Zander's Blog

Entering the Brown Kiwi

2011-05-03T04:11:00.000-07:00

Entering the fetid Brown Kiwi guilt and shame overcame me.

When it came to leaving the hot tub we'd shared with 25 wedding guests New Zealand's South Island was bathed in hot sunshine. I'd persuaded four of them to fly to Auckland with me to find tropical beaches but instead of sunbathing we found ourselves in a typhoon.

We should have stayed where we were.

Auckland had nothing on Queenstown - where my 'Lord of the Rings' location guidebook and soundtrack had taken me to Isengard, Rohan, a cross-dressing nightclub and a wedding. As expected it was like Scotland - only on steroids. Everything was familiar but bigger - trees, mountains, glaciers, hobbits - it even rained and had unpleasant biting insects.

Obsessive British conservation alongside 19th century gold and sheep bonanzas has created a land that mixes the Wild West with small town 1950s America, full of pioneering Scots. Unlike the US there's been little subsequent modernisation and so for the anglophone visitor it's a beautiful timewarp where men are men and the country's quiet.

Sadly the 'Brown Kiwi' was the only hostel in Auckland with space for us. The Lonely Planet's "gay friendly" description proved accurate. In pouring rain the only thing to do was to drink champagne at the races in our wedding gear. Remarkably my 4 companions didn't blame me and everyone else won on the horses.

Craig was a forty-something Kiwi who lived in the hostel because "it's a good way to get to know people". Sharing our stinking dorm, reeking of 8 men and their damp kit, Craig seemed particularly keen to get to know Chief, a strapping Cherekoe-Thai-Nigerian-Englishman. Filling up our Wingroad, hungover at 7am, he announced to the petrol station forecourt his top 3 favourite smells: petrol, surf wax and vaginas.

Still ashamed at the enthusiasm with which our week long post-wedding adventure had ended (dressed as dancing girls in Wanaka's only nightclub) Chief gave Craig a wide berth for fear of what else he might learn about himself.

Entering the boy's shower room I found Chief was explaining at length how he had narrowly escaped death in Somalia while working as the Royston Crow's gardening correspondent.

"I knew you were brave! Was that the only time you've found yourself biting off more than you could chew in foreign parts?" asked Craig as he brushed his teeth. As I closed the door silently Chief launched into a tale of Congolese mishap.

Craig finished brushing his teeth and left. I caught the door as it swung shut, gently pulled it to and affecting my best camp Kiwi accent asked Chief, "is it true that in Congo sexual violence is used as a weapon of war?"

"Yes it is actually. Apparently 70% of the world's rapes happen in DRC, although quite how they know that I've never found out. There was an interesting study by Amnesty. Very sad. Awful thing." Chief continued in awkward half sentences, oblivious to the fact it was me, not Craig, asking him questions.

"And did you ever find yourself threatened, sexually, out in the bush?"

"No Craig I didn't, I'm pleased to say, I managed to avoid that sort of thing." Chief was sounding increasingly defensive so I decided to cut to the chase.

"You never experimented on your travels?"

"I see where you're going with this and the answer's no"

"What about in the shower, Chief? A lot of guys find it quite liberating to touch..."

"Fuck off Craig!"

"I'm coming in!" I cried and stuck my hand round the shower curtain.

"If you want to get punched in the face you're going the right bloody way about it!", Chief thundered.

Chief was covered in shampoo and at this point I told him Craig had left a while ago. "Oh right", he said, "you total bastard. I thought I was going to have to fight him off which was going to be tricky with soap in my eyes".

And with that he was off to find himself on the banks of the Ganges.

Why I recommend not contracting Entamoeba histolytica

2011-02-14T05:25:00.000-08:00

Throughout the last 3 weeks my fortune in having an extensive and remarkable collection of aunts, uncles, cousins, parents, granny, sister and friends has really hit home. I’ve had visits, texts, phone calls, emails, wall posts, cards, gifts and loans of books, DVDs, magazines and pyjamas. All of which have been appreciated and reinforced the suspicion that if you are going to be ill you should do so at home in England where health care is free, expert (if slow) and love and worry can be most easily translated into soup, grapes and hot water bottles.

I’ve been recovering from an Amoebic Liver Abscess. As someone ameobable to a good reason to step back from the relentless cycle of emails, briefings, meetings and events that make up a working day this rare tropical disease could have come at a worse time. It has been nice to feel special. The estimated an annual incidence for liver abscesses is 2.3 per 100,000 people per year in the UK.

My illness has increased my connection to the global village. 10% of the world's population is chronically infected with the amoeba I have been home to. Infection occurs most commonly in tropical and subtropical areas. How that 10% survives without antibiotics I can’t imagine. I guess a lot of them don't.

For those interested in such things transmission is via the faecal-oral route and most common in areas of poor sanitation and overcrowding. It is likely my trip to Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo last August was when I picked it up but as my abscess was calcified and was in my liver rather than intestine it is possible that it's been hanging out in my guts for 2 years, dating back to when I lived in West Africa. This ability of the amoeba to present months to years after travel to an endemic area allowed me to show off to an array of doctors the tropical countries I have visited over the last 10 years and the fluctuating performance of my bowels in these places.

Amoebae are unpleasant creatures – they invade intestinal mucosa and gain access to the portal venous system. Entamoeba histolytica causes amoebic colitis and dysentery but liver abscess is the most common extra-intestinal manifestation of infection, and while I was lucky to have but one of around 3.5cm (some people get several simultaneously and when over 10cm they drain them with a needle in case they pop although this can cause infection and septicemia) I was unlucky that mine has probably been in there a long time undetected and will take up to 6 months to disappear.

It started 3 weeks ago with prodigious night sweats and a stabbing pain below the rib cage that got steadily worse until I checked myself into A+E. My 7 hour wait there was a low point. More foolish was my decision (with the doctor’s agreement after examining and giving me very strong painkillers) that I was fine to go home.

Lying in bed at 4am screaming and biting into a T-shirt I shoved down my throat having woken my flatmate as the painkillers failed to work was the lowest point. The next 3 days sharing a ward (which took 16 hours lying in a cubicle in A+E to get into) weren’t great either. Dennis was 89 and a former boxing champion who shouted: “I’M GETTING OUT OF HERE!” all night and spat constantly all round his bed. Everyone else was old and mad except for one 23 year old who had been there for 3 weeks and no one seemed sure what was wrong with him except for him being very sick. The security guards with batons and stab-proof vests who patrolled A+E and the wards were also unsettling.

Archway’s Whittington Hospital is regularly threatened with closure and while the doctors were good everything seemed over-stretched and to take a long time. After 4 days they established I didn’t have gall stones and a week after that they discovered what I did have, 3 days after I was discharged. The contrast with the excellent (and also) NHS Hospital for Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Infectious Diseases was stark. After my liver got more painful 3 days after leaving hospital, and with the Whittington showing no interest in me, I went Tropical and was given rapid test results and stronger antibiotics which seem to have done the trick. In future I intend to only get exotic ailments.

My work colleagues plied me with fruit, magazines and a very nice football they’d all signed. My sister and parents were constant presences and supported by granny, flatmate, cousins, aunts, uncles and friends which was great. As I’ve got better I’ve expanded my intellectual portfolio from radio, to DVDs, to books, to lengthening daily walks to Highgate, Hampstead Heath and Alexandra Palace even while continuing to feel consistently slightly nauseous. My antibiotics are what they give to alcoholics to get them off the booze – the merest drop makes one vomit uncontrollably. The addition of "anti-nausea" happy pills has been helpful.

I’m now in the odd position of feeling better but not well. I’ve decided, with agreement from doctors, that going to New Zealand on Thursday will be a useful final component of my recovery. Today's my first day back in the office, so far it has proved hard to concentrate. Even sending this email which I wrote last week has been quite an effort.

As a young fogey I have come to accept being overtaken by other pedestrians, having to make regular use of park benches, finding buses far better than tubes and gazing wistfully at elegant folk on bicycles.

While I would have preferred not to be ill it has provided time to reflect on what is important, where I am going and all that sort of navel-gazing stuff. Love and thanks to everyone who has made me feel loved, missed, cared for and supported during an uncomfortable few weeks - it has made a huge difference.

How I tried to get the British Government to do something

2010-09-15T11:25:00.000-07:00

Ahead of next week’s UN Summit on the Millennium Goals ONE, Results UK and the Global Poverty Project (GPP) teamed up to show British politicians why continuing to increase overseas development aid spending when everything else is getting slashed is the right thing to do, even in these tough economic times.

I co-presented with GPP’s Elisha London “1.4 Billion Reasons” – a ground breaking, multimedia explanation of the causes and solutions to global poverty.

It took a fair amount of learning. I was at a wedding in Tuscany last weekend and had to leave friends drinking in a vineyard to go practice in an olive grove, declaiming to the sun my thoughts on how to solve global poverty. A fairly self-induldgent if not Messianic way to spend one's holiday but also an interesting process. How do you talk about the 1.4 billion people who live in abject poverty without sounding smug, patronising, boring and worthy?

I don't know but a bit of passionate realism never hurt anyone. Also some good videos and visuals which are inspiring, along with real people telling their stories helps.

That's what GPP do and it's so clever I wanted to get involved. They re-work the script and the content depending on audiences so it can be targetted at faith groups, businesses and students from 4-40 and any age in between and above. They're funded by the Gates Foundation which I find impressive for a bunch of Australians in their 20s and have all done remarkable things from getting Bono to perform at their Make Poverty History gig, to getting Hugh Jackman to become their patron to projecting anti-poverty messages on Sydney Opera House.

And they don't just talk about stuff they get on and do it - 40,000 people have already seen this presentation. I sometimes feel that working in politics you never actually see what change anything you talk about is actually having. What excited me about GPP is that it's a bottom-up process. If you can get people inspired off the back of an hour's presentation to do something they wouldn't have done otherwise that's about as close as you can get to helping change the world.

They asked me to help out with their political work - if you're going to tell MPs and Ministers what to do it's best to have a British accent. We also rewrote and shortened the presentation to make it more appropriate to them.

In addition to Secretary of State for International Development Andrew Mitchell (photographed above with ONE members) over 20 MPs attended from all major parties – several of whom invited us to bring “1.4 Billion Reasons” to their constituencies and the Houses of Parliament in the future.

Along with the MPs and other attendees, ONE members were there in full force and had a chance to grab Andrew Mitchell ahead of the event to tell him about ONE’s new Baby Protest – our campaign to ensure no child is born with HIV after 2015.

ONE Member Alan Riegler said:

“Meeting with Andrew Mitchell was great, we explained to him our hopes for the upcoming summit on the Millennium Development Goals in New York City – that with the right plan and access to simple medicines, we can ensure an HIV-free generation by 2015.”

You have been listening to the Boight Family

2010-08-22T02:48:00.000-07:00

Soaring a capella harmonies draw a crowd sheltering from the midday heat. People sit on the floor, lean against pillars and stare at the painted tiles like tired pilgrims in an Indian temple, only with a choral soundtrack.

The young family’s soothing vocals provide welcome respite from the New York heatwave. Children play hide and seek between the pillars. Mr Boight stands like a general, leading his troops in song, beating out time with shiny leather shoes. His teenage son, lanky and awkward, checks his watch, yawns and closes his eyes to hit a high note.

After 20 minutes they stop.

"You have been listening to the Boight Family with Mark Redstock on saxophone", Mr Boight announces.

The pretty Miss Boight approaches onlookers for money. Then they break into 'Ave Maria' for the second time. Central Park tourists wander on from under the arches of Bethesda fountain but are quickly replaced. I remain, unable to find anywhere else to escape the sweatiness, and think about the Jacksons.

After turning down the offered $5 CD for a second time from the embarrassed looking teenage daughter I notice that much of the harmony and backing vocals come from a tinny portable CD player, masked by Mr Boight's strong tenor lead and Mark Redstock’s sax. The 2 smallest singers are barely singing at all. It's the older girls who balance their father's strong tenor and stop the whole performance sounding ridiculous. The music shifts tempo as all 5 children start swinging and clicking their fingers to a jazzy sax solo that turns into, "A few of my favourite things".

The children playing in the arches have all moved on apart from two: young Boights too little to stand still and pretend to sing. If this is the Family von Trappe where's Maria?

The longer I sit under the arches the more questions I have: how long have they been doing this? Why? Religion - the songs vary from classical to gospel to generic r’n’b. Dreams of musical glory – they only have 5 songs which the children sing reluctantly. Enjoyment? Apart from the serious Mr Boight and the creepy Redstock the children all look miserable, tired and bored. How important is the income from the hat and CDs that his daughter touts to the family’s income? How does proud Mr Boight feel when he leads his family home after a long afternoon singing ‘Ave Maria’ to tourists in the Bethesda arches?

The Mayor of Strawberry Fields

2010-08-03T09:59:00.001-07:00

Every evening at 6 the Mayor of Strawberry Fields lays fresh flowers over John Lennon's memorial, the black and white mosaic which says "Imagine".

He lays whatever's in season: today it's rose petals, sunflowers and cow-parsley in patterns and colours with the reverence of an Indian priest in his temple. Young tourists take photos and leave, older visitors stop and contemplate.

It takes about an hour for the Mayor to fully dress the mosaic. Onlookers on benches surround him, watching his show – a rare, free New York tourist attraction.

A man with a strong Eastern European accent starts playing guitar well while singing like Borat. A severe looking middle aged lady harmonizes prettily over "Norwegian Wood", one of the more catchily meaningless attempts by Paul at realism.

He breaks into 'Imagine'. 40 people smile, look at each other and join in, "you may say I'm a dreamer but I'm not the only one".

Evening sun breaks through the green canopy. Borat continues with 'Help', 'All You Need is Love' and 'Instant Karma'. Central Park feels like Sherwood Forest.

The moment is broken by a terrible rendition of "A Yellow Submarine". Many leave. No one joins in. Of those who stay it's the first to get a clap.

The Mayor looks up from his newspaper and surveys his warm, green kingdom. He tells a succession of confused girls trying to preserve their modesty while crouching for photos in low cut summer dress to raise their index and middle fingers.

"It's the peace sign!" he says loudly, “stick your fingers up!”

The peace that might have drawn John to this calm oasis on the edge of Central Park, opposite the Upper West Side apartment where Yoko still lives, is suddenly destroyed by noisy Italian students. They are to tour groups what the Israelis are to backpacking and mosquitoes to summer barbeques.

The mayor zones out when these groups arrive. "I've been doing this every day for 17 years. It all comes from him. There was the Dead for a while but then I started doing this... Yoko's been down 3 times already this year".

The group leave.

The Mayor's friend Barry offers the Mayor a huge blunt, "where you from?" he asks me.

"London"

"You know who the King of Flower Power was, son? Donovan - fucking mellow yellow".

He heads off into the park to score. He has a gig to go to.

Both wear old ripped jeans and waistcoats covered in patches depicting marijuana leaves, peace symbols and bands. Baseball caps are festooned with badges.

Smiling as he rearranges his rose petals he says, "I think John would have liked it. My work is to remind the people what John and his brothers and sisters were talking about: peace and love".

Development Horizons from Lawrence Haddad: The Development Manifesto Watch

2010-04-22T03:07:00.000-07:00

Beyond the manifestos it's interesting how each party leader chose to respond to ONE Vote 2010's question: "what would your Government do if elected to fight extreme poverty?" For videos of what they said, and to compare their positions check out:
www.one.org/international/blog/uk-party-leaders-go-on-the-record

Zander

Too much love will kill you

2010-02-19T10:07:00.000-08:00

Queen was my first rock love. Aged 10 I was given their Greatest Hits. The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert at Wembley was my first gig (on TV). It rocked. I abandoned MJ, acquired the entire Queen back catalogue and devoured biographies of the greatest band ever. Brian May loved his guitar so much he bought it a seat next to him on Concorde. He’d made it himself out of a fireplace and he has a Phd in astronomy. Freddie was born in Zanzibar. Queen were cool: at massive 80s parties dwarves circulated with bowls of Bolivian marching powder strapped to their heads.

As a teenager I realised that ‘Queen’ were actually quite gay. This put me off but you never forget your first love.

A decade later ‘We Will Rock You’ written by Ben Elton (of Blackadder genius) premiered at the Dominion Theatre. I was excited but disheartened by the terrible reviews. The Guardian reviewer said “'it wasn't just bad, it was traumatising'. The Times said it was unlikely to last more than a few weeks.

Ten years on and it’s still sold out most nights. The gold statue of Freddie on Tottenham Court Road has always beckoned but I couldn’t bring myself to pay to see something so embarrassing uncool.

So when Dad phoned and asked whether I’d go with him I agreed, provided we didn’t tell anyone. It started badly. The plot was appalling: a musical set in a distant future where music had been banned yet everyone sang; a rant against the commercialisation of rock music which charged 60 pounds for a ticket, 4.60 for a beer and produced terrible covers of ‘Somebody to Love’ and ‘Under Pressure’. At over 2 hours it felt an hour too long.

In the interval I considered leaving. Especially after a bag of Galaxy Minstrals cost me 3.50 and I remembered half way through I had decided to give up chocolate for Lent. The crowd was old and mostly English (everyone laughed loudly about Northern Rock and blow jobs).

“Who are all these people? Is anyone sitting next to you?” Dad asked a large Northern woman. He’d bought the cheapest standing tickets and we’d already been moved on by the Japanese tourists whose seats we’d borrowed in the first half.

“No love, help yourself. It’s better from close up, especially the second half”.

