkina experience already by watching them try to spell Ouagadougou.

If you have never heard of Burkina Faso, I don't blame you. To be honest, outside of the Trivial Pursuit question "In which continent may you meet Bikinied Fatsos in Burkina Faso?", I hadn't really either. Who could honestly have told me one fact about the country before you started reading this?

Burkina is one of of those places where no one thing stands out - there are no major tourist sites, it has rarely made international news, landlocked, dwarfed by surrounding countries. Yet therein lays its appeal - the mystery of the unknown.

Rather feebly, I'm going to squirm out of writing any more about the country to "maintain the air of mystery" for when you do get there. Happy travels.

Togo - decisions, decisions

2008-12-10T14:13:00.000Z

Togo presented a bit of a conundrum. Desperate to stop somewhere, anywhere for a reasonably extended period of time (two nights in the same bed would be handy), we really wanted to explore this place. Yet time was looming and we knew we had bigger fish we wanted to fry in Burkina Faso and Mali before I jetted home for xmas. It left the unenviable decision of whether to crack on and, once again, whip through a country without fully exploring it, or whether to take a few days well earned rest for rest's sake. In the end the decision to move on was kind of made for us by unfortunate time schedules and limited visa days.

Given my limitations of exciting stories to regale about Togo, I am therefore goping to tell you about our bags or "two big bags and a bucket" as we are often described. Packing our bags has become both a skill and an artform. Like one of those wooden 3D jigsaw things hich I will no doubt be toying over on xmas day, every item has its exact place in each of our bags. When we went to clmb Mount Cameroon, Rose and I tried to combine what we needed into one bag and leave the rest of our stuff behind in the other. There was nothing new to carry, yet BOTH of our bag doubled in size. It simply wouldn't all fit in. Mine wouldn't zip up and Rose's rucksack had to be expaded so high, that a gentle blow would tip you over, let alone the winds at 4000M.

Not only has packing become mastered, but we are now so speedy that the SAS would be give a run for their money in abandoning camp and leaving without a trace. The bus to Togo demanded a fifteen minute turn around and we were ready in ten.

Who says travel teaches you nothing?

Togo is essentially a wafer. Not in so much that it goes well with icecream (which I have no doubt it would), but more in the fact that when you bite into it and realize how thin it is you think "pah. Its hardly worth it", but then you continue to eat and realize that what it lacks in width, it makes up for in length and is actually quite filling. It took less time to cross the country tha it used to take me to drive to Oshakati to do my weekly shopping. But then it took an epic coach journey (made more epic by full blast dance music through the night), to scale from South to North. Go figure.

And that really is just about all there is to say about that. We had a beer at the lake. We had a beer in Lomé. We met more travellers than the rest of the trip combined (4), and then we got on a bus and left.

Benin - first impressions last.

2008-12-10T10:42:00.000Z

On the whole our border crossings throughout this trip have been problem free, bribe free and speedy. That was all about to change. As we approached the Nigeria/Benin border in our taxi, an ominous difficult air started to rise. Firstly was the row of police officers trying to stop cars with stingers just so they could claim their bribe. As our driver deftly weaved in and out of these, we stopped momentarilty for two passengers to get out. We were swarmed. Breaking through the swathes of people, we finally arrived at our Nigeria exit and worst fear - a row of eight or ten tables of "officials" all wanting a pay off to let us through. Most seemed to have defunct jobs - pretending to be official by having a piece of paper and writing details before demanding a fee. Tired, frustrated and a little bit lighter in the pocket (we actually caught on quite quickly to the ploy and stormed through all but one post and the stamping station) we finally wrestled free of Nigeria and into the calm of Benin. Or so we thought.

The Beninnoise officials seem to be taking a leaf out of their Nigerian counterparts. Hoping for a 48 hour transit visa, we were given an exorbitant price, told that they had run out of visas, told to return to Nigeria, left to wait for a couple of hours, and passage offered for just one person (quite what the other was to do, I'm still not sure). After a lot of waiting and the eventual admittance of the officials that they were just looking for "coke money", we secured our 48 hours in Benin. The two passengers who had got off in Nigeria also mysteriously reappeared. Crossing the border was possible in more than one way, it would seem.

The trouble was, that experience kind of left a bitter taste in the mouth. Also unsure as to whern the 48 hours strats and finishes and not wanting to pay for cool drinks for all officials in Benin, we darted from West to East, with just one overnight.

And a lovely night it was too. Ouidah, a former slave post and voodoo centre on the coast seemed both stunning and very interesting. Benin as a whole, in fact, did not look dissimilar. It all went a bit too quick for my liking and the opportunity to laze a few days on the beaches disappeared as fast as our money did when we entered. Sad. But it leaves plenty of opportunities fotr Togo and Burkina, our next destinations, to excel.

Nigeria

2008-12-01T18:29:00.001Z

The Lonely Planet guide to Africa says that Nigeria "has a bad reputtion". The only two people we have met so far on our travels who had come through Nigeria effectively told us to "run like the wind and not look back".

Exactly four days after entering Nigeria in Calabar, on the South East Cost, we were stood at the border with Benin on the West, alive, well and unscathed.

In our haste to cross the country in record time (and avoid being mistaken for oil workers), we saw only two cities - Calabar and Lagos - and the countryside which whizzed by inbetween. That doesn't give a huge opportuntiy to get a well rounded, balanced view of the country. But since when have I ever been well rounded or balanced?

My findings on Nigeria can be nicely analoginalized (is this the verb for making an analogy? If not, why not?) in our bus journey between the two cities. Firstly, we got there. There were times on that journey where that seemed a distint unlikelyhood, but we did arrive safely in Lagos. As we did on the other side of Nigeria.

The journey started well. We were organised into our seats according to our ticket numbers. Imagine. Six weeks spent in free-for-all mode and suddenly we were lining up, single file, to board. Nigeria, it seemed, was trying to organise the unorganisable. And then our first taste of air conditioning. Crammed in like sardines we may have been, but Nigeria was making stifled attempts to add a bit of class. Driving out of Calabar, the Christian preaching commenced - songs, sermons and individual thanksgiving time. This echoed Southern Nigeria to a tee. Religious paraphanalia is everywhere. Whether it is exaggerated because of the muslim dominated north, or whether Nigerian people have taken Evangelicalism to new levels simply out of their own choice, I don`t know. The prayers on the bus asking God to aid the driver to take us safely to Lagos did seem to get heard, however. I can only say it must have been divine intervention which delivered us in Lagos, because the roads were chaos. Dual carriageway most of the way, there has clearly been a great deal of infrastructure planning building done here. Alas, the roads have all but disintegrated and now drivers weave inbetween potholes at upwards of 120kph. On either side of the carriageway. Yep. The central reservation has been knocked down at all to frequent intervals and cars will merrily cross from one side to the other to choose the "path of least resistance".

Yet, the underlying positive in all of this were the people. Nigerians, I would say, have been the warmest nd most welcoming of all the people on the trip so far. Beaming smiles, open handshakes and gentle inquisitiveness, thesewere not the people I was expecting and it was a wonderfully welcome surprise.

Lagos itself proved the smog-filled, chaos were were expecting, though did throw in a couple of nice surprises - The new Bond film and a "White House Pancake Breakfast Extravaganza"; and a couple of reminders that all is not pearly white - overzealous officials and a nights stay in a brothel.

All in all Nigeria had proven eventful, some might say fruitful, and I was left with the niggling feeling that I may just have missed out on something good.

Cameroon - a bit of a mixed bag

2008-12-01T17:20:00.000Z

Its difficult to know where to start writing about Cameroon. In our minds, this was our Mecca, our haven between the enjoyable, but grinding world from where we had come and the impending, inevitable arrival of our next foe - Nigeria.

I would love to say that Cameroon realized the mothering role which we were hoping from her and embraced us with a big warm blanket and allowed us to suckle on her teat for a few days to gain a bit of strength, before burping us gently and sending us out into the big bad world of West Africa. I'd love to say this, but, alas, it didn't. Instead, we found oursleves huddled on the step of a shoddy backpackers in Yaoundé at 3.30 am being attacked by mosquitos and reeling over the ten police checks which had been imposed on us in the preceeding eight hours of travel. Whilst there were weakened attempts at offering us the respite we were needing: an unexpectedly easy Nigerian visa, an eye poppingly well stocked 24 hour bakery just down the road in Yaoundé, fresh seafood in Limbé on the coast and the opportunity to summit the iposing Mount Cameroon; these really masked the slight disappointment I found with Cameroon and its people.

Yet it all started so well. At least once per tropical travels, I find the need to mistakenly buy a bunch of plantains thinking they are bananas. This usually incurs the pointing and laughing of local people as I try to peel back the solid skin and bite into the raw fruit inside. Cameroon was no different: on a bus break from the border I set about my thankless fruit task and the people stood around and laughed. yet then, something completely unexpected happened: someone disappered off into the market and brought me back a real bunch of bananas, declining my offer of money. The Cameroonians appeared so confident and open compared to the Congolese and Angolans and on this evidence, incredibly generous. Alas, this was to be one of the few occasions of Cameroonian hospitality. There seemed so much on offer in the country, yet no matter how hard I tried, I found I could not warm to its people. Money was on everyone's minds and the pinnacle came in a shared taxi when a fellow passenger asked me to pay her for getting out onto the pavement so that I could get out! It wasn't said with a hint of cheekiness or even hope, just a full expectation that I would pay her.

The few days towards the end, particularly the ascent of Mount Cameroon, were splendid and the Cameoonian guides and porters were excellent with a touch of sarcastic humour I don't usually relate with Africa. Walking through hills overflowing with long grasses took me right back to the Yorkshire Dales (though, thankfully, walking through the ash laden lava flows of the 2000 eruptions did not resemble Ribblesdale, beautiful though they were), as did the stiff breezes and need for woolly jumpers when we reached the summit (4090m). My gorging of all the seafood I could find in Limbé also went a long way to appeasing the

I hope I am wrong. I was only there a matter of days and so please, please don't judge a country just on what I write. Perhaps it is a telling sign of places to come which have had much more contact with tourists, without doubt there was and element of rural/urban differences with people much more welcoming and genuine in the rural areas, or perhaps we expected too much from our haven.

Gabon - the next one which, errm, got away

2008-11-24T16:41:00.000Z

Anyone who knows Rose or myself knows that neither of us are great planners. Sometime in July, a few months before our trip was due to begin a mutual friend happened to speak to both of us within the period of a few days. Both of us has clearly put responsibility of the other one to make the plans and both of us were certain that the other was doing it, it transpired.