“You’ve seen it before then? How many times? Isn’t it the best musical score in London?” he gushed.

“Oh yes” she replied, “I can’t remember it’s been that many times. The story’s not great though and I reckon the music in Hairspray and Avenue Q’s better”.

Somehow an uplifting last half hour (helped by being in the second row and the dancing girls in fishnets and PVC bikinis singing ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’ waving pink feather dusters) sent everyone home happy. Bohemian Rhapsody was the inevitable encore. It followed the discovery of the world’s last electric guitar in the rubble of Wembley Stadium by Scaramouche and Gallileo Figaro, thus resurrecting Cliff Richard and the rest of Heartbreak Hotel while destroying the Evil Killer Queen in the Seven Seas of Rye. Sadly Britney Spears died before the interval in order to save rock’n’roll.

We Will Rock You mostly served to show how extraordinary Freddie’s vocals really were. Even without him the songs still have power. I love Queen.

How I learnt to love cycle couriers

2010-01-10T08:44:00.000-08:00

I used to hate them with their cool bikes, shabby chic and rollies. They lounge on Soho street corners exuding distain for all those for whom sweatiness and dreadlocks are not a sign of professional achievement.

Office rats trudge past them destined for long meetings and bad coffee. Only cheery Australian barmen inspire comparable annoyance mixed with envy. Bankers at least have the grace to look miserable.

“I love the freedom: your worst day on a bike will be better than your best day in an office," he told me wearing combats, lycra, leg warmers and a fur hat. “You're outside all day and you control London, not the other way round. You go where you like, quickly, and there's no waiting for buses, being stuck underground or in traffic. You deliver whatever it is and get home having biked 100 miles, knowing you've done your job and feel good but knackered”.

“I don't know a single courier who would rather be doing something else. There are rivalries – in some pubs if you've not got a walkie-talkie people look down on you. I used to deliver sandwiches and guys would take the piss. I don't know why delivering envelopes makes you better but it's a bit like school sometimes, showing off fancy bikes and gear and stuff. The rain's a bit shit but I'm happiest on my bike”.

For the office worker avoiding death whilst looking for lunch couriers are a menace. For those who dream of escape the expressionless faces staring into the middle distance, free from the oppression of inside, walking the line between freedom and bum-dom it's the attitude that appeals, not the work.

The cheery Aussie barman's on an extended gap year – temporarily running away from whatever real life will be. The banker has a life, if not a salary, of little freedom. The courier, battling the worst their less evolved brethren in white vans, cabs or buses can throw at them rides free into the distance – living the dream of 'the littlest hobo'. While part of a system which crushes so many they zoom past the rest both switched on and tuned out from the world around them.

Drog sees RED

2009-12-15T09:26:00.000-08:00

1 December was World AIDS Day – Niketown on Oxford Street has “gone RED”, as have their flagship shops around the world. They’ve produced red laces which all Nike football players are wearing. Their shops have red windows. The sales of these laces will raise money for the Global Fund to fight AIDS, raise awareness about RED and AIDS and help secure more public funding for the Global Fund in the US. RED’s already raised over $140m.

Didier Drogba came to the launch, alongside Bono whose idea RED was. The Ivorian man mountain likes his RED laces - in the photo above he's scoring the first of 2 goals for Chelsea against Arsenal while wearing them.

“Drog sees RED” made it on to Page 3 of The Sun, directly below Poppy, 19 from Swindon. Unfortunately Poppy didn’t have anything to say about World AIDS Day. She did have very small pants though. Her comment box featured her opinion on the front page story about a family of Somali asylum-seekers who have been given a big house in Westminster.

Biking through a cold but clear London I passed the fountains in Trafalgar Square spraying red water into the night sky while the giant London Eye shone a bright red arc over Whitehall. I’ve lost my gloves and wear socks on my hands instead. To regain sensation in my fingers I got a RED coffee from Starbucks. They’ve learnt from last year’s novelty, ginger flavoured coffee that RED coffee is best served in a red cup rather than the coffee literally being red.

The MP I went to meet turned out to be an Arsenal supporter. He wasn’t as enthusiastic about Drogba’s red laces. He did agree that the World Cup in South Africa makes 2010 a year when the world will see Africa differently. He said the right things about politicians keeping their promises to the world’s poor despite the economic crisis.

Will Drogba and the rest rise to the test? South Korea got to the semi-final when they hosted the World Cup and they were rubbish. The mighty elephants of Ivory Coast, lions of Cameroon and Bafana Bafana of South Africa should show Africa at its best up against the superpowers of Brazil, tricky Italians and cheating French: a continent fighting massive odds with an uncertain present and exciting future.

Cycling home beneath a full moon I looked north to the alien beacon that is the BT Tower. It was bright RED.

Biking in London

2009-10-17T09:11:00.001-07:00

You never forget your first proper roundabout. Buses, taxis, trucks and motorbikes overtake from all angles. Death feels inevitable. When it doesn’t happen there’s a buzz: city cycling doesn’t get trickier, faster or more exhilarating than London. Cities on the continent with their bike lanes and compact centres are too easy, American ones impossible. Trans-Atlantic London sprawls and overwhelms with traffic, distance and, occasionally, stunning views.

Biking through Hyde Park is as good as weekdays get. The trees are changing colour in the only central park which gives a proper sense of space. In some places it almost looks like the King’s hunting ground it once was with nothing but meadow and trees. Crossing the Serpentine as the sun rising behind the spires of Westminster Abbey and Houses of Parliament London feels like a tranquil provincial city.

Women who look 20 from behind and at least 40 from the front walk dogs in make up and heels. There’s a curious vulnerability to them. Wandering round Hyde Park, as opposed to jogging purposefully in lycra, exposes the truth that dare not speak its name when “in town”: they have nothing to do. Appearing busy is essential to justifying one’s existence in London even if the activity is entirely pointless. Bored children ride horses, their vacant stares asking, “why don’t we live in the country?”

Cyclists zoom along paths making better progress than the cars on Bayswater Road. There is only one designated cycle path but it’s more exciting to go cross-country, even if it does mean dodging fat tourists. Biking home in the dark is good because you can’t see anything and it feels like flying. Avoiding park rangers in golf buggies adds frisson. Sometimes they look like they’re going to give chase, they can fine bikers £70. I wonder if I’d be able to shake them off. Would the dog women notice? Would they help me escape?

It is terrible having to go somewhere in the morning but it’s better than going nowhere slowly carrying a plastic bag full of dog shit. Helicopters come and go on the lawns behind Millionaires’ Row and toddlers in designer outfits with Polish au pairs look on from the giant pirate ship playground built in memory of Princess Diana. While unemployed I took my cousin’s children to the playground on a Tuesday morning. As the only Englishman (over the age of 4) I felt self-conscious that I wasn't in the City at work. I could have been their dad except I was too young and badly dressed to be able to afford to live anywhere within walking distance. I saw the au pair explain to a friend that I was a relative and word quickly got around the girls that I was not a paedophile. The glare of female disapproval moved on and I was able to play in the sandpit with the other kids.

On the bike Hyde Park leads to Mayfair and grand houses, hotels and hedge funds. People here are like the ladies in the park but less honest about having nothing to do. Avoiding a delivery van that came from nowhere I almost hit a sheik’s son the other day. He walked with his right arm tucked behind his back as if examining an army on parade. He didn’t seem to be going anywhere.

Smug men in suits sit in cafés, happy to have escaped the City for grander, more exclusive surroundings where the girls are young and beautiful, unaware that in a few years it will be them walking dogs in Hyde Park.

Many of the most imposing houses look empty and soulless, probably because they are. How many are owned by dictators and criminals? How much of the wealth generated in these mansions helped cause the credit crunch? Do they deserve the bonuses they’ll be getting this Christmas? Isn’t some of the money they’ll be trousering mine?

The US Embassy is a hideous, 1960s bunker that with its post 9/11 defences looks like it should be in Basra, not Grosvenor Square. There are bollards in the road that I guess are meant to stop suicide bombers in cars.

Hanover Square is where Mayfair ends. There’s a kiosk that sells tea for 40p. Like the enduring bargain that is a 15p Fudge bar this defies all logic but is reassuring, a reminder that not everything in London is out to get you. On Brook Street there are blue plaques commemorating famous residents at adjacent houses. One remembers Handel, the next Jimi Hendrix.

Regent Street with its palatial shops is the border into Soho and the West End: where the fun happens. I escape Mayfair next to the Apple shop. With its golden mosaics on a façade that makes nearby Hamleys look plain it’s more of a testament to Apple’s global domination than a shop. Wiggling between the Palladium and Carnaby Street I turn right on Poland Street by the house where Shelley lived. Soho’s been home to immigrants and vagabonds since the Huguenots moved in having been kicked out of France for being Protestants. It was built to house the rich and important but was too close to town and when Mayfair came on the scene: bigger, smarter and further from the stink of ordinary people, artisans, bars, theatres and brothels replaced them. On Wardour Street I sneak past Crepe Affairs (French food) and Just Falafs (Lebanese food) and go into 151.

It’s a bummer arriving in the office sweaty but I've cheated death for another day.

Does the Tory party care about aid?

2009-10-09T08:25:00.000-07:00

In a recent green paper on international development, the Conservative party sought to establish its commitment to aid. Is anyone convinced? Annie Kelly finds out

Annie Kelly guardian.co.uk, Thursday 8 October 2009

The question of how international development would be treated by a Conservative government has long been a concern of many in the aid community.

Today, Andrew Mitchell, shadow minister for international development, hopes to silence those fears. In a speech at the Conservative party conference, the minister will focus on affirming the pledges and commitments outlined in the Conservative party's first green paper on international development, published in July.

For the party with the poorest track record on aid, the green paper is an attempt to remodel the Tories as a party with a firm understanding and commitment to overseas aid and development.

Pledging to bring international development into the "post-bureaucratic age", the One World green paper promised to ensure that Britain continues to lead the way in the global commitment to effective development.

Two of the main promises – pledging to honour Labour's commitment of 0.7% of GDP to overseas aid and securing the Department for International Development's ministerial status and independence – managed to secure a cautious welcome to the green paper by many in the development community.

There was also a strong focus on transparency and accountability and an explicit move towards a "cash on delivery" approach to aid, where recipient governments are paid on the basis of positive results – for example paying a government a fixed amount for every child they get into school.

But just how different is this from current government thinking?

In the green paper the Conservative's hit out at Labour's "old fashioned" ideology, instinctively favouring top-down bureaucratic approaches that it claims have not taken British aid policy in the right direction. It also criticises DfID, claiming it "could do with a little more private sector DNA, a bit more civil service DNA and a little less NGO DNA".

The paper says that under a Conservative government, international aid will see "transparency over what is spent, accountability so people know we're paying for real results", adding that "sunlight is the best disinfectant" when it comes to ensuring transparency.

Aid heritage
The Labour government has been quick to highlight its international development track record and the Conservative's less impressive heritage on aid.

"I want to make absolutely clear to you now, there is no consensus on international aid," Douglas Alexander, the secretary of state for international development told the Labour party conference last week. "There is a world of difference between a party where 96% of its candidates admit that they would not prioritise keeping the aid budget and a party – the Labour party – that would enshrine that promise in the laws of this country." The prime minister said legislation would be passed to ensure the 0.7% figure on aid is met.

The minister also sought to highlight the Tory emphasis on private sector partnerships that has caused concern in some ranks of the development sector. He reminded delegates that the Conservative party halved the UK aid budget and would export privatisation and assisted places to the health and education services of poor countries.

But speak to those working in the development sector and a different picture emerges – that of two parties with similar approaches to aid.

Question marks have been raised over some of the more gimmicky elements in the Tory green paper – such as the idea to let the UK public vote on how and where UK aid is spent.

Yet there is a general agreement that international development is one area where there is now a broad cross-party consensus on the need to ensure international development remains a national priority.

"I think the thing that is most striking about the Conservative green paper is just how similar it is to Labour's white paper on development and that these similarities are much greater than the differences," says Lawrence Haddad, director of the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), based at Sussex University. "Many of the key elements - the goals, the spending, the focus on climate, growth, accountability and security - are the same. The biggest differences are actually on the how, but even then it's difficult to see how these might play out when, and if, the Conservatives make this green paper into actual policy."

The fact that all three major political parties are now pledging to commit 0.7% of UK GDP to aid by 2013 is also seen as a huge step forward.

"We now have cross-party pledges on international development underpinned by an economic commitment, laid out in black and white in policy papers," says Marie Staunton, chief executive at child protection NGO Plan International. "Of course these promises can be broken, but we have a number, something financial that we can pin down and that is an incredible starting point and with that in writing it's going to be difficult for any party to renege."

Economic commitments
Alexander Woollcombe, government relations manager at development NGO One, has been attending international development fringe events at the Conservative conference all week.

He says the main areas of concern voiced by delegates on the issue of international development has been value for money, but that the commitment to shoring up aid budgets seems strong.

"All week what we've been hearing from Andrew Mitchell is that at a time when budgets are being cut, the Conservatives' commitment to aid remains, which is a nice message for the development world to hear in this kind of economic climate," he says.

"There are contradictions in the paper that need to be ironed out, but it's almost impossible to see whether these will be addressed if they take power."

The challenge for the Conservative party now is shoring up support from within for its expansive claims that it is a party that will now place international development at the heart of its political thinking.

"I think it will be very interesting to see if what the leadership is saying on international development actually represents the ranks of the Tory party," says Haddad. "Certainly the senior Tories are talking a good game, but we must all be aware that things could change once an opposition party becomes a government."

Of great comfort is the reassurance that if the Conservatives take power, DfID will remain.

DfID's predecessor, the Ministry of Overseas Development (ODM), lost its ministerial status under the Tories in 1979 when international aid budgets were placed under the Foreign and Commonwealth Office under the direct supervision of the foreign secretary. This didn't change until DfID was established by the new Labour government in 1997.

Fragile states
There are still concerns that the UK's humanitarian aid budget could be increasingly used to meet foreign and military goals as the emphasis on supporting "fragile states" continues.

For example the Conservatives development green paper includes a pledge to ensure aid programmes in Afghanistan and Pakistan are "fully harmonised" with the rest of the British diplomatic and military engagement in the region. There paper also mentions the creation of a national security council where DfID will sit alongside the Ministry of Defence and Foreign Office.

"I think NGOs are instinctively and rightly suspicious of the appropriation of development aid for political or military purposes and protective of the humanitarian space," says Bernard Aryeetey, head of government relations at Save The Children UK.

"Those concerns are still there, but I think as international development has moved up the political agenda it has become harder to blur those lines and the public support for the UK to genuinely lead the field in how overseas development aid can become more effective and accountable will be a great incentive for all party pledges to be met."

Despite the fact that international development has never been so high up the political agenda, Alison Evans, director at the Overseas Development Institute, says the development world should not get too carried away.

"I think we've had a very enabling environment for international development over the last 10 or 11 years," she says.

"But the financial crisis is going to concentrate people's minds on the perception that parts of the developing world are making slow progress despite the huge amount of donor assistance. We in the international development community have to be prepared to enter into an intense debate about whether we are doing the right thing in the right way no matter what party is in government."

Hello, is it me you're looking for?

2009-10-02T07:11:00.000-07:00

The Lib Dems have gathered in sunny Bournemouth (convention centre is hideous building on left of photo) for their party conference – showing the world they are serious. Since the recent expenses scandal here in the UK more MPs are staying in cheap bed and breakfasts than swanky hotels. According to one activist there are more suits than ever before, especially black ones. I thought as a ONE worker the Jeremy Clarkson, jeans’n’jacket combo would strike the right sartorial chord. I was wrong: suits all the way, ties for the politicians, open neck shirts for those, like me, eager to rebel.

It’s a difficult balance: the Lib Dems want to be recognised as progressive, authoritative and ahead of the curve politically – their Treasury Spokesperson and Deputy Leader Vince Cable has led the charge, throughout the economic crisis he has bestrode the sofas of political chat shows like a 21st century, economic Colossus. At the same time the Lib Dems also want to be “different” – unlike Labour and the Conservatives who they say don’t care about “normal people”.

Who are these “normal people”? What do they care about? Does caring about them mean getting them interested in issues which don’t obviously affect their everyday lives?

The truth is out there but political parties don’t know what it is. They have polling yet still disagree about what it means.

That’s why ONE is launching ONE Vote 2010 campaign. 2010 will be the biggest year for British politics since 1997 when Labour came to power. The economic climate means every single pound of Government money will be scrutinised as never before. ONE Vote 2010 will start a conversation about why we must both keep our promises to the world’s poorest people and get better at helping them.

Some will question whether we can afford to increase our help to Africa when Britain faces so many problems: is this a priority? Do people care? I think so, and we’re going to find out.

Few thought Africa and development would be a big issue in the last US Presidential campaign. But ONE ran an unprecedented, non-partisan, hugely successful ONE Vote 08 campaign which won the support of all the major candidates and a major award from the Center for Global Development. Since coming into office President Obama has pledged to double aid to Africa despite the US’s financial problems.

We live in an interconnected world and 2010 will be a huge year for Africa: the first football World Cup to be hosted in Africa, 25 years after Live Aid, 5 years after Live 8 and Make Poverty History and 5 years before the deadline for the Millennium Development Goals.

2010 will be a moment to celebrate the achievements of recent years and accelerate progress in the years to come. The UK is seen as a global leader on international development. As the Lib Dems and other parties think about how to make the public like them, everyone reading this needs to let their local candidates know that being serious about eradicating extreme poverty matters more than whether they’re wearing sharp suits or staying in a B&B.

Michael Jackson - Live from Glastonbury's Wine Bar

2009-07-06T05:53:00.000-07:00

Kerri was the prettiest girl in the third grade. She had curly blonde hair and said she’d seen ‘Dirty Dancing’ 37 times. At church we were told to pray for “our famiy and loved ones”. After working my way through my relatives I thought of Kerri.

It was annoying to have to leave her 8th birthday party early. My grandparents were staying and we were going away for the weekend. As mum hurried me out Kerri pointed at a basket full of cassettes by the door.

“Party bags are lame”, she explained. “You’re lucky, you get first pick; choose a tape”. I was suddenly aware that Kerri was much cooler than me. I had no idea which one to choose. My only tape was about Ernie and Bert, their rubber ducky and a bath with a ring round it called Rosie. I hadn’t really trusted the car’s stereo since finding out that there weren’t small people living in the cassette machine waiting to sing every time I pressed play.

I looked blankly at the collection of tapes and was drawn to the one with a picture of a man with strange eyes staring straight at me. I had no idea who he was but Kerri said, “Good choice, I like him too”. I smiled and floated to the car where I demanded that we listened to my new tape immediately: ‘Man in the Mirror’ by Michael Jackson, the coolest man in the world.

Ernie and Bert’s days in the tape deck were numbered. Granny Biz, a musical Scottish lady in her late 60s pronounced it “very good". My little sister aged 5 said he was her favourite pop star. I got ‘Bad’, which had just come out, watched his videos and tried and failed to sing and dance like him.

Twenty years later and I’m working the late shift in a wine bar at Glastonbury. It’s Thursday night, the bands don’t start till Friday and business is brisk. I’m serving Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon - and they say music festivals have become middle class - playing music to get people dancing, trying to stay awake. I’m depressed that I can no longer party as hard as I used to.

“Have you heard Michael Jackson’s dead?”

This is my 6th Glastonbury. Every year outlandish rumours spread like swine flu, incubated and spread by the Chinese whispers of 180,000 people off their heads with no access to the internet and poor mobile phone coverage. But something about the question's tone is convincing: a mixture of worry, sadness and realisation that what was surprising was not that he’d died but that dying was something we’d not thought about happening to him before, unlike other more druggy stars.

“Someone’s just told me and I don’t know whether to believe them”.

There are a couple of people waiting, about 10 dancing to Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now” and as Freddie Mercury’s voice fades I cut to “Billie Jean”. The dancers roar and 10 soon becomes 20, then 30. As the song ends I put on “Don’t Stop (till you get enough)”.

A girl comes up to the bar and asks, “Are you playing Michael Jackson songs because he’s dead?” I shrug. “Play some more. Have you got ‘Smooth Criminal’?”

For the next hour I rotate my i-pod’s limited selection of Michael Jackson and Jackson 5 songs. The crowd swells to 60-70 people. More people ask if he’s dead. As a provider of both alcohol and loud music I’m the closest this part of Glastonbury’s got to an oracle. A couple of people show me text messages received from “outside”, confirming news that feels weird, like the death of a close friend who no one knew and meant something different to each person who wanted to but didn’t know him. There are people crying. Someone shouts, “Jacko Lives!” A cabaret band starts up on the corner playing “He’s dead, he’s dead, he’s really, really dead” to the tune of ‘Bad’.

No one except Michael Jackson could get black, white and Asian people aged between 15 and 50 singing and dancing with this much enthusiasm. As the crowd get drunker people start coming up and telling me about why they love Michael Jackson. Different age groups talk about different stages of his career. The child abuse stuff is joked about or ignored; perhaps it’s inappropriate on the night he’s died or maybe because it’s awkward to love someone who is such a freak and has a consistently young fan base. Of all those dancing it’s the teenagers who are the most enthusiastic. None of them were born the last time he wrote a good song, few were able to walk when he last toured and in their lifetimes he’s only been in the news for being a suspected paedophile. So why do they like him? It’s the music. The rhythms are accessible. His incredible energy speaks to children and young people, as well as to those of other cultures, because he’s entirely sincere in what he sings and how he performed. His music makes people feel good about themselves. At least it did to this young fan who never got invited round for sleepovers. Celebrating his genius isn’t condoning his lifestyle. Both are facets of the same character.

As the dance area becomes increasingly slippery in the mud 2 boys start moonwalking. This turns into a dance off with the crowd in a circle clapping in time with the music as the guys take it in turns to impress with their moves, some copied from Michael’s videos, some not.

Over the next 4 hours the crowd stays about the same size as people walk past, dance for a bit and then move on. Those who stay become increasingly frustrated with the my i-pod, “HOW CAN YOU NOT HAVE THRILLER?!” a girl screams at me as I put on Billie Jean for the 20th time.
“I didn’t realise he was going to die”, I reply.

She returns with an i-phone. “This belongs to that guy over there, he’s got HIStory. Play Thriller NOW”. With the i-phone the crowd now has the full greatest hits to dance to. Top requests are: Billie Jean, Beat It, Thriller, Don’t Stop (till you get enough), Bad, Smooth Criminal, Want to Be Startin' Something and Man in the Mirror.

At first playing the same songs repeatedly gets me down. I feel old, tired, annoyed (my camera’s been nicked from behind the bar while I was DJing) and depressed by MJ’s grotesque physical mutation and messed up life. Was it the media's fault? His dad's? His fans'? Was it inevitable that someone so good so young ends up a screwball? Why?

After a while I get into a rhythm of mixing his songs together, which ones lead naturally into others, dropping the volume for choruses to get the crowd to sing along. Earth Song and Black or White are hugely popular despite being astoundingly cheesy. The enthusiasm of the crowd for the music is infectious. The skill in the crafting of his songs becomes more obvious the more I play them: major key changes for choruses create a sense of euphoria, the catchy hooks combine brilliantly with the irrepressible joy of the vocals.

The bar’s coated in a slippery film of spilt wine and I spin, howl and grab my crotch while singing my heart out. I’m 8 years old again and it’s great. I still can’t moonwalk but I can slide backwards a bit. It’s closing time and the crowd demand more Michael. I tell them we’ve got to close but they can have one last song.

“Gonna Make a Change for once in my life
It’s gonna feel real good, gonna make a difference, gonna make it right.
-
I’m talking to the Man in the Mirror.
I’m asking him to change his ways.
And no message could have been any clearer:
If you want to make the world a better place
Take a look at yourself and make a change”.

On paper his lyrics look mawkish but they're not after a few bottles of Cabernet Sauvignon with 50 people singing arm in arm in a circle at Glastonbury. We shut up the bar and tell everyone to go home. I remember the giant inflatable wine bottle on the roof. I put on ‘You are not alone’, climb the ladder and look across Glastonbury – Europe’s biggest festival in the middle of the most beautiful countryside in England. In the distance is the medieval Tor, around me is a temporary town sprawled over green fields, which except for these 4 days is home to 47 cows.

Below me the crowd is still there, singing along to Michael Jackson as they walk back to their tents in the dawn’s drizzle. I slowly let the air out of the giant wine bottle and wonder what Kerri is doing. Rest in Peace Michael.

Meeting Sebastian Faulks and William Boyd: why Blogging is Rubbish

2009-06-06T06:04:00.000-07:00

'Only write when you've got something to say' was what I took from my conversation with William Boyd and Sebastian Faulks on Thursday. I had a list of questions beyond: “what inspired you to get involved with Bookfest?” Fortunately neither of them mentioned their new books and both seemed genuinely interested in Oxfam. Unfortunately I didn’t get the chance to ask them much else but I did get to watch and listen to them talk to each other for an hour: it was the first time they’d met. Both are famous for writing well about wars, France, as women and as spies. Both live near the Portobello Road bookshop where we met.

I asked William Boyd, who was born in West Africa, why he hadn't written more about the injustice in Africa in his novels set on the continent. He replied, "being a novelist is about examining the human condition. Novelists do not have a duty to educate their readers about particular issues. Novels are about character and story. If you allow politics to dominate it becomes a political tract, not a novel".

That seemed a bit of a cop-out. There's obviously a balance to be struck between giving your characters enough of yourself to be real and removing your thoughts sufficiently to allow the story to come to life. However, if Orwell's a novelist and 'The Poisonwood Bible' is a novel with insights into why the Congo is such a disaster, isn't Boyd hiding behind his definition of what a novelist is rather than answering the question? He certainly cares about West Africa, he was a friend of Ken Saro-Wiwa who was killed by the Government of Nigeria for standing up to them and Shell who oppressed his people in the Niger Delta. Boyd helped his friend and criticised the Government in newspaper articles, to the extent that he's not been back to Nigeria since. Maybe he doesn't really know why he writes what he does.

Both Boyd and Faulks seemed very aware of the people around them, but they also seemed a bit shy, keener to examine others than themselves, not naturally fond of the limelight but after years of book tours clever at disguising this.

They seem to view novels as the purest form of expression, which struck me as a bit smug. Neither seemed likely to have much time for blogging or twitter. Faulks was inspiring because he said a lot of what he wrote during his twenties was crap, but the thing was to get on with it and write. When I asked him why so many of his and Boyd’s books were set in the past he said it would take him too long to answer but “Tolstoy, Dickens and more than half of what we consider ‘great’ literature was set in an earlier period than when it was written”.

He added, “I don’t consider writing about the first half of the 20^th century to be ‘history’. It’s the lifetime of my parents and grandparents, people I knew, and while aspects of their lives were different their way of looking at things wouldn’t have been all that far from our own”.

I've not written my blog or twittered for over 2 months. I didn't see the point as I'd lost my job and moved home aged 28 having left my beloved motorcycle in Senegal. I knew anything I wrote would have been self-pitying, angsty and boring.

If I had been blogging constantly I wouldn't have got the job that allowed me to meet two of the cleverest men I've ever encountered. Their thoughts on writing are much more worthy of blogging than a lengthy post explaining and excusing my laziness in not blogging more often.

Why Blogging is Rubbish

The beauty of the internet is that there are no rules.

So why does everyone say that blogging and tweeting must be done all the time? Why is constantly communicating, uploading links, videos and photos, commenting on other blogs and writing provocative, instant analysis in an effort to generate comments every day the only way to success?

Surely it all depends on what kind of blog you are writing and why you are writing it. Why do all blogs have to contribute to the information overload that means that despite technology making everything quicker we actually get less done than we did before email?

In the future won't magazines be replaced by the occasional blogger? Most of the time no one has anything interesting to say so why not wait until you do?

I only see the point in blogging when I'm:
A) Doing something that I'd be interested in reading about
B) Giving a perspective on something I care about in the hope that other people might like it.

That's why this blog post is a failure and why most of blogging is rubbish: it encourages you to write about what you think rather than what's really interesting. I set out to write about 2 famous writers and end up writing about myself.

I blogged and twittered in Sierra Leone because I was inspired by the people, the places, the stories and the ideas it provoked in me: the fourth generation of my family to come to this beautiful country; messed-up in many ways by well-intentioned people like me.

I'm blogging now because I feel guilty and frustrated I haven't managed to do more with the stories that found me in Sierra Leone. It's a guilt I feel every time I travel to a developing country and talk to people. In exchange for their time there's an implicit promise that through me their stories will get out to the world and people will realise that our dreams are not so different no matter where we live.

The problem is that no one except blogspot publishes me and 2 months of blog inactivity went unnoticed by all except my mother. There's too much information in the world and it's only going to get worse.

The answer is that less is more. You can't get anywhere that matters if you're constantly twittering.

What the credit crunch should mean for development

2009-03-24T08:30:00.000-07:00

George Freeman, 22, former street child in Freetown, is a social entrepeneur running projects that get street children into school and micro-finance, youth-led employment programmes (see video).

My "Comment is Free" story got onto the Guardian website.

I've had a story there before but this time I got more comments and more anger about why Africa hasn't developed despite 50 years of aid.

It's a good question. What makes Sierra Leone so interesting is that it's the test case of whether aid works. All the sexy development ideas from budget support to gender mainstreaming are being implemented and if the international community can't help the people of Sierra Leone get back on their feet then it's time to call it a day and say: "hey guys, this development thing, yeah, um we don't have a clue what we're doing, let's go home".

Is it a lack of money, or understanding, or good people and ideas? Are the problems simply too great? Are donors doing the wrong thing with the right people? Are they doing the right things but badly because they don't understand the context and are not working with the right people? Maybe it's just too complicated and to fix it needs much more money and time. No one knows.

But it's our money that's being spent and development practitioners need to be able to explain what they're doing and what is changing and what isn't. The reality is complex. Good and bad things are happening and the good things need to be communicated better. Saying "aid works" was fine in 2005 but not in 2009.

Those who are doing work that is creating change should be celebrated, people like George Freeman. They need to be helped to explain to the world what they're doing, why it's working, how they see the future development of their country and the role aid plays in that vision. The problem is George can't afford a laptop, which is why his website's out of date. He needs help from people in the West who chuck away laptops to build his business.

There needs to be more honesty about the bits that aren't working and explanation of why they're not working. Either those bits are abandoned or it's explained that "this is important for long-term development and in 10 years time we'll see real differences because of x,y and z".

The anger in the comments on my piece calling for more help for Sierra Leone is well-founded. Much of what I've seen in Africa has made me really angry too. It's our money. Good intentions aren't enough. Especially in a credit crunch. The fact that despite this in 2009 Comic Relief raised record amounts is amazing.

2005 was meant to Make Poverty History. Why didn't it happen? Is aid a waste of time? To counter the idea that aid is useless there needs to be more information and evidence of how aid helps. That evidence exists but the UK's view of Africa is still shaped by the famines of the early 1970s.

The cliches of what Africa is like are not the daily realities of the average African in 2009. The development community needs to use the opportunities presented by new media to show that things are changing. Yes Darfur and Congo are awful but that is not all of Africa. From Freetown to Maseru to Ouagadougou millions of ordinary people are working hard to feed and educate their kids and keep their families healthy and in a decent house. The problems they face, along with their politicians and business people, are the same as those in the West. It's just they're a lot poorer and that makes life difficult in ways we can't begin to imagine.

When things go wrong everyone looks for someone to blame. Bankers are a fair target and should lose their bonuses. Poor people are not and should not lose aid intended for them. But the development community needs to get better at explaining what's going on and now is the time to become more serious about how the additional money that's come since Gleneagles has helped and why there needs to be more of it in the future. The credit crunch means people don't trust experts any more whether they're financial, political or developmental. We want to understand where our money is going and why and if we can do that we're still happy to give (as Comic Relief showed). People need to know about George Freeman and the millions of Africans like him.

Freetown to London via Dakar

2009-03-20T16:33:00.000-07:00

Leaving Freetown was better than arriving. It was a sunny afternoon, I took a speedboat and the green hills that frame the city glowed below a clear sky and blue ocean: the combination of colours that makes up Sierra Leone's flag.

I'd really enjoyed being a journalist in Sierra Leone, see above, and going from villages to Government Ministries and hanging out in bars, prisons and boxing gyms in between. Although full of ideas for the next month's planned motorbike trip returning to Dakar was harder than expected. I didn't have a job or anywhere to live so had to pack up my room and figure out which of my friend's sofas I would crash on.

And then yesterday afternoon I was told there was a mix-up with my flight and I have to fly home this evening.

So the motorbike trip's on hold. I've got another flight from Dakar to Paris booked for 14th June meaning I will have to find an over-land route back to Dakar. The motorbike, though a beauty, wouldn't start this evening and on reflection it might not be a bad to buy one in the UK that actually works before setting out into the Sahara on my own at the hottest time of the year.

It's a weird one though. I want to come back to Dakar and have more adventures but if there's a flight, tonight, and a seat with your name on it, you just have to get on the flight. No matter how counter-intuitive it feels and no matter how much you might miss people who are still here.

War in Sierra Leone

2009-03-11T01:56:00.000-07:00

This is a Nigerian tank that broke down in a village with no electricity near the border with Liberia in the jungley area where the Sierra Leonean civil war kicked off in 1991. The Nigerians were here leading ECOMOG - the West African Peace Keeping Force - except there was no peace to keep because there was a massive war.

The Nigerians had tanks and jets but out here in the bush that wasn't very helpful because the rebels just hung out in the forests with machine guns and machetes. For years they periodically raided, pillaged and raped their way through villages and towns. The rebel Revolutionary United Front (RUF) split into factions, Government soldiers joined the rebels becoming 'sobels' (the West Side Boys were 'sobels'), civil defence forces (CDF) sprung up all over the place fighting everyone and then split and the Nigerians didn't know how to win a guerilla war. It was completely pointless because a lot of the time the rebels didn't have a strategy beyond "kill the enemy". The commanders were interested in controlling mining areas but the whole thing was just a mess. The Government couldn't sort it out because it was broke, corrupt and totally unprepared after 30 years of inept leadership since independence to deal with a rebel insurgency.

Through all of it the ordinary people suffered most. No one knew who was spying for who or who was on which side because there were so many factions and villages swapped hands with bewildering regularity as no one was strong enough to win. Attacks whether RUF, sobels, CDF or bandits would take everyone's food, kill, sometimes eat, or mutilate anyone who didn't run away fast enough. If you were a girl you'd be raped and maybe taken along as a possession and if you were a boy you'd be made to fight for them. Once you'd joined you'd start off as a porter carrying supplies for days through the jungle. The rebels had no vehicles. You might have been made to kill your family and while you pondered that as someone not yet in your teens you'd be given cocaine, herion, cannabis and speed. You might not be able to lift a machine gun but if it was set up for you you could kill just as many people as the next man.