When we met in Windhoek, just a matter of days before departure, and in between ever more frantic visits to the Angolan embassy to secure our visa, we finally managed to set in stone our one and only certainty of the trip - we would visit Gabon. "We have to see the lowland gorillas", said Rose "and Gabon sounds like the best place to do it". "Gabon." I replied, in complete agreement, "its a plan".

It was somewhat of a surprise, therefore, when we failed to turn left in the Congo, instead continuing north on our pleasure cruise towards Cameroon. There was method to our madness, however, and that method was the opportunity to see one of only two groups of habituated gorillas in the world. Those few days proved to be a veritable feast of jungle excitement and a whole lot of learning about the fascinating world of gorillas and the people who research them.

If, like me, the phrase "habituated" throws out for you images of gorillas living in a neat house, with freshly cut grass, the smell of baking coming out of the kitchen and the kids playing on the swings in the back garden, think again. Habituation means that the gorillas allow people to get close to them and not bother them. In order to do this, the researchers and guides have had to go through a two year process which staggers the mind. There is a multiple step process of behaviours which the gorillas go through before finally accepting that these pesky people are colming every day, whether they like it or not, so there no point in worrying about it really. The first few of these stages, needless to say, involve agression. The researchers just have to stand, unflinching, as the gorillas roar, charge, chest beat and even take swings at their visitors. Having seen the size of these fellas up close and heard some of them roar, I doff my hat to each and every one of those brave people who go through that on a daily basis.

The group themselves, and a non-habituated group which we were very fortunate to see in one of the jungle clearings, were nothing short of incredible (a group consists of one adult male, a few adult females and their offspring). Cliché though it sounds, it was a real pleasure to observe their human-like features, behaviours and interactions.

If this wasn`t enough, the trip also threw in our first beds in two weeks, desperately needed clothes washing, a marvellous evening of wine and stew with Hannah, the English director of the park and her Congolese co-worker, Patrick, and the small matter of being shocked by an electric catfish and chased for several hundred metres through the jungle by a rampaging elephant.

Gabon, I'm sorry to have missed you, but you would have had a hell of a lot of living up to do to beat this.

A brief note on BO

2008-11-20T13:28:00.001Z

Sadly I could talk for quite some time about my Body Odour over the past few weeks (which I thought had peaked ont the trip North through Congo, yet surpassed even those levels on a bus journey in Cameroon the other day when the smell I thought was the live chicken under our seat followed me outside when I got off).

However, the BO I would like to briefly mention is the same BO that everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, is talking about - Barack Obama. It has been a truly incredible experience witnessing the aftermath of the US election out here. Prying into local conversations in bars or on buses and the name keeps cropping up. Walk along the streets of remote parts of Congo or Cameroon and people smile at you with thumbs up and shout "Obama!". The markets have Obama DVDs and people walk past in Obama T-Shirts. I've never known anything like it (obviously I wasn't here eight years ago when bush won, but methinks it may not be the same)

I once heard that the most commonly recognised phrases in the world are "ok" and "Coca Cola". I would add "Barack Obama" to that list now and even suggest that he has surpassed the might of "Coca Cola". Whether he is more than "ok" remains to be seen.

The Republic of Congo - sometimes the gamble pays off.

2008-11-16T14:16:00.000Z

Choices you make whilst you are travelling are more often than not a bit of a gamble. This hostel or that one, this taxi or that one, this country or that one. As with any gamble, sometimes it pays off and sometimes it doesn`t. Congo gave us a fair few options and made us gamble with more than just a night in a comfy bed.

The train across Congo, from Pointe Noire to Brazzaville, was a bit of a gamble. Still reeling from our forced flight from Angola, we were determined to continue overland and that meant the prospect of taking the train. Despite choosing the First Class option, we never really expected luxury (though Rose did pack her PJs just in case), but I didn`t think that expecting a back on my chair was too much to ask. Alas, a backless chair I got. However it was the prospect of meeting the ninjas which played on our minds as we boarded and headed out of the relative comfort of Pointe Noire. The Ninjas are a group of rebels who still are dominant in a small part of Congo, the Pool Region. A region which the train had to pass through.

Pointe Noire Train Station

Despite my backless chair, the driver`s desire to stop for an hour at random places on the way, and the undesired attention and intimidation tactics of a group of lads, our journey was progressing smoothly but slowly. Then we got to Pool. The police, who had been wandering up and down the aisles up to this point on the journey, summarily disembarked. the train proceeded about a kilometre, at which point the ninjas embarked. But funnily enough, the train got a sudden air of calm. The boys who had been pestering us for much of the journey were firmly sat in their places. In fact everyone firmly sat in their places. The ninjas, it would seem, had been given the task of securing the train for their section, and that was a role they seemed keen to play out. Yes they were heavy handed. Yes they were intimidating. Yes they did request a "donation at the end". But I did have an admirationn for the way they clearly took their roles seriously. At its head was a Congolese Chuck Norris lookalike. He assigned a ninja to babysit "les blancs", clearly feeling we were stupid to be on the train - a crime waiting to happen, but one which wasn't going to happen on his watch.

At one of our random stops the driver, obviously feeling a bit twitchy with rebels in tow, decided to cut short his usual hour long break and moved away with half the train still squatting in the trees. Cue panic on the train and a mad dash by the rebels to signal the driver to stop. By firing out of the windows. We stopped soon enough. I turned to Rose and said, "You have to admit, they do look out for people". That was one step too far.
"Feck off Ant." came Rose`s reply in her dulcet Irish tones, "I think you`ve got that Stockholm Syndrome or something. These people shoot other people don`t forget."

And I had to concede the point. They probably do shoot other people. But I still gave Chuck Norris a secret wink and a nod when he got off and Rose wasn`t looking.

And so we found ourselves safe and sound in Brazzaville and headed for gamble number two: seeing the gorillas. Our plan had always been to do this in Gabon, yet suddenly we discovered that we could possibly do it right here in Congo and get to Cameroon all in one minor leap of faith. This meant heading to the far North of the country. No rebels on the way. What could possible go wrong? A mere 600km - Windhoek to Tsumeb. And its the main road. This was gonna be a doddle.

Hmmm. To say the roads up North in Congo aren't that great, is probably akin to saying a sumo wrestler is a little bit chubby round the edges. It all started so well with tar road for 300km and a rather pleasant 4 hour bus journey. The remaining 300km took three days, two breakdowns, three rescues, a lorry crash, a night on the equator, a night "sleeping" on logs, a 10km hike as part of the standard bus service, a canoe across the river, a missing boat, several bribes, being pulled out of a tent at 01.30 by an army officer, some pretty grotty food, and a not so friendly insect who found warmth and lodging in my ear for a couple of days.

Yet once again the gamble paid off and the gorillas and Cameroon transfer were ultimately a rip roaring success. But that remains a story for another time.

The Republic of Congo. In a nutshell, a gamble worth the wait(ing).

Democratic Republic of Congo - the one that got away

2008-11-04T15:18:00.000Z

Sometimes the Angolans were a bit too helpful. Sometimes they told us things that weren't true, not out of spite I don't think, but because it is better to say something than admit to not knowing. That is why we ended up yoyoing up and down the main promendade for three hours one hot Luanda afternoon looking for an office. It is also why we ended up bypassing the DRC on our journey.

Actually, that is a bit of an exagerration. We decided in Luanda that given the slightly volotile circumstances in the DRC, an uncertain route to get from the boredr to Kinshasa on public transport, to save some of the pennies which Angola had sucked out of us, and to save a page in our passports, that we would catch a ferry up to Cabinda (the separated Angolan territory between DRC and Congo), or even more ideally to Pointe Noire in the Rep of Congo. "No problems at all" we were told. "Boats go all the time" we were told. "But you have to go to Soyo" we were told.

And so it was a day and a half later that we found ourselves in Soyo somewhat bruised, battered and really rather pungent from a minibus journey which included two breakdowns, the loss of both our wallets and a rather painful hour holding onto an axle. "There's no boat from here" came the answer we really weren't wanting to hear from a security guard at the port in between mouthfuls of the lobster he was devouring. "Fiddlesticks" I said (though that might not be wholly true).

Fast forward an hour and we had been offered a "legal" trip to Cabinda on a barge that evening which we felt was one step too far even for adventure seekers such as ourselves. Three options remained. Fly, turn back, swim.

The twenty miute flight was unpleasant for all the other passengers on board I have no doubt. But we covered the distance it had taken the previous 18 hours to do in 20 minutes and landed in Cabinda where we promptly hightailed it out of there to arrive, quite unexpectedly given our situation just a few hours earlier, in the Republic of Congo.

So that was that. We turned down the opportunity of "legally" canoeing through without valid visas, but that was as close as we came to the DRC.

Angola - money matters

2008-11-02T16:52:00.000Z

Picture the view. Peering out to an oceanic vista with millionaire yachts docked on your doorstep. To the left is a 7km stretch of beachland called the Isla. To the right is the centre of town - a multitude of giant buildings and construction sites on their way to becoming giant buildings. At night, the skyline is more reminiscent of Hong Kong - electronic billboards and lazer lights - than the stereotypical image of Africa.

But there is a twist (there's always a twist). Our vista was affectionately known as "monturo de beuena vista" roughly translating to "rubbish dump with a nice view". You see it is nosebleedingly incredible how expensive it is here. The dump was actually the car park of the Luanda Yacht Club who very kindly allowed us to pitch tents much to the bewilderment of Zirka, our taxi driver, whose jaw almost hit the floor when he saw that we weren't like the usual punters he drops off at the Yacht Club (I thought at one point, in fact, that he was going to offer some of our fare back. No such luck!)

Angola holds a bit of a mystique when you are in Namibia. Off limits, down talked and yet so close, it wasn´t a hard decision to want to find out what really goes on here. And what we found was a country which truly does seem to be putting its war years behind it, rolling up its sleeves and building for a bright future. The amount of construction work throughout the country had to be seen to be believed.