Malnutrition rates in Sierra Leone are horrendous. It's hard to understand why in a country that is green and fertile. Lack of protein is a problem and in a week travelling the bush I saw very few animals. After 11 years of war there were no goats, sheep or cows left here. They'd eaten them all along with the wildlife (monkeys etc). People who say giving people goats is a bad idea haven't been here.

Eventually the international community realised that Sierra Leone had been allowed to descend into chaos and brought in a UN mission to support the Nigerians. A surprise SAS attack on the West Side Boys killed the movement because after 10 years everyone wanted peace and the international community's message was clear: we will kill you if you try to carry on.

The civil war made no sense and killed tens of thousands people. It traumatised the nation and is still talked about and visible everywhere. Ruined buildings abound. Mohammed, the boy who tried to find me an internet cafe in Bo (Sierra Leone's second city - imagine Birmingham with no lights) had fled his village aged 3. He toldme his mother had lifted him up and run with him into the forest where they'd hid for 2 days with no food not knowing where to go because rebels could be anywhere. His grandmother wasn't able to run fast. They found her body outside their hut.

The war was started by a group of nasty guys with small penis syndrome who wanted to lead a revolution and Gadaffi gave them money to do it. The war spread because people, especially the young, were frustrated, angry and felt they had nothing to lose. Rebuilding Sierra Leone is expensive, slow and difficult. Progress is being made but no one knows if it's enough. The country remains obscenely poor. Every Sierra Leonean I've met says there will never be another war. Donors are less certain. They say there's a window of about 5-7 years. If sufficient progress isn't made the ingredients that led to the previous war will still be there, threatening all the good things that have happened in recent years.

Kailahun - International Women's Day

2009-03-10T17:37:00.003-07:00

I'm in danger of becoming a bearded feminist. My week in rural Sierra Leone has taught me that buzzwords which mean nothing in Brussels (capacity building, gender mainstreaming, sensitisation) really make a difference to development in villages where most are illiterate, women's lives relentlessly hard and nothing will change unless those cut off from the outside world are better linked up. The article below was absorbed into an IRIN piece: http://wwwl.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=83393

Read on and see which article you think's better.

“Today on International Women’s Day we are organising activities to turn ideas promoting women into action,” Nyawo Claude, of the Kailahun Totorma Women’s Network (KTWN) told IRIN. Kailahun is the poorest region in Sierra Leone, ranked by UNDP as the world’s poorest country. It was here in the forested, forgotten borderlands with Liberia that the country’s bloody civil war started in the early 1990s. With a road that is practically impassable for the 6 months of the rainy season and a population still recovering from 11 years of war the problems faced by organisations like KTWN are considerable.

But Claude, the KTWN, district council and international NGOs including Oxfam, Save the Children, Plan International and the IRC are determined. On March 8th they organised a full day of activities, chaired by Mamie Momoh the district council’s gender focal point. Cultural performances were interspersed with skits on violence against women in schools and in the home with an agenda of discussions and workshops led by the women’s groups. Saturday saw 50 young people gather in the local community centre for a workshop on teenage pregnancy and HIV/AIDS. Marion Kabba is 17 and came along “because there are only 7 girls in my science class and 5 of them have babies. They try to keep up with their studies but it’s very difficult. They leave the babies at home when they come to school but find it hard to concentrate, especially if the baby’s is sick and they have been awake through the night”.

Majo Lamine is the district HIV/AIDS councillor and explains the need to integrate HIV/AIDS information into wider discussions. “There is still a great amount of stigmatisation around HIV/AIDS. Even the word for it in Mende inspires terror: ‘Bo da wutay’ (literally translated as “wipe out the family”). A few years ago a local man returned from Freetown with HIV and committed suicide because his family rejected him. They believed he would ‘wipe out the family’”.

Attitudes are slowly beginning to change. The Global Fund, working through district health officials, provides free HIV testing and Anti-Retro Virals. Lamine explains, “there is no AIDS epidemic here like we see in Southern Africa. HIV rates are about the same as they are in Europe: around 1.5%. However, the ingredients for catastrophe are present: low literacy and education rates, particularly of girls, combined with a lack of information and discussion of these issues. Providing the services is only one half of the equation. The other half is for the communities themselves to proactively take the lead in ensuring that young people understand what AIDS is, how you get it and what can be done to prevent it”.

Workshops, street theatre, peer-to-peer education and discussions on community radio have been found to be the best way to get information out, particularly in rural areas where school attendance is especially low. Running through the heart of all these initiatives is the recognition of the importance of empowering women. In Kailahun “gender mainstreaming” really means something. Susan Vandy, a member of the KTWN, said, “strengthening our networks keeps up political momentum on women’s issues. 52% of Sierra Leoneans are women but in this region we only have 3 women on the district council. In the past these representatives were marginalized but because we are well organised and can mobilise our members we can keep the pressure up to take action! Our daughters must go to school, our health clinics must be improved and we must be financially strong and have the time to spare to vie for power both politically and within our communities”.

Sierra Leone has the highest rate of maternal mortality in the world. Every year thousands of children die before reaching their fifth birthday due to a range of preventable diseases compounded by malnutrition and poor provision of services. Oxfam has supported KTWN to buy a rice-milling machine. This simple piece of equipment brings in revenue to support KTWN’s activities and frees up precious time for women in Kailahun to focus on more important activities than spending back-breaking hours pounding rice. For those unable to pay with cash rice is taken as in-kind payment. This rice is then sold back to the women at harvest-time prices during the lean season (just before harvest) when prices rocket.

A coalition of organisations is concerned with getting women elected. Kema Brima, KTWN’s treasurer, told IRIN, “I vote first for the woman, for womenhood, not for the political party. 17 women stood in the 2007 election, 8 as independents. Only 3 were elected which was a pity but as women all the candidates stood together and many were very close elections”.
The campaign is growing gradually in communities, campaigning has not been intensive. The women believe that gender roles are changing, women are getting more respect but it takes time. Gender-based violence is still a widespread problem and statistics on poverty, maternal mortality and girl education remain grim. Nyawo Claude remarked as she left, “until there is a decent road so we can get our goods to market this town will remain in poverty”.

Freetown is beautiful by the way

2009-03-04T10:14:00.000-08:00

My last couple of posts have been about how grim life is in Freetown. It's also pretty stunning: San Francisco, mixed with Rio and a touch of Cape Town. It just can't begin to cope with the amount of people who live here. During the war people fleeing fighting inland came here for safety and when the war ended they stayed.

Downtown, around the Cotton Tree which is where the first free slaves sent here in the 1770s from America arrived, there are old colonial houses. It's a bit like Bridgetown, Barbados.

Up on the hills, where this photo was taken, is where the rich folks live with majestic views. And then dotted around in the hills and gullies it feels like a collection of jungley villages with huts clinging to hillsides with lives not so different from the countryside. Then at the bottom are the slums like Susan's Bay. There are other shanty towns alongside the rivers that flow through Freetown. Before the war no one lived there because these areas are flooded and under water for most of the rainy season. People have everything on stilts. For months of the year they literally live in several inches of deeply polluted water.

Meanwhile, in the far west end of the town there is Lumley Beach, slightly past its best but still lovely. Like Joanna. The UN's army headquarters is just to the left of where this photo was taken and was the only part of town to avoid fighting during the war. The UN compound's pretty empty now but it still feels like this peninsula is an oasis of calm in a tumultuous city.

It's a lovely place to stay although last night my waiter asked me if I wanted to spend the night with his sister as I looked like, "the kind of man who would not beat her". I've never seen as many prostitutes as there are here. It's really depressing.

This is the police station in Susan's Bay. It's built on top of rubbish and smells awful. The policeman Mohammed, standing on the left with the hat, travels 3 hours each way to get to work. "I wouldn't bring my family here", he says. "But I am a policeman and must go where I am told. The crime here is not so bad, despite the poverty of the area".

Walking around Susan's Bay I was amazed to see TVs and DVD players inside some of the little huts we walked past. It's weird: you have no toilet but you do have a TV. It shows people's priorities, and that even within a slum there are very different levels of poverty. It also suggests the difficulties inherent in moving out. Freetown's expensive. Food's expensive. Everything is expensive. It's perfectly possible to be able to save up or buy a telly on credit or second hand and still not be close to having the money to move to an area where every rainy season you don't get flooded

Swamp ass'n'slums in Freetown

2009-03-03T13:28:00.000-08:00

Susan's Bay, downtown Freetown.

It stinks. Rubbish, shit and massive rats prowl about as people go about the everyday business of surviving. Slums appear in the bits of land where no one wants to live - in the case of Susan's and nearby Kroo Bay this is because they're where everything from the hills of Freetown drains into the ocean. It's cheap though and near the city centre markets. People can't afford to commute so need to be near where the action is. The little girls in their blue school uniforms are comparatively lucky. At least they go to proper schools. Local ones aren't so well organised. Officially the land is still owned by the Government so if they started building proper schools it would mean that the people officially live there which the State doesn't want to happen. It's a similar problem to Bombay, Nairobi and other slums but the contrast between life down here and life a couple of miles up the hill is stark.

Impromtu school in Susan's Bay

Pigs snuffling in deeply polluted water. Malaria, bacterial infections, and a range of nasty ailments are rife in Susan's Bay and difficult to control because there are hardly any proper toilets. Oxfam has installed some, working with community youth groups, but there's all the waste flowing down from the town above too. It needs a proper, coordinated response and local NGOs are pressuring the authorities to act. No sign of much happening as yet.

2009-03-02T11:28:00.000-08:00

At 5am the entrance to Paddy’s is clogged with 4x4s trying to park inside its heavily defended compound. It’s noisy, confusing and I want to go home but have been told it's dangerous to walk even though it’s only 5 minutes. ‘Tyson’, the former Olympic boxer who now makes a living as J’s bodyguard slips silently from the back of the truck. Minutes later we’re parked up, whisked through the queue and entrance without paying and sipping cold Stars in an open bar with palm trees.

J is my age but 5 years in the diamond business have made him look older. I ask about the impact of the credit crunch on Sierra Leone. That’s the reason I’m here after all. He laughs, “there’s no impact. We all work in dollars and the dollar’s stayed strong. Sure diamond prices have nose-dived but gold’s still doing OK so now we mine less diamonds and more gold. The diamond business is messed up anyway because of the way it’s controlled by De Beers sitting on huge reserves. Normal economics don’t apply”.

We’re surrounded by beautiful women who find us hilarious and dance enthusiastically. “Which ones are prostitutes”, I ask. “They all are, one way or another. If they stroke your palm when you shake hands that means they’re going to need to be paid”.

Tyson returns. “Where did you go?” I ask. “I was seeing to business” he replies.

J had spotted me on my own in a club near my hotel, “you’ve not been here long have you mate”, he said.
“No, it’s my first night out”.
“Well stick with me and you’ll be alright. You won’t get any hassle”.

I didn’t.

At this point D my Sierra Leonean friend reappeared. I introduced them and D said, “I work on the fair mines campaign. You should give more help to the communities”. D and J start to argue in Creo. The thrust of J’s argument is that they’ve built schools and facilities but that they’ve been mismanaged.

D tried to stand in the recent elections but was not selected. “They won’t give youth a chance. They say they want to help us but they don’t do anything”, according to D. “I want to help my community develop but the obstacles to getting involved in politics are high. I don’t want to be co-opted by the system but I want to make a difference”.

“How old are you?” J asks.
“41”, D replies.
He doesn’t look much more than 20 but is in his mid-thirties. J laughs.

H arrives. He’s Sierra Leonean but spent 23 years working for the NHS in Camberwell. He’s pessimistic about the future of his country: “we need a strong leader. It’s tribalism that is the problem. We don’t work together”. He blames D’s people in the south for not backing national unity but he also praises Shaka Stevens’ Government (a northerner like him who was in great part responsible for driving this country into the ground).

D is moving to Holland. “I hope to come back and stand for election again” he says.

Earlier over dinner with aid workers in Freetown’s only sushi restaurant high on the hill station the British founded it was obvious that Sierra Leone isn’t a posting many relish. Even those who like it rarely last more than a couple of years. K has been here for a year and a half, “it’s difficult, you get cynical. See that hillside over there? When the rest of Freetown has a power cut they don’t. It’s where the current and ex-Ministers all live”.

“I came here because I wanted to help but the difference outsiders can make isn’t that great. You learn to savour the small victories, the people you can help. I’m going home soon but I’m determined not to forget why I started doing this work. I may have become more realistic about what I can achieve and more aware of the difficulties of changing things but I’ve not forgotten my dreams”.

W works for another agency. “I like it here because if you have a good idea and your boss likes it and you can find funding for it you can do it. That doesn’t happen in other places”.

L is making a documentary about a child soldier at the end of the civil war who is looking for his sister. He worked for the UN and based the script on people he’s met here. "It's a hell of a story, this place is full of incredible stories".

For those brave enough to seek them out there are opportunities in Sierra Leone: in diamond mines, development and (possibly) filmmaking. There’s vibrancy, adventure, tragedy and beauty here.

R is a journalist, “people say they come here to help but really we are all only here for ourselves, to get our own ‘African experience’. At the end of the day we go home and have good stories to tell but if you’re serious about changing things it takes a long time. We only come for a couple of years”.

It’s easy to be cynical about eating sushi in the world’s poorest country but that doesn’t mean these people aren’t trying, or living and working in tough conditions in the field and surviving in Freetown. There is progress, not enough, but that’s because change is really difficult. A desire for adventure and new experience isn’t a bad thing, nor is trying to make a difference.

Night time in Freetown

2009-02-28T03:51:00.000-08:00

It took longer to transfer from Lungi airport to Freetown than it did to get from my flat in Dakar to Sierra Leone.

It was a first to be met by someone with an ‘Alexander Woollcombe’ sign. “Welcome to the big league”, I thought. Having been given my boarding stick for the hovercraft – v sustainable, why doesn’t Ryanair have them? You can’t lose sticks and a man wandering round saying “boarding sticks please” and slapping bits of wood together is much better than unintelligible tannoy messages.

Despite my VIP status there was still an hour sitting by the minibus to the hovercraft terminus. As we waited the UN’s helicopter took off noisily overhead. “Chopper only takes 7 minutes”, a grumpy chain-smoking Dutchman remarked to no one in particular. The LSE Professor-cum-human rights lawyer next to me shuddered and said “I took that helicopter too many times during the war: never again”.

The pilots had walked past me in the baggage reclaim resplendent in tight denim jackets, jeans, mullets and big moustaches.

As we waited the atmosphere was cheerful. Not many people come to Sierra Leone and I was as interested as everyone else in why we were here. There were 3 evangelists from North Caroline who had been travelling for 48 hours with all the audio equipment for the “Freetown Miracles and Healing Crusade”. Their leader, Ben Cerullo is coming for 3 days and will, according to the brochure they gave me, make “the blind see, the lame walk and the deaf hear”.

A German man seemed to be regretting having brought 50 pairs of football boots for the amputee sports club he has come to visit. The box was massive and very heavy. “How do you know you've brought the right shoes? Won’t there be a lot left over?” I asked.

He looked me with utter contempt and said, “they’ll find a use for all the shoes”.

Thousands of young men had arms and legs hacked off during the brutal civil war, which ended 7 years ago. They were stuck in a camp and often ostracised by family and friends. Playing football they realise they can do something with their lives, although getting a job remains tough. .

I got cornered by a middle aged Sierra Leonean man from Coventry who spoke like Prince Charles would if he was a management consultant. He’s here “erm, doing an, ahh, scoping exercise for locally appropriate and erm community owned ICT in rural areas. Very interesting. We’re going to see how to move forward on strategic objectives with local groups”.

“How will they use computers? Is there any electricity in these villages?”

“There are a number of erm obstacles and challenges that will need to be teased out in the course of our strategic analysis”, he replied.

After another hour waiting beside the hovercraft looking across the bay at Freetown glimmering a bit like San Francisco might, except with fewer lights stretching up the hills from the waterfront, we set off. “Je ne regretter rien” shuffled on to my Walkman, followed by “Jump Around” as the hovercraft bounced us through choppy waters. Arriving in Aberdeen I was met again. Quite how a tropical paradise of a white sand peninsual got named after the Granite City escapes me. It's just round the corner from Pirate’s Bay where Sir Francis Drake hung out en route to circumnavigating the globe.

I was taken to the Oxfam house where I inadvertently walked into the bedroom of the Country Programme Director and her husband. Good first impression.

She’s got a viral infection from 3 days in the field. I’m meant to be going for a week and have the constitution of an asthmatic Chihuahua.

Went for my first Star beer – remarkable local product which carried on brewing in Freetown through much of the civil war, managed to shake off a Liberian prostitute as I listened to the Rolling Stones “Love’s in vain” which as she walked was followed by “Let’s Get it On” – the first time the God of shuffle got it wrong.

Departure for Sierra Leone - Army Worms and Climate Change

2009-02-27T04:23:00.000-08:00

I'm nervous and excited. I've got 75 pages of notes, contacts and ideas for what I'm going to do and hopefully I'll get some stories published somewhere. Freetown's meant to be beautiful, mountainous, surrounded by beaches. I'm sure there are lots of cool things to write about and it's exciting that I've no idea what they might be.