By using public transport, we figured that we would be doing things on the cheap, yet even packed minibuses were mindnumbingly (not to mention bumnumbingly) pricey. How the local people afford such prices is beyond my comprehension. One person we spoke to simply said "we Angolans are very innovative". And from what I saw I can't disagree. The people, in fact, were brilliant. I read somewhere that if a journey through East Africa is about the landscape and wildlife, the West Africa is about the people. Angola has really started to live up to this. It wasn't just the innovativeness of the Angolan people though, but more the fact that people seemed willing to spend money. In Namibia I often felt like people were reluctant to part with their cash. In Angola, people bought things on the street, got their shoes shined and generally seemed to be happy to contribute their money elsewhere. And noone seemed remotely interested in us. Anywhere. Angola is very very untravelled and white faces are seldom seen, especially in the rural areas. Yet noone took a blind bit of notice. It was fantastic. We would converse, barter and pass just like anyone else and that anonimity really made you feel safe and, in a strange way, very welcome.

Of course there are many sides to a picture. I can't for one minute say that its all sunshine and roses here. I think I read that the GDP is still amongst the lowest in the world and certainly the slum areas were in a very bad state indeed. And there were children everywhere. In Benguela we took a long midday walk along the beautiful beach and there were hundreds of Angolan children revelling in the sea. It was wonderful to see, but you realised that the children were out because there are no schools for them to go to. I hope that the future is bright for these people and the money which is clearly pouring into the country gets down to those who need, and deserve, it.

So country number two, Angola, a big thank you. You have proven that a book should not be judged by its cover and I will be watching with interest. I can't think of any place where I've been more intrigued about going back in five years time to see how it changes. I'll just save my pennies before coming back and hope for a room with a view next time.

Namibia - the rediscovery

2008-10-25T16:23:00.000+01:00

As I have said before, when you live in a place for a while - nomatter where that place is - it becomes normal for you. Namibia was normal for me. Day to day routines of work rest and play had become thoroughly set in and were very comfortable. And then the 30th of September came about and I had finished my job. The thought of uprooting myself and discovering new countries became a scarily imminent prospect which I was both excited and pertified about.

But Namibia - my home - was about to do its last favour for me. It was about to prepare me for what lies ahead. It started throwing problems at me and I strongly (want to) believe that it was Namibia´s way of saying, "Ant. Thanks for helping me out the last few years. Now I´m gonna toughen you up for a couple of weeks for what lies ahead." And in a Micky training Rocky Balboa style it did. Visa problems, transport problems, money problems and homelessness helped me to find the fighting edge that will hopefully get me through the next couple of months as I wade up the West Coast. Even the Windhoek taxi drivers made us wait an age before we could get to the bus station.

And it succeeded. The visa worked out in the end. The transport got there in the end. The money came in the end. And people housed me, for which I am ever ever so grateful especially given my rather distracted and absent mindedness as I rediscovered myself and Namibia.

So thank you Namibia. I know you were only being cruel to be kind and I will never forget that.

Arise sir blogalot

2008-10-01T16:09:00.000+01:00

So. There we have it. My time in Namibia is pretty much up and it has come just a mere six months (give or take) after my blogging life came to a slow grinding halt.

This is the thing. The problem with trying to write about different experiences when abroad is that if you experience them for long enough they stop being different. And hence stop being blogworthy. I have started writing quite a few times and just stopped again because I think they stopped carrying the conviction and surprise of my first experiences here.

However good news is on the horizon. Life is soon to take a new blog friendly twist and hopefully you will be the benefactors of this. After a slightly drunken conversation and an inability for either of us to pluck up the courage to step down and admit a terrible idea, myself and a fellow VSO volunteer, Rose, have decided to saunter our way back home (UK and Irelend respectively) and take public transport back up the West Coast of Africa. Roughly this way:

I do plan to go back and add more stories about life in Namibia as I think and reflect on them, but for now you can keep updated with our findings as we embark on the slow journey home.

The Culture Club

2008-07-26T09:40:00.000+01:00

Before I came out to Namibia, I undertook a number of training sessions – organised by VSO – to help prepare for the new life which was to be brought upon us. In one of the courses we undertook a very clever little exercise giving descriptions of various exotic “cultural” scenarios and we all had to give our honest reactions as to how we felt or would feel presented with such a situation. I can’t quite remember them all (something to do with taking your clothes off springs to mind for some reason) but the one which I do remember described a type of edible delicacy enjoyed locally - albumen of bird, lightly cooked so that the juice still flows freely, eaten with pounded wheat mixed with water cooked over a flame and cut into pieces.

The thing was though, those little tinkers at VSO has called our bluff. Whilst we were there debating the merits of closing your eyes, holding your nose and anything aka “I’m a Celebrity…” food trials, it turns out all of the exotic scenarios were from no further afield than Blackpool or Peterborough. They were all perceptions by other people towards British cultural practices, you see. The delightful sounding recipe above is none other than soft boiled eggs with soldiers.

I bring this up now for two reasons, 1) It was interesting; 2) I want to talk about culture and it seemed a nice way of introducing it.

A while ago I helped out with the national immunisation campaign for children. Teams of people went to outreach posts with cool boxes containing vaccinations, a clipboard, paper and pen and packed lunches. It was actually a very impressive undertaking and something I should write about one of these days. However, it is the latter of these items which is the purpose for our cultural difference demonstration for today – my lunch. Most of it went without a hitch, but then came the orange. Now, for me, I’ve been brought up on football and rugby pitches eating my oranges in quarters, rinds still on and sucking the life out of that piece. So there I was, quartering away, lost in my own world, sucking away, when I became all too aware of an ominous silence. I looked up to see six African faces staring at me in a conjoined bewilderment. All I could do was muster an orange gum shield smile back.

I guess the point I’m getting at is that whilst I came out here expecting to be amazed, surprised, possibly a bit shocked by cultures, beliefs and practices here (and on many an occasion it has lived up to its bill), I’ve probably shocked and surprised more people by doing things which I consider perfectly normal. Of course, when you think about it logically it is to be expected – I’ve come away prepared for surprise, yet I’m undertaking bizarre behaviours on people’s own doorsteps here.

Jogging, for example. Namibians are on the whole very naturally fit – they cultivate their fields by hand, schoolchildren walk miles to school and back each day, girls pound the grain with giant metal or wood poles, boys herd cattle. When you do all this, why on earth would you undertake extra training? Whenever I go out for a run, people watch in astonishment, join in for the sheer uniqueness of it or just laugh and wave. I’m not offended or put off, its just that I realise they NEVER see anyone else doing anything like this. The concept of training only comes into the fore when it is associated with team sports. Silence and a look of bewilderment would proceed when I would tell somebody that I was running for the sheer sake of running rather than heading to play football or the like.

At the beginning of my second year, I was given a tortoise from a departiung volunteer to look after. The tortoise had been rescued from the cooking pot by said volunteer in exchange for 20 Namibian dollars (which I can only assume was subsequently spent on a KFC). Having a tortoise for a pet (granted, a somewhat exotic thing in the UK) was a source of shock and fear for my neighbours in Outapi. “Aren’t you worried it will eat you in the night?” said a good Namibian nursing colleague as we watched it slowly munch through a patch of grass. “No, no” I reassured, and proceeded to show her my photos of the chameleons I used to keep in England. She needed a ten minute sit down and a glass of water and if I’m honest hasn’t looked at me the same since.

The thing I have learned is that even though Namibians live amongst a truly incredible wide array of wildlife, they have almost no knowledge of any of them. It is quite astounding. Reptiles all fall into a ‘dangerous’ category where even the smallest gecko is highly venomous and capable of eating a whole human. Simple reason and logic goes out of the window. I remember in the hospital one time chatting with a couple of guys and noticed something small wriggling near my feet. On pointing it out, absolute panic ensued followed by a machete attack on said beast as I stood in slight incomprehension. “Its one of those dangerous ones – maybe black mamba.” Came the explanation. I’m pretty sure to this day it was a worm.

These are just two examples, but there are more. Many more. Little pecularities that I do that seem to surprise others. Perhaps it is just me?

Footnote: Have just read a book called “The Other Hand” by Chris Cleave which has some great examples of the weirdnesses in our culture as experienced by others. Recommended.

Hello. How are you?

2008-03-01T15:22:00.000Z

Footnotes:

This is stage one of greeting. I’m at stage three. I don’t know how many stages there are.

This is for greeting in a morning only. Substitute “la la” for “uhala” in an afternoon and “tokelwa” in an evening.

Knowing who is a “tatekulu” and who is just a “tate” can be tricky. In general, tatekulus have beards and/or carry sticks.

Getting the Bit Between Your Teeth - a guide to food in Namibia

2008-02-06T16:53:00.000Z

I bought a packet of green Mentos the other day and was surprised to find that they were “Chlorophylle” flavour. I must admit I can’t remember whether chlorophylle is the stuff they put on handkerchiefs to knock people out in spy movies, or something belonging in plant leaves. Either way, I’m pretty sure it’s not a first choice ingredient in chewable minty products in most places. But when it comes to food, Namibia isn’t like most places.

Actually, that last sentence is a lie. It just sounded good. I have to be honest and admit that my diet here is pretty similar to the one I enjoyed back in the UK. Today, for instance, I’ve enjoyed cornflakes for breakfast, followed by cheese on toast for lunch and I just made a pretty tasty sausage casserole for my dinner. Not exactly stuff which makes for the witty, original and wild musings to which you are accustomed from these blog pages (though I did add a bit too much Cayenne pepper to my casserole and I’m half expecting some pretty wild and exciting bowel action over the next 24 hours. I’ll keep you posted).

Fear not though, help is at hand. Whilst on the whole I eat a plain ordinary diet, I have partaken in the consumption of local foodstuffs here which have left me a mixture of disturbed, non-plussed and sometimes smitten.

Food seems to be a key ingredient, if you’ll excuse the pun, of any worldwide travel experience. I don’t think I can recall anyone who has returned from a distant (or not so distant) country not having at least one culinary related story to tell.

My first “story to write home about” was probably the mopane worms I ate in week 2. They call them worms, but actually they’re more like fat caterpillars in a cocoon. So that’s alright then. Not bad – a bit salty – apparently very good fried with peanut butter. Mine were served with extra salt.

A standard local northern Namibian meal will always consist of a number of certainties – oshithima, meat, oshikundu and sand. I’ll take each one in turn.