Weird stuff goes on in these parts. Yesterday I was at a UN briefing meeting where they were discussing Army Worms. These unpleasant creatures are wreaking havoc across parts of Liberia, Guinea and Ivory Coast. They eat everything and move quickly: like an army. Scary stuff.

Also Guinea's had a cold snap. It went down to 1.7 degrees celsius killing lots of crops and causing animals to mis-carry. There was a long discussion about whether this was caused by climate change and how to be sure something's been caused by climate change rather than freak weather which sometimes happens.

Rather than argue about methodologies I wish they'd just get on and help people be better prepared for erratic weather!!

Why the young men of Medina revolt

2009-02-25T08:19:00.000-08:00

One minute I'm debating the relative merits of "anti-voleur" motorbike locks and the next I'm surrounded by tear gas and men boarding up windows and moving scooters in haste.

This is the odd thing about riots: you don't see them coming but suddenly the air changes. The unpredictability breeds a fear which spreads instantly.

No one speaks but we all push our bikes away from the riot and out the back of the garage onto the residential street behind. Here all is peace and luxuriant late afternoon light. Women cook over small wooden stoves. Boys play football and men wander aimlessly. It's like going through a portal to what Medina, Dakar's most vibrant residential-cum-business area, is normally like. All the more bizarre for the scenes of carnage just one block away.

I can still vaguely hear the shouts and rocks thrown by the rioters but not really. I'm intrigued to see what will happen but know it's a bad idea.

Issa the mechanic carries on repairing his bike. "Take the back way", he says. "Don't go back to the main road. It's dangerous".

"Will there be looting?" I ask.

"Maybe" he replies. "Maybe it will be peaceful. It's impossible to predict. That's why it's dangerous. And because people are very angry".

"The Government has sold the only municipal football ground in the area to the Chinese so they can build another big hotel overlooking the ocean. The Chinese buy everything now".

"None of us will ever stay there or benefit from it. There's no plan to provide another place. Now where can we play football? The Government doesn't care about us and people are angry".

On my way to the garage I'd noticed a lot of police around the place but thought this meant the President was going somewhere. Whenever he drives from his palace to the airport (coincidentally along the newest and shiniest dual-carriageway in Dakar which isn't actually a useful route to Dakar residents unless they are travelling from the palace to the airport) there are policemen every 50 feet along the road.

It's a beautiful journey down the corniche - a coastal highway which is empty apart from SUVs and the odd taxi, with a smooth surface, stunning westward views and spectacular sunsets. This is how I imagine southern California looked in the 50s before gridlock and suburbia ruined it. It is my favourite piece of road in the world and you don't even have to go to America.

China's President was driven along it a few weeks ago on his State visit. The road shows how modern and progressive Senegal is even though the motorway out of Dakar isn't finished. No one bothered to take down the Chinese flags that adorned every lamp post (this is the only road with really good lights at night and cat's eyes). The paper flags now hang limply and litter the road.

I hope the Chinese were impressed. Senegal needs investment but it also needs to help its people. A difficult balance but quite how a €25 million, 60 foot statue in honour of the President will help is beyond me.

Marie the Strawberry Seller

2009-02-24T04:13:00.000-08:00

Marie's been growing strawberries for 37 years in her garden in Dakar. At £1.30 for a tiny punnet they're expensive. It's possible she spotted me as someone with no idea of the true price of strawberries but others confirm that strawberries are a luxury only worth selling in the smart residential areas of Dakar.

"We have to buy the seeds from Belgium, it costs a huge amount to get all the necessary materials. It's only because I have been doing it for many years that I know how to grow such good strawberries and can afford to buy the seeds each year. Sometimes you don't even get any strawberries, but that's business", she explains.

"Strawberries paid for my daughters to go to school!", laughing as she walks off with a huge, broad basket balanced on her head.

Marie must be at least her mid-fifties but looks older, she moves with stiff elegance.

She's a good businesswoman, enterprising and cheerful but she's still wandering the streets in the hot sun flogging strawberries.

Corrupt politicians!!

2009-02-22T12:39:00.000-08:00

Today's seen fresh dirt dished up on corrupt politicians in Brussels.

Having worked as a MEP's assistant it's good to see the British press ripping into sleaze. Other EU countries seem to expect their representatives to be scroungers and rip-off merchants. Their media or public or both doesn't seem to care much.

Corruption is always wheeled out as the source of Africa's problems and while corruption (and bad governance even more so) is a big problem it would be good for people in Europe to recognise that we should get our own houses in order along with slagging off poor countries for having useless politicians.

Vietnam and China both have a lot of corruption but they make things other countries want to buy. Senegal not so much, so blaming African poverty on corruption is stupid.

There are different levels of corruption, from fiddling your expenses like many MEPs do, or paying with a cheque which the restauranteur knows will bounce but cannot refuse because it has been written by a Big Man politician (I saw this in a restaurant near my flat last week) to Mobutu-style nicking everything. Most of Africa isn't like the Congo.

I was always perplexed by David Sumberg's permanently empty office when I was working down the hall from him. I couldn't see how he wouldn't get found out but I guess he knew he wasn't breaking any rules because there aren't any.

It's a crazy system and one that I felt ashamed to be a part of, even though we did some good stuff. No one else cared or asked about Peter Mandelson and his band of merry helpers trying to force poor countries to sign free trade agreements. The European Parliament did and has done good stuff on environmental legislation too.

It helped that my boss Robert Sturdy was a good guy and paid me well but not nearly as well as others paid their wives. One of the ironies of leaving the public sector is that each job I've taken since for Oxfam has involved a pay cut. Progress I guess.

It's good to see Robert's thriving in my absence. His press officer Ellee Seymour has embraced cyberspace with enthusiasm and got Robert on you tube to save the British pint - it's worth watching.

Dambiso Moyo and aid

2009-02-22T04:36:00.000-08:00

A well-educated Zambian woman called Dambiso Moyo has got loads of coverage for her book slagging off aid.

Fair enough, it's good to have a bit of argument and also she has bothered to come up with ideas about what she thinks should happen rather than just take pot-shots at the aid industry, which is easily done.

BUT to me the big problem is that many people prefer discussing whether aid works or not to figuring out how to really help the world's poorest countries.

Those thinking that if only their brilliant theory, formulated in Europe or America, were implemented it would "solve" Africa's difficulties perpetuates the belief that outsiders have all the answers.

Dambiso Moyo knows what she's talking about in terms of economics and it's good to have a business perspective to development, but her ideas seem a bit like other people's big ideas: good in theory but difficult to imagine how they'd ever be implemented.

After 6 months in Senegal it seems to me that unless the people here are involved in shaping what sort of aid comes in and what for Africa's not going to do a Vietnam any time soon.

All of the clever ideas from structural adjustment programmes to social protection schemes aren't inherently good or bad but so much aid achieves less than it should because the people in charge of the conditionalities have no idea how Senegal differs from Lesotho or Ethiopia even though these countries are as different as Ireland, Albania and Poland.

Time to get moving

2009-02-20T10:05:00.000-08:00

My job here finishes next friday and after that i know not what I will do.

it's a bit scary but i feel this is what i've been building up to for years. i've applied for a few jobs but nothing as yet.

oxfam might commission me to write another case study after the one I'll be doing next week in Sierra Leone on the impact of the credit crunch. This one would be on climate change in mali and senegal.

If what i write about climate change in sierra leone is good enough to convince them to hire me. any thoughts about climate change in SL gratefully received or BYC projects which might be affected by climate. also oxfam has an amazing gender programme in Sierra Leone.

My friend at Channel 4 news is going to talk to his editor about doing some more stuff on west africa like we did together in December. http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/society/environment/a+climate+of+change/2879682

Potentially something about how the credit crunch is affecting nomads, construction workers, diamond miners and small business people in random parts of west africa because their relatives in europe have less money to send home. Immigrants generally work illegally and are most affected by the downturn in casual work.

Nomads statistically rely on remittances more than any other group and are also particularly screwed by climate change and high food prices. Over-population forces migration as there isn't enough land and their animals need water to graze and the price of cereals has soared but animal prices haven't changed.

Construction workers because lots of West Africans living in Europe send money home to build houses in their villages and that's now stopping.

Diamond miners because diamond prices have halved in the last year, and the rest because people use remittances to pay for school fees, medical bills, haircuts, mopeds and the other small bits and bobs that they generally can't afford.

Oxfam are also going to get Gordon Brown to respond to twittered questions at the G20 so I'm going to try to get random and probably bemused/confused sierra leonians and senegalese people in villages to twitter Gordon and Barack questions through texting from my phone. This is part of Oxfam's growing "Digital Vision".

If www.twitter.com/woollcombe brings more traffic to www.woollcombe.blogspot.com I guess that's good but I really don't get twitter. Any thoughts about why it's interesting to constantly tell people what you are doing much appreciated.

These ideas will probably not lead anywhere but if any of it came off it would be really cool and planning for the great motorbike tour continues to go well. spent 4 hours trying to sort out senegalese license yesterday. got stopped by police (routine check at junction-they stopped everyone on 2 wheels) and my documentation was in order and no bribes or anything which was reassuring. and today I bought a pair of 2nd hand construction worker boots. Massively chunky old Timberlands which go way above the ankle providing protection and made me wonder about how they got here from America. good value at a tenner.

Hopefully there'll be adventurous updates from Sierra Leone from 27 Feb. An internal DFID report said the credit crunch would have "no impact" on the world's poorest country. the "airport transfer" involves either a helicopter ride across the bay (early 70s chopper flown by drunk ukranians. a few years ago it burst into flames and crashed), ferry (which is new after the last one sank) or smaller boats (I'll be getting one of these accompanied by an OXfam staff member whose job is to make sure I don't get lost). I'm staying in Aberdeen, which is weird, but apparently everyone's very pro-British. Tony Blair's dad was a professor at the University of Freetown and he stayed there as a kid which is why he sent in the Parachute Regiment to kick ass during the Civil War. It was so successful as "regime change" Tony got a taste for it, failing to realise that a bunch of 8 year olds on drugs with guns is a different proposition to thousands of angry islamists in the middle east.

The map the Oxfam office in Freetown sent me is 100 years old and drawn in pencil. I don't think there is a more a recent map.I'm not joking

2009-02-05T13:56:00.000-08:00

New Year’s Eve in Cap Skirring started at 8 in a rum bar. A motley collection of Rastafarians staggered about in time with booming basslines. Rum punches were potent and Elinor and I played cards and danced to Max Romeo and Alpha Blondey with drunk Rastas.

Midnight was approaching so we went to gatecrash the Club Med party. We’d snuck in before along the beach but hadn’t considered the importance of tides in this part of the world. What the previous afternoon had been a gentle stroll down a wide expanse of beach was now a seething torrent of eddying waters and sinking sands that grabbed at your ankles if you stopped moving. As the water approached our thighs midnight struck and the beach in front of us exploded into a waterfall of brightly coloured fireworks. We could see hundreds of middle-aged revellers in black tie and ball gowns oohing and aaahing as from the ocean the fireworks burst in the sky and across the streaming tides in front of us. Hoping the water wouldn’t get any deeper we charged on into a scene reminiscent of the beginning of Saving Private Ryan when Tom Hanks leads his men onto the D-Day beaches with banging all around us

Relieved to arrive on dry land we did our best to unbedraggle ourselves despite being soaked and covered in sand. Affecting nonchalance we strode onto the dancefloor. Extravagantly mulletted men with greasy hair and tight trousers led crusty boogiers in line dances shouting through microphones attached to their heads. We joined in, throwing wild shapes across the brightly lit, sweeping staircases and fluorescent swimming pools and tucked in to the free cocktails being handed round by smart waiters in bowties and shiny shoes. My attempts to secure feather boas from the dance leaders were unsuccessful.

Leaping around a stage, failing to get tubby Frenchmen to follow my moves, we bumped into the guy whose scooter we’d rented. He’d gatecrashed too. Having exhausted our limited appetite for ABBA and brutal cocktails we progressed to the Senegalese nightclub which was full, sweaty and pumping local tunes mixing Ghanaian highlife and Cuban rhythms with Moroccan vocal wailings to good effect and danced till 5am drawing praise (or possibly derision, it was hard to tell) for the enthusiasm, variety and danger to bystanders of our efforts. Suitably knackered we stopped for a nightcap in a bar full of sleazebags before a quick swim with sparkly green and gold phosphorescence.

New Year’s Day was painful but in the late afternoon we took the scooter up the coast to a hotel the guidebook described as “beautiful but isolated, best reached by 4x4”. The previous day’s scootering, to a beach which looked across the bay to Guinea Bissau, had been easy. Unfortunately crossing the border through untouched rainforest is not, the only paths were comprehensively landmined years ago during the war and no one can remember where the mines are.

The road deteriorated rapidly and having pushed the scooter the last kilometre through deep sand with a pounding headache it was disappointing to find the hotel totally abandoned. After a revitalising swim, swig of water, painkillers, sunbathe and game of cards on a wide expanse of empty white sand we decided to attempt to scoot along the beach hoping the tide would stay low and our petrol wouldn’t run out before we reached home. The scooter wasn’t happy. Her engine made pitiful noises as we weaved between sharp rocks and spiky shells. We had no puncture repair kit and this was not an offroad machine, see photo below. Ideally designed for a child unencumbered by luggage with both of us aboard it sank alarmingly into the sand and had to be carried over rocky outcrops between bays. After rounding each one we hoped to see the pirogues of Cap Skirring ahead of us. My claims that the village was “just around the next headland” grew less convincing. Elinor grew restless.

Having no idea how far the village was nor of the feasibility of making it all the way along the coast we carried on and eventually built up sufficient speed to zoom past fishermen and footballers who looked at us with bemusement. Some cheered and waved. We waved back. The sun dropped into the ocean turning everything shades of orange, red and purple. Roaring across the open sands while fearing much, much pushing of sodding scooter through sand in God knew where gave an additional frisson. Reaching the tarmac road, which led from the fish market to Club Med, in the gathering gloom topped off the best New Year ever.

I met a beautiful Dutch girl, and then nearly drowned her

2009-01-17T07:53:00.000-08:00

I met a beautiful Dutch girl, Anne, at Emily’s beach house in Ghana and asked her to come swimming with me. We’d been on the beach all day and I’d given her a shoulder massage and put sun cream on her back. She said she was scared of the ocean but I’d been swimming there the night before and although frightened it had been fine once we got through the waves. I told her not to worry and follow me. Just out of our depths I realised the current was pulling us out, very fast. “Let’s go back in”, I said, grabbed her hand, turned and started to swim towards the beach.

The problem was we were right where the waves were breaking. And the waves were big. And Anne didn’t seem able to duck under them. Each one caught her, dunked her under, spun her round and pulled her further away from the beach. Holding her hand didn’t seem to be helping. A big wave pummeled us and I lost her hand. When I resurfaced she was drifting away from me.

“Come on Anne, it’s fine, just keep on swimming towards the shore, go under the waves”.

She couldn’t hear me. I looked at the empty beach. The white sand and palm trees that 4 minutes earlier were a romantic paradise suddenly looked cruel and desolate. The strongest strokes I could muster weren’t doing much: “keep calm, it’s not far, breathe, keep going”, I thought.

But I wasn’t getting any closer. Every wave that came smashing down on my head pushed me under and pulled me further away. It was tiring and the water was powerful and angry. There was hardly time to breathe between waves. As the current pulled me my limbs would inadvertently up the tempo of my granny breaststroke. My deep breathing couldn’t control my fearful muscles.

I looked round for Anne. She was now beyond the waves which I was still in the middle of. Her arms were flailing. I couldn’t hear her screaming or understand how she had got so much further out so quickly.

Our eyes met and it occurred to me that I didn’t know if I was going to be able to get in from where I was. I really didn’t know whether I could get in from all the way out where she was but she didn't look like getting in on her own”.

I pictured Emily and our friends on the terrace having drinks and joking about Zander and Anne’s romantic sunset swim. I imagined myself walking up to the house on my own. “Where’s Anne?” they’d ask. “She didn’t make it”, I’d reply and by the time we’d get back to the beach she’d be dead.

I couldn’t leave her. Walking back to the house on my own was impossible.

If that was impossible I had to get her in somehow. I really didn't want to swim out to sea. In the distance I saw a guy lying under a palm tree. “Help!! Help!!”, I shouted and waved my arms wildly. 6 minutes earlier as we’d splashed our way in to the water I’d thought this possible drunk, or maybe a fisherman who’d been out all night, was the only blot on a perfectly untouched landscape. Now I was screaming at him to save us.

He didn’t move. I looked round again. Anne had drifted even further out. My cries for help and arm flapping had exposed the hollowness of my protestations to her that all was cool. Trying not to think about how we’d get back in I started swimming towards her. After fighting the waves it was a relief to make progress even if it was the wrong way. I put my arms round her.

“We’re fine, we just have to keep going, slowly and duck the waves”.

We started to swim next to eachother. She looked scared. I put my arm around her waist when we got to where the waves were breaking.

I don’t know what happened: maybe the waves died down, or the current changed or we were swimming for a long time. I have no idea how long the whole thing lasted. Probably only a few minutes. Eventually my foot reached down and touched sand. This was where the current was strongest. Even with both feet on the ground and trying to pull Anne in we got swept up by the waves a couple of times.

We collapsed on the beach like ship-wrecks. The drunk/fisherman was nowhere to be seen. The palm trees swayed. The sun set into the beautiful ocean turning the sky bright orange. Anne’s hair was full of sand and her bikini was twisted out of place. We sat there for a while and walked home carrying the beer and sarong we hadn’t used.

Walking up through Emily’s garden she appeared at the back door and smiled, “nice swim?”

Epilogue:

Anne and I went out a few times when we got back to Brussels. Then I tore ligaments in my knee and didn’t see her for a while. She came to my leaving party (leg still in a brace at this point), gave me some Dutch beers and a card thanking me for saving her life. We arranged to have dinner the following week. On the day of our date she texted to say she was ill and wouldn’t be able to make it. I decided to meet some friends for drinks in Place Luxembourg.

Our eyes met at the bar. I haven’t seen her since.

Ever wondered how Fair Trade really works? Going nuts in Burkina Faso

2008-12-20T18:53:00.000-08:00

When you buy Fair Trade products how much really goes to the people who produce it? Do poor people actually benefit? How does it work?

I'd always wanted to find out so I went to the Wouol Cooperative in south-western Burkina Faso. It started the year I was born: 1980 and in 28 years they've done a huge amount. Not only do they make the best dried mangoes I've ever tasted, as well as delicious cashew nuts, they've also got a nursery with pineapples, jiatropha for biofuel and other plants to help farmers diversify - by growing different things they're less vulnerable if a particular crop does badly because of the weather or pests.

Next year they're hoping to pilot an insurance project (the weather's unpredictable: droughts and floods are really common so they've developed a grain bank to help in hard times - they want to expand this into a more comprehensive insurance scheme). They've even bought a minibus which they hire out and use themselves to do concerts and dances!

A volunteer set up their website and took great photos: www.wouol.org/presentation_eng.htm

Working for Oxfam and Peace Child International I've visited a few development projects and this is a really good one. They take volunteers too.

Before coming to Wouol I hadn't realised that each cashew nut has to be cut up and cleaned by hand. Watching how much work it takes I've vowed to no longer wolf down cashew nuts in big handfulls without chewing properly. They take so much work to cut up the least I can do is enjoy them rather than seeing how many I can get in my mouth at one time.

The ladies sit in big open rooms to cut the nuts up. It's dusty work so they wear face masks.

No one wants dusty nuts so all the workers take their flip flops off before going into the factory.

After the nuts have been roasted this is where they get brought to be separated out.

Marie-Louise Sourabiu has worked at the Cooperative for over a year. She has a small farm and 3 children and the money she earns helps pay for school, medicines and household expenses. "We have a small farm but cannot grow enough to feed the family all year round. The money I earn makes a big difference: there's only farm work for 4 months of the year, but the cooperative is open all year round".

Despite looking like an untrustworthy second-hand car salesman the women at the Wouol cooperative were happy to show me their fine collection of fair trade cashew nuts. They're sold in shops in the Netherlands, Belgium and Britain. http://www.fmfoods.co.uk/partners/burkinawouol.htm

http://www.oww.be/pageview.aspx?pv_mid=6511

Nuts are sent abroad in these air-tight 10 kilo plastic bags and then re-packaged into smaller bags in Europe. It's more difficult than it sounds. EU health and safety rules on imported food are complicated, quality demands are high and it's taken a long time and a lot of work to set up these fair trade links.

http://portal.snvworld.org/irj/go/km/docs/SNVdocuments/BF-%20Case%20SNV%20Burkina%20Faso.pdf

These are some of the nut-based products Marie-Louise and the other women make (89% of the cooperative employees are women and it's not just a job there are also educational courses). There's nut oil for cooking, cashew nut butter (tastes like peanut butter but less sweet) and a collection of nuts in small bags for nibbling - these are the best.

This lady is collecting the nut husks (shells) which are gathered up and used to make compost which they fertilise the fields with.

The ladies at work de-husking and cutting up the nuts.

These are the nut husks drying in the sun before they get gathered up for compost. There's not a shortage of compost in the village (there's plenty to go round) so a lot of it gets sold to neighbouring villages.

Dried mangoes are big business for the women of Wouol, but I was there at the wrong time of year so all the mango drying presses were empty and sad looking: that's why they're starting to grow pineapples. They can make dried pineapples during the periods where there are no mangoes!

Cashew nuts are brilliant because they keep for up to a year. This allows the women to work on their own farms when they need to as well as concentrate on mangoes during mango time. Before they got the drying machines there was always the same problem with mangoes: loads of them for a couple of months and then nothing for the rest of the year. Because they go off so quickly and are so squishy it's practically impossible to export fresh mangoes to Europe from Burkina Faso.

The nursery where they grow different plants was amazing. So was their way of looking at things. Fair Trade has helped these people help themselves. Education is one of the central aspects of the cooperative. Farmers are being taught new skills, women are empowered by what they learn at the cooperative and earn their own money. Antoine Sombié is the President and one of the founders, "the cooperative is one big family. We work out our problems together. We want to preserve our way of life but we don't want hand-outs. The weather is changing. It is less predictable. We want technology and information to be able to create a better future for our children'.

Schools in England are already learning about the work of Wouol.

http://www.meen.org.uk/Assets/Documents/Beehive-Fairtrade.pdf

These partnerships matter and make a difference.

When Harry Met Danny in Dakar

2008-12-20T18:43:00.000-08:00

Harry, Zander and Dan on the balcony in Point E. With a ladder.

Harry and Danny outside the local eatery. Chez Ass does a good line in dodgy meat products available at all hours with flies. Danny has his post-Chez Ass face on. Harry enjoys his meat.

This was a beautiful moment. Neither man has a fondness for trousers.

Tourism is Life – Drive Slowly: Travels in Nigeria

2008-12-20T14:31:00.000-08:00

Little about my week in Nigeria made sense. There is no reason why any tourist would visit Abuja, regardless of traffic speed but signs with the slogan above line the endless motorways.

This is a “planned” new town that makes Milton Keynes look like Venice: big roads everywhere but too few junctions so turning across traffic requires crossing the swampy central reservation, resulting in cars getting stuck in mud and being pushed into the fast lane. Traffic lights are common but none work so everyone drives really fast and plays chicken at junctions. Someone I met said their friend had decided to leave Nigeria when they were driving through a dodgy part of Lagos and saw a body lying in the road. Someone had been run over but no one stopped to move him and so the corpse became an increasingly slippery speed bump.

The Nigerian Space Programme on the road in from the airport had flocks of sheep grazing outside it and little obvious activity inside. The European Space Programme in Belgium has cows surrounding it but it also has a massive satellite, which Abuja doesn’t – apparently the Space thing is a left over from the Cold War. The impossibility of walking anywhere is American, but the food at the hotel, and elsewhere, was reminiscent of the Soviet Union. Ten dollars for breakfast that takes an hour to come and bread that’s hard and tastes like sugared cardboard.

I had a colleague from Oxfam’s Nigeria office staying with me in Dakar. The first time she cooked for me it was disgusting and I had the shits for a week. Foolishly a week later I accepted her offer to make me eggs for breakfast when half-asleep and hung over. I vomited before finishing them and thought it was just her lack of skill and hygene. My week in Abuja taught me otherwise. The only nice food was at Wakki’s, an Indian restaurant modelled on an East London curry house circa 1988 with kormas and vindaloos: English Indian food. You can also buy Hob Nobs and Ribena. However, as my French colleagues pointed out at each meal they left better food in Senegal than we did in Nigeria. Our internal meeting was held in French and after 3 months in Francophone West Africa I've got used to speaking to locals in my bad French. Abujaians were bemused by me getting cross at their unhelpfulness in French before apologising and speaking English.

Abuja was constructed as an inland capital to relieve pressure on Lagos. Like Brasilia and Rio, Washington DC and New York, Canberra and Sydney Abuja is the geeky, ugly sister with nothing going on beyond Government and assorted lobbyist groupies. It was built in the 1970s and 80s, which were cruel decades for architecture. There are still empty lots around the place along with a massive ugly concrete cathedral and a gold-roofed mosque. While we were there 400 people died down the road in Jos - victims of Christian vs Muslim ethnic tension. Everyone I asked about it said it was nothing and everything was back to normal.

Judging by how the buildings are weathering the ravages of time quite a lot of the construction money got nicked. This is something Nigeria is famous for: from spam emails to oil revenues since independence corruption’s been the big problem. Nigeria should be Africa’s India or China: there are a 140 million people in a country smaller than Tanzania (which has 40 million). A quarter of Africans live in Nigeria. There are more than 250 ethnic groups. Their music and literature are amongst the best in Africa. There’s something intriguing about the place. Across Africa you think: there’s so much potential if only things worked properly. In Nigeria this is even more pronounced because there are just so many people and Nigerians are so enthusiastic. It’s the weird contrasts: Nigerians are acknowledged as the best business people in West Africa and yet the country doesn’t work very well. In Abuja airport there are lots of smartly dressed folks with iphones tapping on laptops with designer glasses in the dark because the power’s gone again and the swanky, brand new Virgin Nigeria planes are all hours late for no apparent reason. Why doesn’t it work? Who’s nicking all the money? Why do 50 million people go to bed hungry? Why do they import so much food? Why do all the rhetorical questions stay the same?

I met a guy who runs an events company. He organised the African MTV awards last week. Trevor Nelson presented them. It only got a few hours behind schedule due to power cuts. In the capital of the world’s 8th biggest oil producer there's often only mains power for an hour or two a day. His business is doing well because Nigeria’s a massive market and there are opportunities: it’s just difficult and expensive to get things done because the infrastructure’s rubbish (he reckoned in his business that was a bigger problem than corruption). He said he prefered Abuja to Lagos because it’s not dangerous but admitted that it’s very boring.

Apparently the new President isn’t corrupt, and the last one was much better than anyone before him. The problem’s that in a federal system corruption works on many different levels and to win an election even if you’re honest you have to cheat otherwise you’d lose.

Unsurprisingly I didn’t get any closer to understanding how you get anything done in Nigeria after a week. But I got the feeling that a lot of people who’d been there a lot longer had no idea either.

PS – Back in the day there used to be fur parties (rooms would be air conditioned to be so cold you’d have to wear fur to be able to handle it even though it was 35 degrees and humid outside). That’s messed up.

Hugo and Ciara are getting married!!!

2008-12-07T06:07:00.000-08:00

When your best friends get married it almost feels like you're getting married. I danced around the Oxfam Nigeria office when I heard the news. All week I've been in a good mood because of it, smiling inanely and imagining them all happy and excited. Hatch, match and dispatch: this is when we look to religion; these are the moments that matter most. Much of 21st century living would be incomprehensible for a visitor from hundreds of years ago but in committing ourselves to one person in the sight of God and all those closest to us we do something powerful that they would recognise. The only bigger thing that happens in life than getting married is having kids and hopefully the former leads to the latter.

I'd been trying to reach Hugo for days on the phone with no success due to the failures of Nigerian telecoms but it was still exciting finding out by email.

Then today Hugo asked me to be his Best Man. I did another little dance in my sitting room. If he were a loser with no friends I would feel less honoured but the fact is he's got a fair number of very close friends. I was hoping to be some sort of usher or something and I hoped I might be his best man but we'd never discussed it. When I asked him 2 months ago whether marriage was on the cards soon he dodged the question.

I was pretty sure it would happen but following that chat in the woods of Gloucestershire I thought it wouldn't be any time soon.

Living abroad for 4 years separates the sheep from the goats: the best friends from acquaintances. Many fade away but those with deep roots hibernate: infrequent big gulps of time together keep you going until the next time.

Being a best man draws a line in the sand: this guy has my back and few achievements in life (finding your own wife hopefully being one of them) match that. Success is about more than a job: it's about finding and keeping people in your life you love and are proud to be friends with. You choose your friends and Hugo and Ciara are in my top tier. It's great to know I'm in theirs too.

Over skype Ciara said she'd approved of Hugo's choice of Best Man and he interrupted her and said "it was my decision, you're opinion had nothing to do with it". That meant a huge amount. I was there the night they met, I was the person Hugo said "I think I really like this girl" to, for the next 4 months I shared a tiny flat with them where they had a huge bedroom with a balcony and I had a windowless, damp cave with a single bed and mould on the walls.

I spent a lot of time on the sofa listening to loud music on my own.

But that was nearly 7 years ago and the fact that we've stayed close enough for me to be his Best Man, despite living overseas, makes me proud.

I hope I'm up to the task. I don't know where I'll be living in 6 months, I don't know what to have for lunch let alone who I want to spend the rest of my life with and I've never even been to a stag do and now I'm going to organise one.

Happy days.

Scootering Burkina Faso

2008-12-06T13:45:00.000-08:00

What do you do when you notice the key has fallen out of the ignition of your scooter and there's 70kms of dirt track in both directions to the nearest road?

I had no idea so decided to press on.

The chances of me finding the key were slim to none and looking for it would require using up precious fuel and increasing the chance of it getting dark before I reached a town.

Until noticing the loss of the key I'd been enjoying my scooter tour of rural Burkina. Getting out of Ouagadougou hadn't taken long (follow the main road to the end and keep going) and the main road to Mali and Timbuktu was empty save for the odd lorry or speedy Mercedes which blew me towards the ample verges. I'd stopped a few times and driven off the road to sit under baobab trees and reflect on how hot and quiet it was in the middle of nowhere.

Being driven in a NGO 4x4 to visit projects always involves big distances and long journeys. I wanted to travel slowly and see what it was like to do what a lot of people on the side of the roads seemed to be doing: very little. Occasionally a man would head to market on a scooter like mine unbelievably laden with food, boxes and in many cases live chickens (I counted one guy with chickens on long wooden poles that were attached to the handlebars and back of his scooter).

My sub-baobab chilling was given a slight edge by the difficulties of restarting the scooter, the broken fuel gauge and not knowing how many petrol station there were in Burkina's bush. These occasions expose how my enthusiasm for solo adventure is undermined by being a terrible worrier: there's no point heading off on a dodgy Chinese scooter if you're going to spend the whole time worrying about what a Dutch lady said over dinner ("I've heard stories of bandits knocking people off their motorbikes and stealing them - I thought you should know").

I guess that's part of the buzz: terror gets mixed with adrenaline and you overcome the fear to enjoy roaring along an empty road far from everywhere, getting strange looks from the occasional chap on a bicycle and stopping in little villages to talk to people who think you are crazy. Compared to many parts of the world West Africa, at least the arid Sahel, is a pretty safe place to do this kind of thing: the heat and the emptiness are more scary than the people.

When you arrive in a 4x4 people always tell you what's wrong with where they are. When you arrive on a scooter they ignore you. Normal life along this, and I'd imagine many other dirt tracks across the Sahel, is pretty normal: the track was lined with trees for much of the way, a bit like France. Every 20kms there was a water barrage. For more than 20 years this has been the law when building a new road: you have to build a little dam to capture water during the rainy season so that people can then use it through the rest of the year (they've been switched on to how to deal with climate change than most of the bozos in cities). There was blissful shade sitting by the trees and children splashed in the barrages. Maybe in the dry season life here is awful. In years when the rains fail I'm sure it gets really bad here. But this was November: the rains and the harvest have been the best in years. For the time being life is good. Pootling through shady clearings worrying was pointless. My bum was beginning to hurt but it wasn't so bad. Periodically I'd get off the bike, stretch the dodgy knee and sore behind and get back on keeping one hand on the throttle all the time to avoid getting stuck.

Because I wasn't sure if the scooter would restart if I stopped it I kept going till I reached the main road in Kadougou. I had planned to spend the night there but without a key I didn't fancy it. A mechanic aged about 12 stopped the engine so I could fill up with fuel - I shouted at him for trapping me in Kadougou but he managed to get it started again. It appeared I didn't need a key to restart the engine after all but if I was to get back to Ouaga before dark I needed to get a move on.

Off I went on a good, if pot-holed, road. Pot-holes on a scooter are no joke: one big hit at speed and it's all over so you go slowly, get into a sort of slalom rhythm and remember to next time insist that your scooter has mirrors and indicators to aid interaction with other traffic. Approaching the outskirts of Ouaga at sunset my shadow spilled out ahead of my puny scooter, a speedy Mercedes zoomed by with a Barak Obama bumper sticker and I was absorbed into honking, chaotic urban traffic. My arse at this point was in agony: it felt like a dwarf family was squeezing my buttocks with unforgiving small hands. Chinese scooters are not designed for long-distance off road travel.

Apart from singing along to 'Back for Good' in a pool hall in Bobo with the producer of a zombie movie set in West Africa (it's a road/buddy/horror movie: like Thelma & Louise with zombies) this was my best day in Burkina Faso.

Motorbiking in Mali

2008-11-19T08:07:00.000-08:00

I am sitting in a sweaty hut in suburban Bamako being assaulted by Celine Dion. What is it about the owl-faced old goat that makes her horrendous bleating so globally popular? Malian music is melodious and generally lovely yet the Queen of Wail marks the only contribution of Western musical culture to Africa. Tis sad indeed.

I have been in Mali for 10 days during which I believe the highest temperature in the world this year was registered, above 50°C in the shade. On a number of occasions, particularly on the long bus journey to and from Bamako to the distant Dogon Country I suspected the true temperature in my pants to be at least double that and it has been interesting to see the effect of heat on my stuff. Toothpaste and shower gel for example have just melted and using them in the evening has felt a bit like applying hot wax to both mouth and body.