Oshithima is a porridge made from the flour of the local wheat grown here – Omahangu. It’s a little bit bitter, really rather sticky and an acquired taste. But I’ve acquired it and do enjoy a good plate of the stuff from time to time (though eating it as the sole ingredient for meals on end, as many people here do, may get a bit much. Then again so might strawberries). What really gets me about oshimthima though is the incredible process it takes to get a plate of it. To understand that, we have to go back to the beginning and to something which is happening about this time – cultivating the land. Mahangu is not bought in shops, you see, people grow it themselves. Lots of it. And then store it in giant baskets at their homes to sustain them for a year. In order to do that, many days of backbreaking (as a physio I can vouch for this – January is one of my busiest months) cultivation is performed – all by hand – to prepare the land for planting. Planting is then done followed by an agonising wait for the perfect rains – too much and the crop drowns, too little and not enough grows and is taken by birds. Eventually picking can be done – again by hand with machetes or pangas as they are known here. The seeds are pulled off manually and then need to be crushed into flour – you’ve guessed it, by hand again. To crush the seeds requires a thick wood or metal pole (I guess about 10-15 kg in weight) and two people who take turns in lifting said pole and pounding it into the seeds. For hours on end. The “pounders” are often children once they have finished school. That yields the flour and from there you’d think it was easy – add some water, boil it up and bish, bash, bosh. Alas no, this method doesn’t work. Believe me I’ve tried. The cooking process is a bit of a guarded secret but involves hot and cold water at the right times in the right amount and a LOT of elbow grease for the 20 minute stirring process. Then, and only, then can you put a large dollop of off-white porridge onto your plate and call it oshithima.

Meat is inherently Namibian. A country which has had such divisions over the years seems to have total harmony in their love for meat. In the North the choice is largely chicken (isn’t it everywhere?), goat or, on special occasions like weddings, beef. The chickens are about as free range as it gets which means they are lean, tough but highly flavoursome. Goat is like mutton and beef is like, errm, beef. The choice cuts for Namibians are the innards and I learned that the hard way. Interestingly though, whilst an Ovambo likes nothing more than gorging on tripe or stomach, when it comes to the classic meat pieces to which we are more accustomed, rare is not an option. I love a good bloody steak, but found that they are difficult to come by in local circles – you really have to do your own.

Oshikundu is a drink made from mahangu and sorghum and omulovu is its alcoholic brother. Thick in consistency with bits floating around (not too infrequently bugs), this is the “Slimfast™” of Namibia in that you can take it as a meal and it keeps you full all day. And it really does fill you up to. Namibian culture seems to dictate that any visitor to your home must be given refreshment and more often than not that refreshment comes in the form of oshikundu. And its great. Simple as that.

Sand is sand. And it really does get everywhere.

Only one other item is essential – a toothpick. Never go anywhere without it.

Oh My Law'd

2007-12-16T12:29:00.000Z

An interesting thing happened the other day which got me a pondering. Interesting things do not happen as often as you might think, so I made a mental note to myself to write about it in my blog. And so we find ourselves here (and I promised a story on food. Dammit. I should reread my own blog from time to time)

Anyway, the incident to which I refer was whilst I was travelling from A to B in a taxi. As per usual attempts to break the land speed record in a Toyota Corolla were well underway, when a police roadblock appeared in front. After deploying the parachutes and clunking to a halt, a check of the car and its occupants was made. Police roadblocks are not uncommon and seem to serve a number of purposes:

To check drivers actually have licences to drive
To deter overloading of taxis (1 person per seat – children don't count)
To check people are wearing seat belts
To prevent the landspeed record from actually being broken

Whilst we were being checked, a pick up truck (or bakkie as they are known here) pulled up with 15-20 people crammed in the open back and were ushered along their way by the policeman. This is perfectly legal – you cannot have more than one person per seat in a car in Namibia, rightly so, but there is no number limit for people in the open back of a truck. Putting aside the fact that this method of transportation is absolutely vital for many people to get to their homes in rural areas, this seems to me to be a slightly odd law.

This got me thinking about laws, and the odd ones I have encountered around the world. (Being an Englishman, I’m only too familiar that I hail from a country which still has some bizarre laws theoretically in effect, some from medieval times. In fact, I’ve been astounded when meeting other travellers about just how many other people are aware of the odds laws in my country. I forget how many conversations have erred around “bails of hay” and “London taxis”. I once met an American who thought Paris was a part of London, but if I had the chance to meet him again, I’m almost certain he could rattle of the fact that it is legal to shoot a Scotsman with a crossbow in York on a Sunday).

Another Namibian peculiarity is to do with the movement of meat. There is an imaginary line running across the country and about four fifths of the way up it. As I understand it, this line is for veterinary purposes - all meat reared below it can be used for industry and exported, all meat above the line is for public consumption or private sale only. Furthermore, meat in any form cannot be transported from North to South even for private use. Whilst in principle I understand this, in practice it lacks the thing which many stupid laws around the world no doubt lack - a bit of common sense. Even meat bought in a supermarket in the north – thereby being industrial and forced to comply with veterinary laws – cannot be moved South.

Namibia is not the place with the stupidest laws in the world which I have come across though. Not by a far stretch. For that, I’d have to turn to New Zealand.

Most of you who live or have been to New Zealand will, I’m sure, think I am referring to the “turning right” rule of driving: If you are driving along the road, perfectly minding your own business, perhaps whistling along to the eighties hit which is doubtless on the radio, you may well have somebody cut across immediately in front of you coming from the other direction, forcing you to spill your steak and cheese pie all down your lap. And they would be in the right. You see, cutting across oncoming traffic is your right of way in New Zealand. And that’s just odd.

But no. This is not the craziest. The craziest law in New Zealand relates to drinking and socializing on or around public holidays. I happened to be there on Good Friday in 2006 and, after a long day of travelling, decided to pop into a friendly looking bar for a drink. And was refused. I could only have a drink if I was getting food, and even the was restricted to two drinks and a two hour time out. I kid you not. If this wasn’t enough a big rugby match was due to play that evening. We were told that the match could be shown but without sound. “Why? Does Jesus get offended by the commentary?” was the rather amusing retort of an embittered local. What does make this story a bit more tolerable was not only the fact that the staff seemed genuinely as annoyed as we were about having to turn away custom but also their resourcefulness at rescuing something out of a crazy situation. At the stroke of midnight, thus ending the day of Good Friday, the bar opened again to one and all. I’d long got fed up and left by this point, but I do hope they had a great evening and made up for lost time.

What I do. Sorry It’s a Little Late

2007-12-02T18:24:00.000Z

You see I’ve been learning to touch type and its taken me this long to finish one story. Arrrgh, who am I kidding? “My dog ate my laptop” would have been a better excuse. And feasible too – Kate, a good friend of mine who is a teacher in Okahao, actually observed a goat eating someone’s homework.

I genuinely am learning to touch type though. And I genuinely am sorry that once again it has taken so long to update this blog. The persistence of Simon must be lauded in the emergence of this story coming and I hope that it does him justice.

I went back to the UK in September for a short visit, and lost count of the number of times I was asked “So what are you actually doing out there?” I figure that perhaps now, after being here over a year, is a good time to answer that. The trouble is there are so many levels to this question it is difficult to know where to begin. I suppose that is why I’ve avoided it up until now. In honesty, it is best answered in three ways: the official answer, the practical answer and the real answer.

The official answer, which became a seamless response after a while, is that I’m helping to set up Rehabilitation services in a region of Namibia called Omusati. There are four hospitals here, but only one has any staff to provide any service like physical rehabilitation, hearing screening or mental health assistance. That one is Okahao and I’ve been working with the magical Padelia (for those who remember previous blogs) to enhance the way she was working. Padelia is ace, and has been legendary in the way she responded to my suggestions, changes in ways of working and attitude to learn. I couldn’t have asked for more from her.
I’ve now been able to move away from Okahao and leave Padelia continue her duties so that I can focus on the bigger picture. Since returning from the UK this has started in earnest. I’ve moved house (60km further north) and have a much bigger challenge on my hands for the next year. Which feels great.

The practical answer, is I guess what I do on a day to day basis. Well, although in theory my job is more managerial, I do a lot of hands-on physio work too. In an average week, I probably spend between half and three quarters of my time on the wards or in the rehab room doing practical work with patients with a whole variety of problems and complaints. It is a much wider scope of work than I ever did in the UK, and incorporates mental health, speech therapy, deafness and blindness and many other things with adults and children. The rest of the time at work is a mixture of report writing, planning, policy writing and yawn yawn yawn…
Work is, of course, only part of what I do and I spend a lot of time eating, sleeping, drinking watching (many) DVDs and avoiding writing blogs.

The real answer, is that every day I am learning. An incredible amount. About so many things I’ve never contemplated. I’m taking in far more, I’m afraid, than I give out. Ironic, given that the concept of “development work” is that we are passing on our skills. It feels like every day you learn something new and that becomes common place. Just thinking off the top of my head now I can tell you that the things imparted to me over the last year have included: How to fix a puncture with a bit of string, how to open a bottle with another bottle, how to hand wash clothes and not make them smell like a wet dog, how to make Indian food, how to slaughter and prepare a goat, how to assess someone with knee pain in Oshiwambo, how to rescue a tortoise. Clearly a list of vital lifeskills I hear you remark. On a more serious note, I can also put together a reasonable account of Namibian politics, talk with moderate confidence on the successes and failures of the HIV/AIDS crisis in Sub-Saharan Africa, tell you a bit about how the dunes need conserving or debate the issue of seal culling. This is not me trying to be big-headed or gloating in any way, shape or form. Many fellow volunteer colleagues here can do these as well (and no doubt much more efficiently than I). The point I think I’m trying to make is that being out here lends itself to learning where at home you perhaps have to go out looking for it that bit more.

I fear I’m getting all philosophical on you, so will draw to an end what can be termed my comeback blog. Next week: getting the bit between your teeth: A guide to eating in Namibia, which should be not nearly as difficult to digest (‘scuse the pun).

Not for the faint hearted

2007-07-26T17:18:00.000+01:00

I’ve been here for ten months now, and although my reason for coming is to work in a developing area, improve services for people with disabilities blah blah blah, it also seemed like a fantastic place to come to work on improving my pasty tan and pulling myself into shape a bit more. Unfortunately as you’ll see from the selection of hand picked photos, so far not everything is going to plan.

Granted, I could have chosen a slightly more pasty person than my friend Michael to pose for some pictures with, but even so I’m disappointed with my efforts. Look at this next one:

My arms are looking a good tanned shade, but clearly I’ve been wearing a few too many wife beater tops. Either that or my chest is now so white that it merely reflects the sun straight off it.

I unfortunately have to admit that these pics were taken a couple of months ago, and things have only gone downhill since then. At that point we were just coming out of summer, so was at my prime colour level. These harsh winter days have forced me indoors or at least donning clothing when out and about, My exercising routines has taken a bit of a dive since then too though now I’ve finally sorted my bicycle problems I’m getting on it again.

So all in all, those of you who have been expecting me to return a bronzed Adonis with Greek God’s body may be slightly disappointed. On the flip side, I’ve got to eat a fair amount of goat.

Good bye UUJ, Hello (Cherry 7) UP

2007-07-22T10:35:00.000+01:00

A friend of mine, Deb, came out in March and brought with her one of the very few things I’ve been craving since being out here – Cherry 7up. Strange, I know. When she brought it, the car was imminently due to arrive in South Africa – meaning I was about to get my hands on it. We decided that I would keep the Cherry 7-up and drink it with the car once it was in my possession – surely only a matter of days…

Two long, painful (and quite thirsty) months of staring at that pink can in my fridge each day have finally ended. Hurrah. Man, it tasted nice.

So my car has arrived!! All 1510 kg of it. Cars are classified as up to 1500kg in Namibia, which means I actually officially own a truck (or at least it’s a truck when I leave the car loaded when I go to have it weighed. Doh). It means I have to pay slightly elevated prices for truck driving, but between you and me, I think its worthwhile just so I can say “I’m taking the truck out” to anyone who’ll listen. It makes me feel like a man in a world where at times I’m not feeling too manly. You see I’ve started to do yoga once a week with some of the female volunteers in Okahao. Bugger, did I say that out loud?

To tell the whole saga of bringing the car out may take longer than War and Peace and I think I’ll save it for another blog story, probably when I’ve stopped rocking in the corner. Its been a hassle and may or may not have lost two people their jobs (through no fault of my own), but its here and is thriving in the sort of terrain it was designed for. Lets face it, Cheltenham is for sporty saloons or school run 4x4’s. Namibia, with its three or so actual tar roads and the remainder gravel, sand or no road at all, is for my Jeep. I’ve just come back from a weekend in a town called Opuwo, about three hours away on one of these gravel tracks and I have to say both I and my car loved it. There is a whole network of off-road trails around there, and although I didn’t get a chance to do any this weekend, the thought of taking my camping gear and finding some wild desert elephants in the remote bush makes the whole saga of bringing it out here a lot more bearable. Anyone tempted to join me?

Whilst I don’t want to go all Jeremy Clarkson on you (and I’m not getting any commission from Jeep. Unfortunately) I’m discovering even more than when I had it in the UK how much I like this car. On top of the roof coming down, doors coming off and windscreen folding abilities – clearly a more important aspect of an car than other unnecessary things like fuel economy or safety (which aren’t too bad either by the way, just in case Mr Jeep is reading this page) - the fact that I can remove the back seats and convert them into a makeshift sofa in my room has been an unexpected bonus. The “open back” jeep as I’ve now coined it can fit at least five more people in the back after a party (as long as you have a non-drinking designated driver going to the party too). Or so I’ve heard. My dad put a few tools in the car too – a fire extinguisher, torch, battery charger and, errm, de-icer – which more than made up for the fact that they couldn’t ship the car with lots of goodies (I‘d requested a crate of Cherry 7-up).

The British plates have gone (hanging in my room) and have been replaced by the rather snappy reg of N 4011 UP, N being Namibia and UP being Uutapi – the town where it was registered (I could have chosen to register it in Oshakati – SH, Ondangwa – ND or Windhoek – a rather dull W). It would have been perfect if the number prior to UP had ended in a 7, but we can’t have everything can we?

So all in all I’m very happy. If anyone did fancy sending me a can of Cherry 7-up though I’d be most grateful. You might find one in a crate I’ve heard is knocking around Southampton harbour somewhere.

Fear and Loathing in Oshakati

2007-07-17T16:02:00.000+01:00

A sudden thought struck me the other day. I’ve not written anything on my blog in ages and ages, I wonder if anyone is even checking it anymore. I then met up with Isabelle, another VSO out here (see link on right – nice plug), and she told me she kept checking and kept being disappointed not to have been reading my exhilarating stories anymore (or words to that effect which may not have been quite so flattering – “why aren’t you writing anymore you lazy arse” may be more accurate). Therefore I’ve decided to take the plunge, the bull by the horns and a deep breath and get back in the game again. So this blog is dedicated to her and anyone else who has continued to check my blog of late, but to no avail.

One of the reasons I’ve not written of late is the sudden and unfortunate loss of my best buddy out here, Mr Vaio. My laptop, you see, was cruelly snatched from me in Oshakati a couple of months back (May 22nd at 17.56. Not that I’m counting) and with it went my zest for life, my yearning to keep you informed with comings and goings, my passion for scribing. Actually I was just pissed off and couldn’t be bothered. I now feel it would be good therapy for me to open up again, so here we go. Apologies if its a bit rusty.

In fairness my laptop was getting way beyond its prime, the speakers didn’t work, headphone port was crackly, it would select at random if it wanted to play a DVD or not – usually not – and reserve the right to change its mind at any given point, but usually just as Jack Bauer is about to be shot (again) or some other crucial moment in a plot. I was down to one single USB port which could only be for a mouse as the ousepad gave up the ghost a long while ago. In short, we had our differences. But he was a good friend, and I miss him lots. This blog story is dedicated to him, therefore.

Correction: The next blog will be dedicated to my laptop. Someone already has dibs on this one.

I want to impart to you therefore, what not to do when stopping at a service station in your Jeep at 5 to 6 on a May evening in a slightly dodgy area of Oshakati with a laptop in a bag on your front seat. Valuable and relevant advice to you all I’m sure you’ll agree.

Firstly, why oh why do you need to take your laptop into Oshakati anyway? Come on, don’t be a fool man. Take a pad of paper and pen.
Secondly, never ever get out of your car to try to do something helpful like undo the petrol cap. No one else does. Let that be a warning.
Third, if a man who looks shifty and moves like he has ants in his pants approaches you. Don’t begin an open dialogue with him with your back turned away from your car. He’s bound to be up to no good. Or has ants in his pants.
Fourth, if you realise an accomplice of ants in pants man has jumped into your car and is running away with your bag and then you get into a streetfight with ants in pants man, let go of him once he starts biting hard into your hand.
Finally, and if all else fails, try to save face. Don’t fume around shouting at people saying “I’m just here to help you people” and by no means kick your car so hard that you are forced to limp away with your tail firmly between your legs.

So there you have it. A lesson learned for us all I feel. If anyone sees any good deals on a laptop, let me know.

A peculiar thing seems to be happening in the world of cycling.

2007-04-21T00:49:00.000+01:00

When I say “world” I guess I’m really talking about my world of cycling rather than the world of cycling where peculiar things seem to frequently happen. Chasing a moped around a steeply inclined track, for instance. Or those long pointy speed helmets. Or drugs. Lots of drugs. Allegedly.

In my world of cycling, I have a mountain bike. In Okahao there is one two story building – a bar. On a clear day (i.e. every day) you can see for, oohh, say three thousand miles in each direction. Suffice to say that there are not too many mountains for my mountain bike to go up round these parts. That said, with the roads being made of gravel or sand (or, as I suspect, thorns with a thin layer of gravel/sand thrown over the top to hide them before they plunge into your tyre), a rufty tufty bike has been quite useful. I average a puncture a journey (hence the thorns), but can’t imagine how a racing road bike (the ones with the curly handles) would get on here. Actually I can. They won’t.

Anyway, I’m using my bike to commute to one of our clinics – Onemanya – every Tuesday. Its about a 25km round trip on gravel (thorn) road. Although I’m not going out to break any land speed records, I have been timing myself just to see if I’m getting any better. My time for one way averages around 40-45 mins, but interestingly my times are not improving in a nice sloping graph sort of way, but rather seem to be mimicking the mountainous zones which are so scarce here (perhaps trying to mock me?) As part of this process, however, an interesting observation has been developing – namely, the relationship between cycling times and music which I’m listening to on said journey.

Now I’m a great believer that the more pumping the music, the faster I must be going. That’s just logical surely? But this belief theory was thrown into absolute chaos about 2 months ago while listening to Leftfield, an artist you would expect to push for a reasonable time. Although I felt I was hitting a good rhythm to the pretty upbeat music, I came in with a dismal 52 minutes. My worst time to date.

And so it began. Since then I’ve been carefully observing the relationship between times and music. And here’s where the peculiarity has begun. The pre-season favourites, Fatboy Slim, Paul Oakenfold and Cream Anthems have slipped into mid table obscurity along with other big guns like U2 and The Stereophonics all between the 40-45 minute mark. Unexpected successes like Coldplay and Jack Johnson are high up there in the early 40s too. At the bottom of the pile, along with the previously mentioned Leftfield, we have Finley Quaye, Blur, The Beatles (they were never going to maintain their 1960s form) and, errm, Alanis Morrissette all involved in a relegation battle.

“So who’s at the top?” I hear you sitting at the edge of your seats wondering (hear?). Well, only Massive Attack have stuck to their title billing with a respectable 39 minutes 43 seconds to claim third spot thus far. Inching just ahead at 39 minutes 12 seconds coming from nowhere is Jools Holland. Howver, ladies and gentlemen, all records were smashed to pieces in a moment of musical-cycling-synchronised-perfection and we have a clear leader with an astonishing 35 minutes 32 seconds. And the source of this motivational master? James Blunt…

So there you have it. Definitive proof. I watched the Tour de France a couple of years ago and noticed that Lance Armstrong always had an earpiece in (supposedly to talk to his team). Tracey Chapman, maybe? Or Engelbert Humperdink?

Probably not Cheryl Crow.

And just where do you think you’re going? (Part 2)

2007-02-19T18:06:00.000Z

Me: “Would that be a brand new quad bike I noticed in the store just now? Where did that come from?”

Colleague: “Oh. It’s been there about four years”

“Four years? Who’s is it?”

“Ours. It got donated a few years ago for community visits into the bush.”

“You mean like the community visits I haven’t been able to go on because the car crashed and we can’t get any other transport?”

“Yeah. Kind of like those.”

“Hmmmmm.”

Long Pause

Me: “Say, I have an idea. Maybe I could use the quad bike to get to do my community visits”

“That’s a good idea. Only…”

“Yes?”

“It doesn’t have a licence”

“Ok. Well, one step at a time, how do we go about getting a licence?

“Oh. We need to apply to the Ministry. Only…”

“Yes?”

“You can’t apply for a licence without a Fuel Card. We don’t have a fuel card”

“Right. So how do we get the Fuel Card?”

“We need to apply for one in Windhoek. Should take a few weeks. Only…”

“Yes?”