Mali also suffers from endemic malaria and the first European to make it here, a most excellent Doctor from Peebles called Mungo Park, like everyone else who tried to explore West Africa until the mid 19th Century suffered horribly from tropical diseases before being hacked to pieces by angry Africans not far from where I am now on the River Niger.Fortunately unlike Mungo Park I came adequately prepared for the extreme heat. Unfortunately I left my deoderant on the plane (thinking it prudent to apply before disembarking in Mali). The next afternoon I left my sun cream beside the pool of the 5 star hotel I couldn't afford to stay in and the following evening I left my mosquito repellent in the restaurant where I had dinner. I managed to track down some fairly useless mozzie spray but due to the ethnic make up of the population sun cream is not much in demand. As any trip on public transport quickly makes obvious deoderant is not either. I have therefore stunk, burnt and itched.

The conference on EU – African Trade Relations which was the ostensible cause of my trip continued in an interesting though slightly pointless fashion. I discovered that the French trade unionist who helped organise the conference had already written the Final Declaration before our arrival. The prospect of French trade unionists teaching Africans anything about anything seems dangerous, unless it is how to protest loudly about everything and drive animals down major highways. There were at least many knowledgeable folk at the meeting who provided a range of ideas and perspectives missing from discussions in Brussels. After many weeks worrying about what the hell I was going to write about I at least now felt I had some sort of a plan for the report I am doing on this subject.

After a visit to a cotton factory (yes, the cotton is good, no the machinery is not. High energy and transport costs as well as prohibitive US subsidies continue to destroy millions of livelihoods across West Africa in an industry that could be competitive) and a bit of spiel inviting stakeholders to give me their views for my report – as usual no one wanted to talk to me so I had to corner people and make them – I decided I’d had enough of Bamako and it was time to journey unto the undiscovered lands in the direction of Timbuktu.It was perhaps unwise to try to identify too closely with Mungo Park and also Alexander Gordon Laing (another brave Scot who in 1825 became the first white man to reach Timbuktu) as they both died in Mali due to the heat, disease and hostile locals. While the first 2 are still present the third factor has changed completely. Despite being the fourth poorest country in the world not one child in Mali has asked me for money and on every bus journey someone has offered me some fruit and been happy to chat away without wanting anything from me apart from friendship. I went to the national stadium to watch a football match by myself and felt completely unthreatened discussing World Cup prospects with a large group of guys. The football was crap though.

Eventually I made it to the Dogon Country where I hoped to bump into some friendly tourists who would give me a ride round in their 4x4. This has always worked for me in the past (Ethiopia, Morocco, Lesotho) but sadly from a lift point of view off-season meant not one tourist. This made my experience more authentic but also meant a fair amount of waiting on the side of the road in overpowering heat. It is always unwise to try to travel quickly in Africa but as I had little time that was what I had to do and so eventually found myself on the back of a dirt-bike which belonged to a friend of a friend of a friend of mine with a guide who claimed to know the remote cliff villages of this most untouched part of the world extremely well.

At first the road was fine but soon descended into desert. Biking on sand is very difficult. It is more difficult when it is 45° and you have a 13 stone Englishman plus his 15kg rucksack on the back. After the second and quite nasty half fall (he managed to stop before the bike rolled completely from under us) Amadou informed me that it was easier to stay upright if we went faster. Amadou’s physics were sound but growing increasingly woozy in the heat I wasn’t sure my balance was up to much. The heat and total absence of shade or shelter made the decision for us and we continued unscathed to Indè, a village on the edge of the scrubby Sahel where villagers in more dangerous times had built huts high up into the side of a cliff that rises for no apparent reason from endless desert that stretches all the way to Lake Chad, wherever that is.These cliff villages are truly amazing as are the people from the villages. They ask tourists to make small donations to a village fund which builds roads, schools and medical facilities for villagers. In Ethiopia these stories were a cunning way of ripping off tourists but here you can see the new schools and questions about nicking the money are met with blank looks. The lack of exploitation despite the obvious arrival of tourists was most heartening and I played football enthusiastically with the local kids.

The next day Adamou and I ambitiously attempted a 20kms round trip on foot along the desert floor, up the cliff to a village on the plateau above, before walking back to Indè, the motorbike, and a 3 hour ride back to where the next day I hoped to find transport back to ‘civilisation’. We set off in good spirits at 6am carrying nothing but water, bread and enough clothes to protect me from the sun, due to the continued lack of sun cream. All went well, and atop the cliff I found a bored Malian teacher playing scrabble by himself with a large French dictionary. No one else in the village could read and I suspected Begnimatu had not been Kassoum’s first choice as a teaching post. Having never played Scrabble in French before I took a good 20 minutes to produce ‘lac’ while Kasssoum produced ‘fumeur’ and other words of great length effortlessly. I did manage to get a triple word score with ‘herb’ which partially salvaged my honour.Until now all had been well but it was the walk back that ruined me. Mali’s soil is mostly iron making it a most effective oven in combination with thick dust clouds that prevent the sun’s rays from escaping in the hot season. The heat encloses you from above and below cooking anyone foolish enough to move during the day. Encouraged by Amadou I felt that although walking through the afternoon was tough if Mungo and Alexander could walk round here for years being assaulted by bandits and without anti-malarials, food or much water I could surely manage an afternoon.I was wrong. Arriving back at the bike I wanted to collapse but we had promised to return the bike to the friend, of a friend, of my friend who needed it the next morning so set off. I didn’t feel too bad until we started the half falling off thing on the bike. Then I really wanted to stop but it was too late and we headed on.

Arriving back in Djiggiboomboom I revived slightly and attempted half of a tuna sandwich. I woke 2 hours later for an extended, all night session of shouting down the porcelain telephone. Next moring, still unable to keep water or anything else down, and in a village that lacked any sort of medical service or proper road I realised my only contact with the outside world was my mobile which had reception though the village had no electricity. Brave, world-weary African Explorer that I am I phoned my mum. Armed with her expert advice (and Aunt Sally’s urging to apply wet flannels to my ankles and eat ginger – the former proved easier to do than the latter and was most effective) I set off for the long journey back to Bamako and my plane home. 4 Immodium guaranteed safety in that regard during the trip but it was most inopportune that the only bus left at 1pm and i had full body shakes. However, with the bus going along the breeze, though hotter than a dragon’s arse, kept me going. The 2 hour stop in a petrol station at 3 was thus the real low point as it was still far too hot, there was no breeze and the smell of petrol was over-powering.

Eventually we continued and through slight delerium and revelling in my body melting gently into the disturbingly absorbant seat we continued, stopping every 30 minutes for police checkpoints (identification svp etc), loading on and off of goats, chickens, sacks, barrels of what appeared to be petrol (surely not a good thing to keep on the roof of a bus travelling through the desert?) until eventually arriving in Bamako at 5am, a mere 16 hours after we had set off from a village about 500kms from where we’d started.

Burkina’s for Barack: Obamania in Ouagadougou

2008-11-03T15:06:00.000-08:00

Burkina’s for Barack: Obamania in Ouagadougou

“If Obama wins America truly is the country where dreams can come true. He will be the world’s president”. Issaka – known to his friends as ‘le delegate’ is playing the guitar outside Ouagadougou’s only 10 pin bowling alley. His friends playing cards are equally enthusiastic “I like him because he is intelligent and he’s an African, like me”, said one wearing an Obama T-shirt with “Hope” written above a heroic profile of the man every Burkinabé (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burkina_Faso) I’ve spoken to wants to win today’s election.

On the radio in all the knackered taxis I’ve taken since arriving in Burkina Faso last week news reports have followed closely the final days of Obama’s frenetic campaigning. Thousands of miles from swing states the prospect of President Barack excites people. The excitement is tempered by recognition that in one of the world’s poorest countries, landlocked in the Sahelian interior of West Africa south of the ever-expanding Saharan desert, an Obama Presidency is unlikely to make much difference. “I like him but if he wins I don’t think he will change things here”, said Maiga, as we sat four across squished in the backseat of a twenty year old Renault taxi with a top speed of 20 miles an hour.

Sub-prime mortgages have had little impact on Burkina Faso – chronic poverty, unemployment and high food prices are far more pressing. “We want liberty to enjoy our lives as free men under the stars”, says ‘le delegate’. I played “the times they are a’changin’” badly on his guitar but none of them had heard it. Bob Marley was our only shared musical hero. Everyone sang along when I played the chorus of “Redemption Songs”.

The bowling alley is run by a Frenchman and the Burkinabé, according to Issaka “don’t like bowling: it is Babylon”. On the night that Senator Obama declared “we are one day from changing history” Issaka and his friends dance outside the bowling alley, drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes and playing traditional warabé tunes on an old acoustic guitar, the repeated chorus is “au revoir mes amis, demain sera meilleur, nous dancer, et fait ooh la la”.

cold turkey - ill-advised motorbiking in Turkey, 2006

2008-10-30T09:01:00.000-07:00

27 October 2006 – Cold Turkey

This place is cold. I am in Capadoccia where for centuries everyone lived in caves due to the interminable cold. Apparently when it isn't freezing everyone stays in caves due to the heat.

It is very beautiful but from a motor biking point of view I would have done better to come here a few weeks ago, before the hills were covered with snow. It would also have been clever to bring more warm clothes. Since arriving every article I own has been on my person at all times. My flip flops mock me from the bottom of my rucksack where they remain unused (swimming trunks have been used under jeans as poor man’s long johns). The wisdom of always bringing a second pair of trousers is apparent as I sit writing in a towel waiting for my jeans to dry on a heater. A hat made from the wool of several sheep has helped somewhat but does unfortunately limit blood supply to my brain.

Inspired by Ewan McGregor's motorbike ride around the world I have attempted to visit all local sites of interest on the back of a 200 cc Ramzey, a brand I had never heard of and whose performance and reliability will not be giving Yamaha directors cause for alarm.

Attempting to find cross country routes, an objective not without difficulties in a region renowned for its bizarre rock formations and deep canyons, I have suffered from engine trouble, my chain falling off, the visor from my helmet snapping off at high speed and the lid of my luggage storage unit also flying off causing much swearing from a Turkish man whose donkey narrowly avoided decapitation. These incidents, notwithstanding the justifiably aggrieved donkey owner, have demonstrated the friendliness of Turks as each breakdown has been fixed by the first passing vehicle. Nor would anyone accept payment, not even the guy who got covered in engine oil and rained on for 20 minutes putting the chain back on. This was something I could have fixed on my own as I know how to put chains back on but I didn't have a spanner to get the front panel off.

Sadly the first passing vehicle has often been a long time coming but these periods pushing the bike through mud and waiting at the side of the road have given me time to ponder the worth of carrying tools when travelling and also of knowing how to use them. The bike's rubbishness has also made hiring very economical as the bike guy has given me almost 2 days free rental to make up for my persistent technical problems.

I realised I had miscalculated when I woke up as it got light on my nightbus from Istanbul. Pouring rain, endless empty plains and a driving wind made it apparent why centuries of hordes from the east had decided to keep going when reaching central Anatonia and not stop here. From an afternoon dozing in the sun on a bench at the Topkapi Palace in sunny Istanbul I found myself alone, shivering in a bus shelter at 7am in a town that everyone else seemed to have had the good sense to leave. After a few hours passed out in a cave (hotel room) I went exploring and have carried on: through underground cities (attempts to divert from the route suggested by arrows led to me getting stuck, Pooh bear-like, in a tunnel and having to perform a lengthy, arse first, retreat into a small room full of retired Japanese people); through abandoned villages of houses carved out of cliffs, innumerable churches with colourful medieval frescoes and valleys of 'fairy chimneys'. In South America they call similar places 'valleys of the penises' and people go there to boost their chances of inception. Anyone attempting that here would probably die of exposure. Or maybe they are just more sober people in Capadoccia, or maybe cold climates inspire outward chasteness? Women wear the veil which with strong winds and rain whipping at the face is most sensible. People seem to be reasonably off in the villages: warm houses, modern tractors, much cheese, bread and tomatoes to share with those possessing broken, useless motorcycles. Tourism only seems to affect certain parts of the area although there is a certain amount of gentrification in some villages where smart Opels and Renaults are parked outside new houses built into the rock. There is still a lot of livestock living among people which is bad for bird flu but good for keeping warm. My attempts to scale the lesser trodden muddy paths were generally unsuccessful with most routes leading to sheer drops of hundreds of feet but did produce some good direction giving from people living in isolated farms on the high planes. These people were much poorer. The children didn't have shoes and wore plastic sandals with socks.

Tonight I’m taking a night bus back to Istanbul. The buses are brand new, spotlessly clean and very comfortable. For no good reason they stop every 2 hours for half an hour at bus stations where no one ever gets on or off. All this serves to achieve is to make sleep impossible but it does provide regular opportunities for bus washing which happens everywhere with much enthusiasm.

I’ve been in touch with the office of his All Holiness Bartholemew I, Patriarch of Constantinople, and hopefully will find someone to talk to me about Byzantine history tomorrow. It is sad that none of the Greek Orthodox people who built these incredible churches are here any more. Many of the frescoes have the eyes and faces scratched out. This was done by Turks shortly after 1923. When asked about what I do saying I work for the EU has been a good way to start conversation. The prosperous parts of Istanbul are very European but out here feels a long way from Brussels. No one I’ve met has been much bothered about the EU or whether Turkey joins. It seems to me that they’ve got to, not least because we promised they could ages ago and to turn them down now would be a massive snub from the only Muslim country that seems to like us and is able to demonstrate that you can be Muslim without rejecting European culture. It might have been better if Europe had never promised full membership as a possibility but we did and someday we’ll have to come good on that promise if only to show other Muslim countries that we don’t think we’re better than them. It’ll be a long time till areas like Capadoccia, and even longer for the non-touristy parts of eastern Turkey, have similar standards of living or life expectations to the rest of the EU. Maybe they never will and the acceptance of those different from us will fundamentally change the EU. No one likes what we’ve got at the moment so maybe that would be a good thing. An EU which helps stabilise the Middle East would be better than a constitutional union that burns money on subsidised agriculture and pointless Eurocrats like me.

The worst thing about the intense cold is that it reminds me that winter will soon come to my ice-box of a flat in Brussels and I’ve yet to discover a reliable wood source. I burnt a whole tree that was chopped down in a friend’s garden last year and fear I must return to the thankless task that is skip-hunting and balancing bags of logs on my crossbar.

RANT ON BRITISH POLITICS DURING ELECTION CAMPAIGN OF 2005

Questions that weren't asked on last night's "Question Time - Leaders Special".
1) Mr. Kennedy no one trusts Labour anymore, no one likes the Tories either. This is the best chance the Lib Dems have ever had and most of your candidates are campaigning on local litter collection issues. You are the only leader who offers hope but where is your vision? Why can't you get more people to like you?
2) Mr. Howard if Tony Blair is such a liar, and we all agree he is, why have you failed to lay a glove on him during the course of your leadership?
3) Mr. Howard, more soap in hospitals, tax revenues going up but taxes going down a bit if the economy does what you expect, allowing teachers to shout at bullies without being sued: these are your big ideas. They hardly set the pulse racing do they? Is this all you have to offer?
4) Tony, can I call you Tony? Thanks. Tony, we all loved you in '97, you were a pretty straight sort of guy. When you go to international meetings we are proud you represent us because you are cleverer than George, less greasy than Silvio, less French than Jacques and cooler than John Major or Thatcher ever were. Now we all think you are a liar. Where did it all go wrong and what might you have done differently?
5) Tone, for that is your name, mate, you keep on saying you had to make a decision over Iraq, and you did, and that is your job. 90 years ago Winston Churchill saw a threat, decided to launch a pre-emptive attack and it didn't go exactly as planned. That was Gallipoli and even though he made his decision, like you did, with the best possible intentions, he got it wrong and so resigned. We all think you got it wrong. Why won't you resign?
6) Finally "Big T" everyone knows apathy is a major problem. The Sun have called this the most boring election campaign ever. More people my age voted in Big Brother than will do in the General Election - in part because it is more entertaining. A big, Saturday night debate between you, Howard and Kennedy would be great TV. People would watch it who don't engage in politics normally. Also you'd be really good at it. Your mate George does them and he can't even talk properly. What are you scared of?