“We can’t apply for a Fuel Card without a Roadworthiness Certificate.”

“Ah. And how do we get that?”

“From the vehicle registrations office.”

“Only….?”

“Hmmm. To get a Certificate, the vehicle needs to have a licence.”

“I see.”

Kill me. Kill me now.

And just where do you think you’re going? (Part 1)

2007-02-12T14:25:00.000Z

I knew that transport was always going to be a problem out here. I knew that mainly because in my first week here the most common comment I got was “transport will be a problem”

Lets start at the beginning. Cars out here are ridiculously expensive. A 1986 VW golf with about 200,000 Km and ready for the scrapheap will still cost you between £1000-1500. Go for a 4x4 and you’re looking more at £4,000-6,000 for starters. Which is why my big red Jeep is soon to be on a ship and making its way to Africa. Oh yes.

So sorted then?

Not quite. Whilst the Jeep will be excellent for personal use, I still need to use work transport for, errm, work purposes. Schedules of Ministry of Health transport is a secret more closely guarded than nuclear codes of the US President. In fact, I think it’s that much of a secret, they’ve done away with a schedule and act on spontaneity. As I’m meant to be accessing far corners of the bush, I was due to getting rides with the hospital outreach car. The first two months, however, the car was being repaired in a garage. Celebrations occurred when the car eventually returned only for it to be driven for two days and meet its maker in the form of a donkey:

One regular transport is the daily ambulance which leaves for Oshakati (big town about 80km away) each day at one. Or so they say. If you arrive at one, it has usually gone ten minutes early. So it’s better to get there about quarter to. But of course on those days it leaves more like at two. You cannot win.

Public transport is available. Taxis have an interesting system throughout Namibia. You pay per person rather than for the taxi. If you are taking a taxi from Oshakati to Okahao, say, it costs N$ 21 for each person in the taxi. Which means the more people in, the more money for Ivor the Driver. My record stands at eight in a Toyota Corolla, but I’ve heard stories of more.
So may favoured method of transportation up until Tuesday was the bicycle. Its cheap, good for fitness, and reliable. Until Tuesday when brakes gears and tyres all decided to give up the ghost in one swift explosive moment. Arse. I think I can repair it, but not sure it will do me long term, especially now the rains are here and most places have turned into the Lake District rather then Savannah Desert.

So now back to square one. I guess the great thing about the whole complexity of transport is how it makes things so simple. No one really relies on transport; therefore no one is disappointed when you don’t arrive. It’s a bonus when you do. It’s quite nice when things get turned on their head like that.

That being said, I always welcome new solutions to my problems. So if anyone has a spare hovercraft or helicopter knocking around that they’re not using for a while, I’m game.

That's that one checked off the list

2007-01-21T12:39:00.000Z

I’ve been thinking deep philosophical thoughts recently and since I’ve been in Namibia a few things that have happened have pushed me away from evolutionary theory and more to creationism. This is a bold statement and probably needs a bit more clarification. From what I’ve heard and read about Darwin’s Theory of Evolution (admittedly not a lot) - natural selection, survival of the fittest, fossil records and all that jazz it all seems perfect. What I’ve discovered since I’ve been here and what leads me to question this theory, however, is the existence of three animals, which I can’t for the life of me imagine what they could have evolved from. Hours (minutes) of deep pondryment have led me to the conclusion that these three creatures must surely have been created by someone’s imagination. Some genius with an excellent sense of humour or after a few too many drinks…

The Giraffe

Those of you who are regular and/or attentive to this blog will have seen comments made previously about a photo of a giraffe. No prizes for those who guessed that it would have ended on my final list. Don’t get me wrong, giraffes are cool – seeing them up close in the wild was awesome. But they really aren’t the most efficient of animals. I mean, come on, they were designed by someone with a few too many lego bricks spare. Watching a giraffe drinking is a moment of nature’s true genius. As they approach the water, they look shiftily around to check out their surroundings. People here would tell you that that is because when a giraffe lowers itself, it is at its most vulnerable for attack – exposing its neck and not exactly in the starters blocks for a quick getaway. That is wrong. They actually are looking around to make sure no one else is watching them, so embarrassed are they about how silly they look when they drink. It is a bit like going into a newsagent’s to get a top shelf magazine. Apparently. (Though if you were to compile a list of Top Ten Animals Designed to Retrieve a Top Shelf magazine, Giraffes may well be near the top. How ironic)

The Flying Kamikaze Beetle

I don’t actually know what this insect is called, but I can tell you that I’ve studied it with awe and wonder as to how it has survived on our planet as long as it has (though I don’t know how long it has – maybe it only came in 2005 and will soon be moving on). As with most insects I know (Dave, Shane and Gladys), The Flying Kamikaze Beetle has an excessive and morbid fascination for lights. Rather than taking after its flying cousin The, errm, Fly, and flying around a light for most of an evening (before eventually bafflingly managing to find a secret trapdoor and get inside the light – how do they do that?) the Flying Kamikaze Beetle is only interested in flying at full speed, headfirst into the light. This usually results, as it would with most of us flying headfirst into a solid object, in rendering the beetle unconscious and it dropping a fairly hefty distance to the floor. There it remains for a good half hour or so before coming to and going through a thought process presumably along the lines of (groggily) “Bloody hell, where am I? And why is my head pounding? I wonder if I have any aspirin in my pocket…Nope, I’m a beetle. Hang on a second, oooohhh, what’s that? Aaaaahhhh it’s a bright light in the sky. Perhaps if I fly into it really fast it will take my headache away. Lets give it a shot…” And so it goes for the whole night until you eventually get bored and turn off the light to put it (and you) out of its misery for another 24 hours.

The Donkey

The irony that one of the more biblical animals is heading up my theory of the creationist theory of a comedy genius has not been lost on me. However, you will soon see that this is the only possible explanation of how the donkey has come to exist.

Donkeys are involved in more road accidents here than cars. That’s not strictly true, but they are involved in a lot. Obviously that doesn’t prove my theory until you consider the following:

Namibia is huge. No seriously it is massive. On a scale you can’t even imagine (especially if you live in Britain. Or the Vatican – though I don’t think anyone reading this does). I think its second behind Mongolia on the fewest people to amount of land scale. There are vast areas of nothingness. Vast. And three roads. Which is where you find ALL the donkeys. Sometimes they stand on the side, but mostly they stand in the middle.

Namibia is very sandy. And donkeys are the colour of sand. If they could evolve surely a nice fluorescent pink with maybe neon lights wouldn’t be too out of the question.

Donkeys are the only animal whose eyes don’t reflect car headlights. I kid you not.

Donkeys are VERY stubborn. I ain’t getting out the way for no-one. Fool.

Why why oh why would you evolve to be like this? Now I know purists amongst you are going to say “But evolution takes hundreds, nay, thousands of years, Ant, and cars have only been around for fifty”, but you know what I call that? Excuses, excuses.

I’m right and you know it. Convinced?

We Live and Learn

2006-12-20T19:50:00.000Z

So I made a mistake. Everyone here does it, but people here are just so laid back.

People at home warned me.

“Use protection” they said. “I will” I said.
“Be careful” they said. “I will” I said.

But I was foolish and now I’m paying the consequences. I can’t quite believe that it happened. I mean its Africa – you can’t say its not well known.

Yet here I am, paying the price. Sunburn is not a laughing matter – my thighs are red raw and I’m lacquering myself up with aftersun three times a day. I sat out for a couple of hours under the beating sun as if to say “come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough”. And it did. And it won.

Bloody brits abroad.

On a lighter note Happy New Year, I'll strive to update my blog more regularly in 2007.

Pick a card. Any card

2006-12-20T19:32:00.000Z

There is some sort of magic going on out here and, like all magic tricks I’ve seen before, I’m desperate to know how it is done. But deep down I know that after two years here I’ll be non-the-wiser.

I’m not referring to any illusions or parlour games or even witchcraft or tradition healing which is common here, but an uncanny ability of all Namibians to just know what is going on without anyone saying a word.

I’m sure this makes no sense so I shall try my best to explain.

One of the main parts of my job at the moment is working alongside a lady named Padelia who is a Medical Rehabilitaion Worker. This is Padelia:

When I get round to writing about work, Padelia will be a leading character, so this is the first of doubtless many introductions to her. For now though, I'm using her as my example to illustrate the "magic" abilities to which I am referring. I shall continue.

As I write this I am certain that Padelia knows I am writing about her. I am also certain that when I go to work tomorrow, Padelia will just drop into the conversation somewhere something subtle like “did you send your email?” or "that was a terrible photo of me" or, most likely "Did you enjoy your steak last night?", yet I’m here writing (and eating - its delicious) on my own. I can only think of two possible explanations of how she could know:
a) I took a photo of her yesterday and said I was going to put it in an email (and mentioned the steak come to think of it)
b) She is magic.

This is clearly not the best example, I'll try harder. In the hospital is when I’m most often amazed by how much she knows about what is going on. This morning we were sat in the office and I went to look for a colleague in her room. “She’s not there. She’s on ward 1”. And she was right. She was on ward 1. Yet I had been sat with Padelia in the same office for at least an hour. How could she possibly know someone’s exact whereabouts? Things like this happen at least three or four times a day – its incredible. She often fills me in on what I have done over the weekend when I forget.

I'm trying desperately not to make Padelia sound like a stalker - she certainly isn't - and its not just Padelia who possesses this all seeing ability as I've decided to call it. All Namibians seem to have this sixth sense of knowing what is happening or about to happen in a completely different part of the building, the village or the country.

A couple of weeks ago, I went to a celebration day for people who work with disabilities. A traditional band came at the end of the day and everybody started to dance. It was all going great, people were eating, drinking, being merry. And then all of a sudden – and all in unison – everybody just left. The band were in the middle of a song (I didn’t offend with my dancing I promise), and everyone knew it was just time to go. That’s what I’m talking about. No messages had been passed around, no whispering in the crowd, yet they had all known (and forgotten to tell me I noticed as I continued to eat on my own).

Maybe its not magic at all, just that nobody tells me. It wouldn’t be the fist time.

I think I prefer to believe its magic.

The Centre Of The Universe

2006-11-28T20:25:00.000Z

Its funny what perspective does to you. Having lived in the UK pretty much all my life, you just get used to being in populous areas.

Okahao is a pretty small village. Driving through it from the “welcome” sign to the “leaving” sign takes exactly one minute and thirty nine seconds. I’ve timed it. A friend is driving in tomorrow and she asked for directions to the hospital. “Drive into Okahao and turn left” I told her, “Then what?” she replied, “That’s it.”, “That’s it?”, “That’s it”. I’m confident she’ll find it.

Yet this is the thing. I live in the happening place around here. In fact, it’s the second biggest settlement in the whole of the region. Because it has the hospital, market, church and post office, people come from miles around to access the place you live. It is the big trip of the week. When you go out into the communities, as I’m starting to get to do, you realise how big a place this small settlement you live in actually is. It sort of gives me a warm buzz (in a self admittedly very sad way) because I’ve never lived in the hub of anywhere before.

I went for a visit to Windhoek last week. Windhoek, I should mention, is no giant, sprawling city either. By European standards it would be classed as a large town, I guess not too different to the size of Gloucester. Yet driving in I felt like I was entering a metropolis. I mean, as we’ve discussed I live in what I class now as a large town, so what the hell was this?

Its all just a trifle odd and I’ve only been here for two and a half months. My plan is to create a new reality TV show called “Shell shock” where contestants live in Okahao for two years and are then warped to a major world city, Tokyo, for instance, or Los Angeles. Their first few days of survival (or not) are aired to a gripped world audience. I reckon it’s a winner.

Now to work on that warping machine…

A Rip Roaring Success

2006-11-15T20:21:00.000Z

So here you go. My first successful picture from Namibia. Oh hold on...

There's two more that have just popped up to say hello. Its like London buses. The top people are Kate, Caroline, Ndatala and myself in Etosha whilst above are a few animals I've encountered thusfar. More to come and I promise to try to keep my blog updated more regularly (whats a broken promise between friends?)

I don't believe we've met

2006-11-15T20:15:00.000Z

I thought I may write a fairly sobering account of life in the hospital in my blog entry, but I’m in far too good a mood to get you all depressed about HIV statistics and other grim things that instead I’ll give you an insight into the eventful life that is Namibian meetings.

As a manager (depending on who you ask I’m a coordinator, advisor, manager or plain old physiotherapist) I’ve attended a few meeting up to this point. I want to attend more, yet strangely would rather be anywhere else during parts of them.

Now don’t get me wrong, I attended a few interesting meetings in the UK, but I can’t imagine being sat in a meeting when mid discussion somebody stands up and bursts into song. Actually thats a lie, I can imagine a few people doing that, but they would be ushered out quicker than the pigs trotters I ate last week passed through my system. But not here. In fact if soneone stands up and bursts into song, most other people stand up and join in. The person who was making the point before being rudely (but brilliantly) interrupted just has to wait, possibly wondering what words triggered the outburst. The song ends and the debate resumes as if nothing had ever occurred. A days workshop contains at least as many songs as it does information. Everyone gets issued with pad and pen as standard at the beginning of the workshop. These are used, without fail, to create new lyrics for the song you are about to sing and distribute them through the audience. I may try “On Ilkley Moor Baht’at” at my next meeting.

Then there is cellphones. It is perfectly normal, no expected, that you answer all calls during a meeting. This is not done in a subtle sneak out of the room apologetic manner, but answered aka Dom Jolie with at best a half hearted attempt to duck your head under the table whilst lifting your bottom high into the air. I recommend anyone to do it at their next board meeting. Yet nobody stops the meeting, it just goes on without a flinch. Last week I was at a meeting where a board from Windhoek was feeding back to our Chief about recommendations from their visit. Three times her phone went off, each answered with a few minutes of proceeding conversation. But here is the best bit. They continued to feed back to her. Minutes of really quite useful information about how the hospital could be improved was lost because they carried on talking whilst our chief was huddled under the desk pointing her bottom out towards us and, for all I know, discussing what to have for tea tonight.

But the voting processes outdo it all. If someone needs to be elected to perform a task/action etc, then the system becomes a quickdraw of who can nominate somebody else before you get nominated yourself. Its honestly like a fastest fingers round. Then you have to vote to confirm that the person/people nominated can undertake the task. But you have to nominate far more people than are needed just so that the voting process isn’t pointless and some people will be voted off proving their unpopularity (and the irony is the person voted off didn’t want to be nominated in the first place, so in fact wins).

Lost? Welcome to my world.

Taking out a small village

2006-11-06T19:17:00.000Z

This is the first photo which I've managed to post. I hope that you like it, it is a lion I saw whilst walking to the shops last week.

Its not really. Its actually a lion I saw whilst I was in Etosha National Park a couple of weeks ago.

It was either at night or downloading photos has a knack I've yet to discover. I'll let you choose which.

Anyway, in order to upload this image for you all to download, it has taken a fair while and possibly drained a small village of what little electricity they were going to have for the evening.

Enjoy. I'm going to bed now to read. With a candle.

Oh and you'll notice a title change. Decided to go with my common given names out in Okahao - The doctor White Man. Kind of catchy I think. Any other temporary title names will be openly received.

If Language Is The Food Of Love...

2006-11-01T21:23:00.000Z

Language is always an amusing source for a story or two, and though I’ve already alluded to it in a previous blog, I thought I’d test your patience with a bit of an update that none of you have asked for. It seems pertinent to do this today as I’ve just found out the language I’ve been being taught, by someone who doesn’t speak it herself is, in fact, not the one used in Okahao at all. Brace yourselves, this may get a bit confusing.

The catch-all language is called Oshiwambo which is a Bantu language (i.e. Southern African tribal language). Within this are I think about 7 to 10 dialects all subtly different enough to cause major confusion at, say, a multi-tribal tea party. I’ve been learning Oshindonga from my Rehab Worker who actually speaks Oshikwanjarme. But I found out today that I actually should be speaking Oshikandjera.

To try and explain this on terms you may understand, a simple analogy may be that of living in Liverpool, being taught Cockney by a Geordie. Got it?

Fortunately I’m an Oshilumbu (stupid white person – oddly the same word in whatever dialect you say) which means that people are awfully nice and smile and nod and pretend to understand what it is I’m trying to say. Either that or people speak Afrikaans presuming I’m a White Namibian. Think being an Oshilumbu is probably the better option.

Other than that slight technical hiccup it seems to be going moderately well on the old language front. I can count to a hundred, say the days of the week, quite a few body parts and, above all, apologise profusely.

The most confusing aspect is the number of languages I’ve found myself speaking in the past six weeks. There is a VSO schoolteacher here called Caroline who is French (teaching English – though not in Oshiwambo fortunately which would totally mess with your head) and, hence, has become excited at the prospect of being able to converse with someone in her mother tongue. So far she has found out “the monkey is in the tree” (“la sange est dans l’arbre”) and to “turn into the third street on the left just in front of the tourist office” (“prenez le troisieme rue a gauche juste au fond de l’office du tourisme”). They were both whilst stood in her kitchen, so took her quite by surprise. Actually, I’m doing a bit better than that and quite enjoying it. She’s lent me a couple of films in French to practice one of which, you’ll love the irony, is called Lost in Translation.
Then there are the Cuban Doctors at work whose English is pretty limited. So from time to time I loosen the lips and throw in the odd Spanish phrase or two.

So there you have it. Language in a nutshell. Easy.

No longer afraid...

2006-10-16T18:48:00.000+01:00

I would like to extend a hearty thanks to those of you who contributed to my snake dilemma email. I had a wide variety of suggestions and feel now that my main problem is not the fear of being bitten, but choosing from the wide range of options that are seemingly available (actually, I'm still afraid of getting bitten by a black mamba - we had a few horror stories whilst doing "first aid for bites and stings" training last week. First Aid if you get bitten by a black mamba is the last rites it would seem. A second story involved 8 people admitted to hospital with multiple fractures having jumped from the back of a speeding truck when a black mamba got caught in the axle and was flung up into the open back with the passengers. Locals obviously felt to jump was far less risky to your health than to stay!).

The Lester Meister should have special mention for the ream of info she sent on serpents and their wiley ways and a prize may be winging its way to you (though it may not get there given stories of Namibian postal services). My favourite remedy, however, and first remedy of choice if feasible should a venomous creature sink its fangs into my flesh was a medival remedy for snakebite as follows:

"If one is bitten by a snake, one thing that one can do is to have sexual intercourse, as the force of an orgasm will drain all the poisonous substances from the body"

- Albert of Aachen, Historia Hierosolymitana 5.40, in Recueil des historiens des croisades, historiens occidentaux, 5 vols. in 6 (Paris: Imprimerie royale, 1844 -95) 4: 459.

Many thanks go to Angharad and especially Albert.

For once I didn't knock anyone out

2006-09-28T22:57:00.000+01:00

Many of you will have had the (mis)fortune to have been on a night out with me at some point or another. For that I heartily apologise for anything I said or did (or didn’t/couldn’t say or do). One feature of my drunken antics has come up as a focus for discussion on a number of “post night out analyse the evening discussions”. The feature in question is my dancing style which seems to vary between mild-twitch and full-seizure at any moment and for no apparent reason (though if I were a mathematician, which I’m clearly not, I’m sure some formula could be developed between amount of alcohol consumed and style of dancing, where I imagine style would peak at about 4 beers – a point we will call the optimum hip loosity - and then be inversely proportional to each beer drunk afterwards).

Anyway, there is a point to this rambling. I may well be mocked around the world for my unique dancefloor moves and grooves, but I have recently discovered that I can dance. In Cuba. There are a group of Cuban Doctors working at the hospital who invited us to theirs for an evening of Cuban festivities. It quickly became apparent that dancing was going to be involved way before optimum hip loosity could be reached. Before a drink had even touched my lips in fact (Gareth, you would have been in hell). Add to this a cute Cuban Doctor who seemed eager to dance and I was thinking of booking my flight home already. Until I saw them move. I won’t say it was like looking in a mirror (I did mention the cute one didn’t I?), in fact they did have style and grace and rhythm in abundance, but it seems that its dancing without control (they say they’re dancing from the soul or some crap like that). More importantly, standing on people’s feet is not only accepted as an inevitable consequence of the “free-dancing” but actually shows to your partner you’re really getting into the rhythm. The eagle has landed.

This is, of course, only my interpretation of events. Chances are that floating somewhere in cyber space there is one cute Cuban Girl’s blog mentioning stupid English pigs with no rhythm. But I felt better about my dancing, and I think that that’s not bad work for one evening.

I really should tell you about things happening out here, but figure I have two years to filter all that out to you in small, bitesize chunks. And, hey, when you’ve just found out that you may well be a dancing god somewhere in the world, development work in Africa has to take a small step aside I feel.