I feel better now.
Zander

Africa fears contagion from rich world's money woes

2008-10-28T08:59:00.000-07:00

http://africa.reuters.com/wire/news/usnLD53925.html

By Pascal Fletcher
DAKAR, Oct 14 (Reuters) - Diery Gueye doesn't have a bank account, a car or a house of his own, let alone a mortgage.
He hasn't heard of the global financial crisis that has sent markets tumbling and forced governments in the rich developed world to divvy up hundreds of billions of dollars to bail out collapsed banks and try to calm anguished homeowners and savers.
The only crisis he knows of is surviving day by day in his native Senegal, where the 45-year-old labourer barely earns enough to feed his wife and three kids and rent a room.
"It's tough ... sometimes I don't have work for two or three months," he says, speaking in the local Wolof language.
Welcome to Main Street Africa -- sprawling cities of dusty pavements, armies of poor and unemployed, chaotic traffic and bustling markets -- a world away from Europe or the United States in levels of individual wealth and of expectations.
In Senegal and across the world's poorest continent, millions in overcrowded cities and the remote bush eke out an existence on one or two dollars a day. Death, hunger and disease are the daily lot of many, especially in conflict zones like Darfur, Somalia, eastern Chad and Democratic Republic of Congo.
While African governments and educated elites are following the global banking crisis closely, the vast majority of their people have little grasp of sub-prime mortgages, toxic assets, bank bailouts and trillion dollar financial rescue plans.
But many do understand that when the rich world catches a financial fever, the planet's poorest may end up hurting too.
"I don't really know what it all means but I really hope that poverty here doesn't get worse just because they have problems," said Rose Camara, a Guinean housewife in Conakry.
"DEEP AFRICA"
"If the rich countries have problems, then that's going to end up coming here. You can count on it," said Ali Tapsoba, a garage worker in Burkina Faso's capital Ouagadougou.
The debate is open on just how much Africa and its people will feel the pain of the financial turmoil in the rich world at a time the continent's economies had been growing at their fastest pace in decades.
There are those like Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade who believe the crisis will be "limited" for Africa, where banking systems and markets are poorly developed in many countries.
"This is marginal for 'deep Africa'. We're talking about 700 million peasants, poor people. For these people, as long as they have something to eat, they're not doing badly," Wade told Radio France International this month.
The octogenarian leader, who faces protests at home over power blackouts and high food and fuel prices, believes financial solutions alone will not solve the North's crisis.
Declaring "the survival of the world's growth is in Africa", he recommends Europe invest in African infrastructure projects, which he says will boost both European industrial output and African development, creating jobs in both continents.
But many, from the International Monetary Fund to the African Union, fear the developed world's credit crunch may choke aid, trade and investment to Africa, straining vulnerable economies already hurting from high food and fuel prices.
"The poorest countries don't have 700 billion dollars to bail out failing banks. The money invested in these problems in the North just isn't there in government budgets in developing countries," said Alexander Woollcombe, Food Security Advocacy Adviser of Oxfam GB's West Africa regional centre.
Major charities like Oxfam GB are expecting a fall off in aid donations. The British group is trimming its budgets by between 10 and 15 percent for next year, based on projections.
DIFFERENT PRIORITIES
Oxfam GB has drawn up figures showing just how far $700 billion earmarked by the U.S government for a financial rescue plan could go in helping to solve the poor world's problems.
It says this is enough to eradicate all world poverty for over two years, based on a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) calculation that it would take $300 billion to get the entire global population over the $1 a day poverty line.
The $700 billion could clear -- almost twice over -- the $375 billion accumulated debt of the world's 49 poorest nations.
According to Oxfam, the U.S. bailout figure is worth about 7 years of annual global aid levels ($104 billion in 2007).
The United States is also planning to inject $250 billion into its banks following European rescue pledges totalling more than $1.3 trillion.
Some analysts believe the predicted slowdown in world demand may cool off rocketing high food and fuel prices which have been throttling many poor food- and fuel-importing African economies
"So what we lose on one side, we could win on another," said Kalidou Diallo, assistant director of economic and financial studies at Guinea's Finance Ministry. But he and others say flagging demand could hit Africa's commodity exports too.
If the developed West cuts aid and investment, African states are saying they are ready to turn elsewhere.
"Our door is open. We're not blocking off our yard, we expect support from wherever we can get it," Cameroon Finance Minister Lazarre Essimi Menye told French radio.
Africa, he said, was already working with other major partners, like China. (For full Reuters Africa coverage and to have your say on the top issues, visit: http://africa.reuters.com/) (Additional reporting by Diadie Ba in Dakar, Saliou Samb in Conakry, Mathieu Bonkoungou in Ouagadougou, Tansa Musa in Yaounde; editing by Ralph Boulton)
© Reuters 2008. All Rights Reserved.

US government put up US$700 billion to bail out financial institutions in one day, on 3 October, total global development aid for 2007 was $104 billio

2008-10-28T08:55:00.000-07:00

GLOBAL: Donor response to food crisis inadequate, agencies say
Photo:

Just US$1 billion of the US$20 billion pledged by donors to boost agricultural growth has been released DAKAR, 16 October 2008 (IRIN) -

Food security experts say international donors’ response to the world’s food crisis has been inadequate when compared to interventions to contain the global financial meltdown. “Huge financial resources have been mobilised by the international community in a matter of days” in response to the global financial crisis, wrote Teresa Cavero in a report by the international NGO Oxfam released on 16 October – World Food Day. While the US government put up US$700 billion to bail out financial institutions in one day, on 3 October, total global development aid for 2007 was $104 billion, according to Alexander Woollcombe, food security advocacy adviser at Oxfam in Dakar. This year’s food crisis threw an additional 75 million people into hunger and poverty in 2007 according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). The World Bank estimates there are currently 967 million malnourished people in the world.FAO says the financial crisis, following on the heels of the food price crisis, could deepen the plight of the poor in developing countries. Remittances dropping FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf stated in a 15 October news release: “Borrowing, bank lending, official development aid, foreign direct investment and workers’ remittances – all may be compromised by a deepening financial crisis.” There are no precise numbers yet about the impact of the financial crisis on developing countries, said Josef Schmidhuber, senior economist at the FAO’s Global Perspectives Unit, but he noted that when industrialised countries face a crisis, fewer people work and fewer remittances are sent to developing countries. “We’re already hearing noises from Mexico that fewer remittances are being sent back. These [remittances] are more important than credits and foreign direct investment,” he stressed. Mexico receives $22 billion in annual remittances, and Bangladesh $4 billion, according to Schmidhuber. In Haiti and Honduras remittances make up over 20 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). Response ‘a slow trickle’ The FAO’s Schmidhuber said donors promised $20 billion in aid to agriculture at the Rome FAO conference in June 2008, but according to Oxfam, five months on just $1 billion of this has been dispersed. Oxfam’s Woollcombe said this is partly because “it takes time to distribute cash for agricultural production. The problem is it is not clear when or where it is actually coming.” The UN has estimated that $25 billion to $40 billion is needed to lessen the impacts of high food prices on developing countries. “With the new commitments of the financial crisis, I would not be surprised if we don’t get much more than the trickle that has arrived so far,” said Schmidhuber. The UK government’s commitment of US$ 1.4 billion pledged at the Rome meeting still stands, said Matt Wells, spokesperson for the UK Department for International Development (DFID). “Yes, there are challenges we are all facing, but we are continuing to call on other donors not to let the economic crisis deflect the fact that we need to remain focused on supporting those most in need,” Wells told IRIN. Building up resilience To boost vulnerable people’s resilience to crises, Oxfam and the Washington DC-based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) stress the need for donors and international finance institutions to support ‘social protection’ such as aiding access to health and education, which they say will have a knock-on boost on their food-purchasing power. Such measures could include targeted cash transfers, nutritional interventions, and fee waivers on targeted services, according to an October World Bank report ‘Rising food and fuel prices: addressing the risks to future generations.’ It is the erosion of the global food system's resilience that underlies the food price spikes, according to Steve Wiggins, research fellow at the UK-based Overseas Development Institute. The world needs to replenish severely depleted global grain reserves, which have dropped from 30 percent to 19 percent of annual grain use, Wiggins said. “Rebuilding stocks would help to calm nerves and restore the resilience of the global food system.” See related story: Cereal banks in NigerFAO’s Schmidhuber said as an alternative to real grain reserves, which are expensive to build and keep up, ‘virtual grain stocks’ should be developed; developing countries would purchase the right to buy at subsidised prices. He said such alternatives would lead to a more efficient market that could also protect poor communities, adding that export bans and subsidies in the developed world distort markets and discourage production. Progress is being made on both sides, he said. “We are starting to see a convergence between the developing and developed world as they shift these opposing approaches.” As the FAO’s World Food Security Committee discusses these and other challenges in Rome from 14 to 17 October, Schmidhuber said governments should start by taking a simple step. “They need to do what they’ve said they are already committed to doing, and deliver the money.”

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=80954

Vampire Bats in Dakar

2008-10-23T10:48:00.001-07:00

The first time a giant vampire bat swooped towards my head I squealed like a child, splashed and ducked my head under water. Unfortunately a group of boys saw me and were still laughing when I came up for air. Apparently fruit bats are harmless and only eat flies but they’ve a 4 foot wingspan and look like rabid killers. Quite why it’s OK for them to swoop towards innocent swimmers in Dakar’s (and apparently West Africa’s) only Olympic-sized pool isn’t clear. People are used to bats in Dakar. At sunset the muezzin’s call to prayer disturbs huge clouds of them from the main mosque nearby. They take off in scary black swarms (flocks?) towards the sunset as women prepare supper, men pray, boys play football and girls do whatever little girls do – chat mostly and play. All on the street. It’s a good temperature to be out of doors. There are always power cuts so it's too hot inside. Everyone chats. No notice is taken of the clouds of bats flapping noisily overhead or the spectacular sunsets which turn the air a translucent orange. It’s just recompense for a day spent hiding from the heat of the sun. The weirdest thing about working in Dakar is that in my flat and office I could be anywhere (hot) on earth. It’s easy to forget it’s Africa and so my post-work explorations feel like being teleported from a ‘normal’ working life of emails into somewhere much more exciting. It doesn’t make the emails more exciting though.

Sunset’s a good time to be in the pool. After a day sweating in the office the water is refreshing and turns pink, then orange, then red. The boys larking around on the high diving boards (proper 10 metres high ones) get kicked out and are replaced by Senegal’s national swimming team. They’re training for the African Championships in South Africa in December. Lamine says he’d like to go to Europe. I launch into my spiel about it not being that great, especially without papers. ‘I don’t want to work there, I just want to swim’, he replies.

The only medal hope Senegal has is training in France. The guys here, despite what looks like a great facility, haven’t a chance. The team (mostly boys although some girls do swim) charge up and down each night with huge shoulders and tiny waists being shouted at by an enormous man in a billowing white Bou-Bou – the traditional Senegalese male outfit which is a large shiny robe of any colour that reaches to the floor and is accompanied by pointy leather slippers. No one pays any attention to me doing one length for every four of theirs. This is a relief as I am terrible at swimming. My attempts at backstroke or front crawl cause me to sink after, at best, four strokes. I can’t even do granny breast stroke as my dodgy knee won’t bend properly. Mostly it is an odd form of doggy-paddle on my back that propels me slowly up and down the pool. Looking up increases my peripheral vision thus reducing the chances of unforeseen bat attacks. It also allows me to watch the stars come out and the moon rise.

I’ve always hated swimming pools. They’re stuffy, smell, are too full of people and I’m crap at it. Always have been. Aged 7 I went to swim camp in Virginia. It was awful. Everyone else could already swim. I came last in every race. Foolishly I remarked to the teacher that when I looked through my goggles at the bottom of the pool I seemed to be moving in slow motion. “That’s coz yer darn slow boy” he replied. At the end of the week everyone got a swimming certificate apart from me. Out of 30 I was the only one who failed, “I wanted to pass yer son, butcha got understand I couldn’t”.

Arriving at boarding school aged 13 I walked into my room to find a 6 foot man mountain lifting weights. I had a blue blazer with brass buttons, bum-flaps and grey flannel trousers. He was a week younger than me but had a Kurt Cobain poster, an electric guitar, Hugo Boss suit, swam for Great Britain and within two weeks was shagging a girl in the year above. Although Millfield had an Olympic-sized pool I only went twice. After the Christmas holidays in 6th form he asked me what I’d done, “ate a lot, watched telly, you?”. He pulled out a silver medal from the World Swimming Championships. Good bloke though, probably saved me from getting beaten up. I did his GCSE coursework a few times. Inexplicably we thought a good idea for a house skit was to do a jungle version of ‘Unchained Melody’ with me singing and him MC-ing. 25 teenage boys disagreed loudly. Tough crowd. It wasn’t a good idea but that kind of experience brings you closer. Every day for 10 years he got up at 6am, swam, did weights or circuits at lunch and then swam from 4-7. In Sydney there was 0.1 of a second between Olympic silver and 5th place. He came 5th.

In Dakar, the pool is surrounded by a massive grandstand which I’m always relieved to find empty, a wall with palm trees above it, a gym and a building site. Angry sounding men in white suits do martial arts while others lift weights to the mellow Senegalese rhythms in the gym. Occasionally they break out loud techno. The building site is part of a recent Dakar-wide construction and house price boom. The credit hasn’t crunched as apparently it is paid for in large part by laundered drug money. Lower bonuses should mean less cocaine but drugs seem resilient even in a downturn. As someone once said “dope gets you through times of no money better than money gets you through times of no dope”. Despite this there doesn’t seem to be much of a drugs scene here or the violence that usually comes with it. Nor is there much drinking, as you’d expect in a Muslim country. Maybe these bad things will come but there’s little sign of it yet and it would be a disaster if it did: West Africa’s struggling on every development indicator going and they don’t even have wars to explain why this is happening. Political stability is Senegal’s main asset. Without it the country’s stuffed.

People are laid back and inclined to take things as they are. ‘Inshallah’ (God willing) gets used a lot when it comes to what’s going to happen. Civil disobedience is rare (except for after football matches – Senegal drew with Gambia last week causing riots – it was the first time for over 40 years that they’d failed to beat a country whose borders mark the distance British cannons could fire inland from the Gambia river 100 years ago).

However, the daily power cuts across Dakar are causing real anger, not least because electricity bills are extortionate. The grid’s not very good so loads of power is lost within the system and it simply can’t provide all the power Dakar needs. So someone sits in an office and flicks power off and on between different parts of town. Sometimes this is good (this morning it went off at 8am forcing me out of bed in time to get to work) but it wears you down when it’s every day (I want to sleep now but it’s roasting) and last weekend there were mass protests-cum-riots. They worked: since then that part of town hasn’t had a single power cut and we’ve had more. Maybe we should riot. Power cuts make you more social: you have to go outside. The last few times it’s happened I’ve gone swimming: it’s peaceful in the dark. You just have to watch out for the Vampire bats.

World Food Day

2008-10-16T13:53:00.000-07:00

Did anyone notice? It was a pretty big deal for me.

Oxfam organised a meeting of Senegalese NGOs with a nice man from the Senegalese Government's agriculture ministry to talk about the impact of high food prices, what Senegal is doing about it and what else it should do.

We got about 25 people, Senegalese and international journalists and NGOs, agricultural experts as well as donors. It was strangely similar yet different to similar launches I was involved in with Oxfam in Brussels: it's always easier to talk about something than it is to do it. There are far fewer people scrutinising what is going on here I guess because there's just not so much money to do that kind of thing.

The panelists knew what they were talking about and it was interesting to hear different views on what should be done. The Government guy was pretty game and answered questions more directly than many EU folks do. He did say that everything was going amazingly well however.

West Africa's Capital Crunch

2008-10-15T02:51:00.000-07:00

“My worry about this financial crisis is that when times are hard people turn their eyes away from the struggles of others. It is the loss of solidarity I fear”. Maguette Fall, Gandeol, Senegal.

Last week I travelled around northern Senegal visiting villages where Oxfam works to improve food security. In Bagonde and Baélé people are pastoralists: they trade their goats, sheep and cows with millet and rice from nearby (a few hours by foot or donkey) markets. Soaring food prices have had a devastating impact: the cost of rice has doubled in less than a year.
“I used to sell one goat for a big bag (50kgs) of rice. Now I must sell two. If the situation does not change all my animals will be gone”, said Bilaly Moussa Ka.

Occasionally the radio of our Citroen minivan (setting off I was pleased not to be fulfilling the cliché of NGO worker in white 4x4. By the third time I had to push sodding Citroen out of sand so hot it burnt my feet through flip flops I was less pleased) would splutter to life bringing snippets of BBC World Service or Radio France International. Every time it did the news was of fresh catastrophes on world financial markets that felt totally irrelevant. People in Bagonde and Baélé are experiencing a capital crunch, not a credit one. Their losses are not on paper but in the diminishing size of herds built up over generations.

Many people are chronically food insecure: even when times are good they don’t produce enough to feed themselves till next harvest: if it’s not the high price of rice, it’s drought, or floods, or pests eating the crops. Birds have been the biggest problem this year. Apparently lobbying by Japanese bird NGOs stopped their Government donating bird-scarers to Senegal. Plastic bags on sticks are not effective scarecrows but that’s all they have. As the villagers cursed the brightly coloured, beautiful birds which have decimated their crops I tried to cover binoculars and ‘Birds of West Africa’ book with my Panama hat.

“Crisis” is a constant state of being here so they are used to coping. However, each year that they do makes them less able to deal with “crises” in the future. Only eating two meals a day with smaller portions, selling firewood even though it destroys the topsoil they need to feed their animals takes its toll.

The rains this year were the best since 2000: the grass is long; animals and children run around having a good time. Those in the village able to afford seeds are about to harvest their millet. “With what I have planted I hope to be able to feed my family for at least two months”, said Amadu Diallo. “Of course I worry about the future”, he responded tersely when I asked him.

Ultimately Amadu will have to do what he and so many others have done before: migrate to where there’s work: Dakar, Cote D’Ivoire, Gabon or Europe. Many in Bagonde and Baélé already rely on money relatives send home to stay afloat.
It’s not everybody though, an hour down the road I met rice farmers by the river Senegal who talked enthusiastically of buying machinery, expanding production and irrigation systems and finally competing with imported, Asian rice. They’re thriving on high food prices.

In Bagonde and Baélé it felt insensitive to ask people about the credit crunch: why had I travelled for hours down dusty tracks to villages with no electricity to ask about something which bore no relation to their problems?

Humanitarian or financial: these crises are man-made. They happen because no one asks the right questions or takes action early enough. There’s growing concern that the credit crunch will cause aid budgets to be slashed and development to slip off the political radar. The people of northern Senegal aren’t a humanitarian disaster yet, but they’re getting there, as are millions of others across the arid Sahel belt south of the ever-expanding Sahara. Turning our eyes away from the struggles of others risks storing up bigger problems for the future.