Its qll in French

2006-09-24T16:17:00.000+01:00

Qpologies if there are mistakes, but toady I'm using a french keyboard. Obviously.

So here we go. One week down, one hundred and three to go (not that I’m counting already). Arrived in Okahao, my hometown for the next two years, last week. Was told that I would be living with another guy who works in the hospital. As you can imagine, when your going to meet your housemate (and the only person you know who lives in that village), a whole host of potential scenarios unfold in your mind. Housemates over the years have been cool with the odd moments of tears of pain, post spinach toilet avoidances, hairplugs, chilli con carnes and relationship dilemmas (an aside game for all former housemates is to match your name to the moment).

So I opened the door to my new house and was greeted by a crate of beer. I think I’ll be OK. Ray was the owner of the beer, a Zimbabwean Doctor, who as an added bonus had been bored prior to my arrival (and probably since), so decided to invest in a hifi and surround sound TV. Yes, you heard correctly, I have more stuff here than I did at home.

Nice. You’d think. Until I tell you about the one TV channel in Namibia. The first half of the day is the same news for half an hour in a different language each time. This is then followed by a variety of imported soap operas (mainly from Mexico) which I’ve been told I will become addicted to over the next two years. Hmmm, can’t wait.

The hospital I’m working in is interesting, but thats a whole other subject for another blog day. Keep tuning in and thanks for the advice on snakes and language. New topic for this week is interesting to do with eggs, which seem to be one of the more common foodstuffs I can find in the village.

Ant

Is Namibia or Windhoek more difficult to say?

2006-09-14T09:53:00.000+01:00

Hello from the Southern Hemisphere. Except for those of you who are also in the Southern Hemisphere. Although I guess I'm still saying hello to you from the Southern Hemisphere too. So hello it is then!

Arrived in Namibia safely after a comfy fight where no-one pulled a blanket over their head in an attempt to ignore me. Which is nice. All going well so far - we're all still in the capital doing our induction training and its not feeling too scary mary at all at the moment. Which is nice. Windhoek doesn't feel like an African city as you would imagine (no I can't see any Giraffes from where I am sat) as it is quiet and clean and very modern. Which is nice. Unfortunately we've had some crime incidents already reminding us all not to let our guards down despite comfortable surroundings. Which isn't so nice.

The news here is dubbed with "clicks" also for those tribal languages still containing them!! I thought it was just static on the tele at first until someone told me otherwise. The main news story was the retirement of the chairman of SWAPO, the main political party in Namibia. His resignation speech went something like this:

"I'm too old to do this any more. I keep forgetting to bring the right folder to meetings."

Perfect.

Hope all is well back there. Homework for this week is to tell me what to do if I get bitten by a snake. My plans to go running and Steve Irwin's recent found, previously thought missing, mortaility has made me a little on edge.

Ant

Shouldn't someone be telling me it was all just a joke by now?

2006-09-09T19:51:00.000+01:00

No seriously. Its the morning that I actually leave. I was only joking. Guys...

Guys.

So this is it. Adios, bon voyage and auf wiedersehn. The next time you hear from me I have no doubt that I will be in a seriously uncomfortably hot state and complaining about how seriously uncomfortably hot I am. But thats all good and I'm now Harbourne Halled out (the venue for all my VSO training) and psyched for the real McCoy.

Its been an interesting time since last I wrote and you'll all be pleased to here that the alcohol free and fitness regime went soundly out of the window as quick as it came (I know some of you had genuine concerns for my health) and I rediscovered Sky TV and six packs of beer as if we had never been apart. It was an emotional reunion mind you.

On a moderately serious note, it would be really cool to keep in touch with all of you and I apologise for the necessity to write a group email - they would be in my Room 101 if I had a choice, just behind bouncers and posh lettuce. It going to be an awesome experience, but have no doubt that will be tough at times too, so the more stories I have about Wednesday football, pregnancy ("cant wait till the baby is born"), children ("wish I was pregnant again") and the usual banter, the better I say.

Right, well. As per usual if you've got this far and are still awake, the theme to respond to this message is based around language. It would seem that I have up to three languages to try and master over the next few years - Oshavambo (the local dialect in the area I'll be in Namibia), Africaans and Portuguese (spoken in Angola which will be very close). So if anyone has (or would like to make up) any useful phrases in one or all of these languages they would be most welcome. Apparently English is the national language, but I reckon three is enough for me to master for one day thank you very much!!

Take care and hope to see some of you in Namibia.

Its Magaluf Jim, but not as we know it

2006-07-20T19:54:00.000+01:00

Hello to all and apologies for allowing the emails to dry up since I got back to the UK.

I'm back in the UK. Actually I lie. I've BEEN back in the UK and now I'm away again in Majorca for 10 days. But I'll get onto that shortly.

All is ticking on quite nicely. Have departure date of 9th September to Namibia confirmed today (2115 from Heathrow if anyone wants to see me off!!) which means about 7 weeks and I'm gone. Sneaking up close now.

So I thought I'd better get acclimatised to the (40 plus degree) heat which is soon to be thrust upon me. And here I am, just outside Magaluf in baking 34 degree heat, whilst in the UK where I've just left, its 36. I love it when a plan comes together.

"Magaluf" I here you whisper under your breath. "Isn't that full of scantily clad post school leavers out to get horrifically drunk?" Well yes. Yes it is. But not me, for I´ve been out here honing my physique by having the first "Santa Ponsa Training Camp". Every morning has been a 6.30 reveille followed by 2 hour and a half training sessions and healthy eating with minimal alcohol. Our only foray into the seedy alcoholic world that is Magaluf ended abruptly because training has meant we have got as much ability to hold alcohol as Zidane has to hold in his wrath.

Anyway, back in the UK again on saturday, so will try to catch up with some of you again again.

Swingapore...la la la

2006-05-25T19:25:00.000+01:00

So there I was, fast asleep on a leather sofa in the Carlsberg bar at 5.30 in the morning when I get woken and not asked to leave, but instead would I like a beer. Which is ironic, and I'll explain why.

Flew into Singapore from Christchurch last night. Very sad to leave NZ and all that, its a good place and the crusaders were playing last night which would have made it a grand atmosphere. Anyway, so it turns out I have learned 3 things about the singapore culture:

1. It is very difficult to buy some pants
2. It is very difficult to buy a beer
3. When you do find pants and beer, the beer costs more than the pants.

I wasn't looking to buy them together or anything (that would have probably been quite a specialist shop - or a good story for cocktail parties), but couldn't find a place to buy either of them whilst wandering through the streets of Singapore. Some sort of map or idea of the best places to go beforehand would have, in hindsight, probably have been a good thing to have obtained, but using Ant's third law of logic "beer can never be far away" I wandered aimlessly finding one eventually just 20 mins before my last train was due back to the airport. Having requested a beer, I was then presented with two, not sure why but the country suddenly improved in my books.

So you can see, that having got back to the airport on the last train and settled into a sofa of a shut bar for the night, it was slightly surreal to be being asked if I wanted exactly the thing I couldn't find. But cheers anyway.

As some of you may have astutely guessed, unlike football, I'm coming home. Hope that isn't too unsporting of me (the football bit rather than me coming home, though that may be too).

Thanks for all those who have sent replies and suggestions of swearwords, facts and oddities and long may they continue into Namibia. Will be planning a tour of the uk to pester people over the summer before I head for Namibia in Sept, so if you want me to say hello then sign up here:

I want Ant to say hello. Signed.........................................................................

the tash groweth

2006-05-09T19:34:00.000+01:00

Well well. Its seems that my stories of amusing people and drunken moments in New Zealand are not enough. Since sending you pictures of my tash, I've been inundated with requests for updates. Well, I say inundated, Sean, Sue and Jon seemed interested. So I enclose updates. As you can tell, the handlebars are now in almost full blossom and getting quite a lot of attention. Mostly by men dressed in Indian outfits, builders, policemen or anyone else in the Village People.

Not to be outdone however, Gareth decided it was time he joined in on the Facial Hair Tour 2006 and sported this magnificent effort I have also attached. He was twice approached to join the elite band of Muskateers. Embarassment got the better of him, however and the offence was removed just a day later.

All else is tres bien as they may say in Namibia. I'm not sure of this, and feel I should probably look into it some more as I've just been offered a two year posting there!! Woo hoo. From what I can gather from your last emails, nobody really knows much about it except the capital (thanks Nick, can always rely on capital knowledge - Lesotho?) and that its Weirdly beautiful. NOt entirely sure what that means, but sounds like my kind of thing.

Still considering my options for things to do until then and this can be the subject of any replies - suggestions of things to do over the next few months. I've heard that after a few troubled months, George Michael may be on the lookout for a look-a-like, and I feel I may be an obvious frontrunner for the post at the moment.

Auf wiedersein

Don't go to Invercargill. And don't tempt fate. Ever.

2006-05-02T18:43:00.000+01:00

Throughout our travels in New Zealand, whether or not to go to a town called Invercargill, in the far South of New Zealand, has been the source of much debate. It shouldn't have been, of course, nobody we have met thusfar has had anything remotely nice to say about it. But in a perverse sort of way, that just made the pull even stronger - to see whether a place can actually be that bad.

It is. But thats ok, we were just passing through, stayed for about an hour and left sighing a breath of relief as we drove away. Or so we thought...

And this brings me to my second part of the sermon. If you do find yourself unfortunately in Invercargill, say nothing until you get to your next place. Phrases such as "My car is driving about as well as it has since I bought it" (Gareth) and "I hope I never go back to that place ever again" (Me) are only going to wind up the demons of fate. And so it was that our car spectacularly sh*t itself (sorry mum) and we were towed back to, yes you've guessed it, Invercargill.

It not all that bad though. As the place provides no entertainment, we had to find some of our own. I draw your attention now to attached photograph which I've entitled "Ant with a handlebar moustache and 80's sunglasses when you have nothing else to do in Invercargill". If you look closely through the window you'll see "Southern Shearing" which is actually the proposed main attraction here. I kid you not.

I've actually grown quite fond of my new facial growth and may keep it for a while. In fact I had breakfast with a pleasant Canadian chap this morning who sported the BIGGEST beard ever, which you just couldn't keep your eyes off. We were blatently both staring at each other thinking "what the hell's going on with his facial hair?"

And in other news. New Zealand is still good. Penguins, rugby matches, walking (tramping as its known here) and other fun things like that. And I have applied to go to Namibia in September.

Request this week therefore are funny facial hair stories, or anyone who knows anything about Namibia. Thank you