http://chriswilliams.tigblog.org/ What's on the minds of young leaders from around the globe? en-us http://chriswilliams.tigblog.org/post/42227 Suza - the wife beater?
We crossed into Mozambique in the evening and made our way towards Maputo, the capital city, which isn't far away. We stopped for some dinner in a small town called Boane and got chatting to the other people on our table. They were friendly and a trustworthy guy called Suza invited us to stay at his house. He seemed to think it was really cool to meet people from another country! He progressively became drunk but he and his 2 female friends were friendly. Suza's English was poor but his friend Florence (?), a policewoman, was almost fluent as she learned English to communicate with Doctors when in hospital in South Africa. We went back to Suza's place, which was quite a modern one-storey house with large garden, garage and driveway but no car and large fence surrounding the property. They clearly did all right for themselves. Unfortunately, Suza's Portuguese-speaking wife was less than friendly when we arrived but I don't know if that was personal or not. Suza did call her well in advance to say we were coming to stay. Suza and his wife had a blazing row with Rachel and myself stuck not knowing what to do. I did see Suza from a distance raise his hand as if to strike his wife and she put her hands over her head as if to soften the blow. Thankfully, he didn't hit. Not then anyway! We had a lovely big bed (which we then figured out was the children's bed!), own TV etc. Luxury for Mozambique!

The following morning, all seemed happier with Suza's wife (I should give her a pseudonym shouldn't I?) managing a smile for me and she spent an hour making us breakfast. We played with the very sweet children in the garden (aged 3 and 4). After a couple of hours or so, the blazing row started all over again with only Suza's wife raising her voice this time. But not just shouting; rather screaming and balling at the top of her voice. Suza was just quietly talking back. He did seem like a gentleman really to us but with her, I'm not convinced he always is. The children appeared largely unaffected by this, although the girl did run in at one point, then came running out smiling. After things went quiet, Rachel and I said we had to go, even if it did end uncomfortably. Suza was apologetic for the argument! Domestic violence is unfortunately rife in many parts of Africa. I don't think I've ever heard a woman shout at a man like this though...perhaps Suza's wife is the start of the African liberation movement? I hope she has some better tactics though!

Maputo - Africa's most Latin city?
Before long, we were in Maputo (once known as the city of "Prawns and Prostitutes") and stayed at a busy backpackers place. We talk a long walk through Maputo, attracting a lot of street vendors as we went. It didn't help that I actually did want some of the things that were on offer because then everyone assumes that you will then want to buy their stuff. As long as you make sure they know that you're the boss, they tend to behave and go in order (almost queueing up to sell you things). I stocked up on a few DVDs (all original of course), a Mozambican music CD to go with my collection (Thoby and I attempted to get one CD from each country but failed) and a model bicycle. I saw an awesome bike in Mali made from cut up Coke cans, sardine tins and so on, making it colourful and just very cool. This one was 2nd best. For me, that was big spending!

We continued our walk round by the seafront, which was a bit scabby. Around the city, most buildings are tall and concrete is dominant. The buildings looked very Communist - how I imagine buildings in East Germany, Russia or Eastern Europe. Incidentally, almost every street in Maputo seemed to be named after a Communist leader from around the world or have a Communist reference. This is a reflection of Mozambique's socialist past and no reflection on the current administration. In South Africa, many street names are still named after apartheid politicians. The Communist architecture somehow "does something for me". It gets me going ;-)

Quite a few people spoke English, which obviously reflects the fact that Mozambique is surrounded by English-speaking countries and hence the usefulness of learning English and in central Maputo, people are of a higher average education than in the rest of the country. I got chatting to a few people in Maputo, which was good. My presence (as a light-skinned person) didn't turn heads in Maputo as it does in many other places. OK, there are quite a few white people in some parts of the city but I found Mozambicans to be hard to surprise. They are also generally quite modest but once you start talking to them, they open up and are fun to be with. I make friends with two different guys about my age who wanted to improve their English. Many people learn English without any books and often without any formal education but "on the street". I find that impressive and it requires a lot of motivation and persistence but then circumstances in Africa so often provide the perfect motivation to learn! I bought the two guys concerned, Afonso and Fernando, a dictionary each to help them along their way :-)

More exploring led to us finding the main train station in Maputo, designed by Mr Eiffel and built under Portuguese rule. It is beautiful and the Mozambicans know it - they keep it well and use it still. I walked across the tracks and on a train standing at a platform, ready for the afternoon. Like Communist buildings, there is something quirky about African train stations that sparks something inside ;-) We visited the Museum of the Revolution, which detailed the fight against Portuguese rule in the 1970s (independence won in 1975 after the Portuguese Fascist government collapsed). The museum was in Portuguese but it was images told the story very well anyway. The independent countries (except South Africa and Zimbabwe still fighting for freedom and independence) bordering Mozambique harboured freedom fighters. Women were a key part of the fight. Samora Machel, the first President of Mozambique was thought to have be assassinated by the South African apartheid government as he was opposed to them, allowing ANC freedom fighters to group in Mozambique etc. Another interesting museum in Maputo is Nucleo de Arte, which is really a social project for former fighters in the civil war to use their guns and other weapons to make art. At the same time, they learn the artisitic skills to produce their own work to sell.

Corruption
Walking around town one time, we were called over my 2 policemen who no doubt spotted our lighter skins among a crowd of black people. I knew what they wanted. They talked to me, not to Rachel (prejudice no. 2), asked to see my papers, asked if the woman next to me was my sister or wife and then pushed us for US dollars. This is supposedly common in Maputo, although the 2 policemen we got were far from any good at getting money out of us (I've had experience of others!). The sad thing is, they didn't even look at my valid visa. They believed my expired visa from my previous visit was still valid. Waste of space!

Love of concrete + my cheap skate habits
I spent half an hour or so in Maputo's 2nd tallest building, a huge derelict towerblock that used to be a hotel. A photographer recommended it to me for some good pictures. We went there - it was just a concrete shell with a lot of dodgy staircases without sides and former corridors with sheer drops by the side of them. Unfortunately, the promised graffiti was not really there - only a few interesting things and not that exciting. Rachel was right to comment on my random sense of fun. We got our car washed for next to nothing down the road where the South Africans like to go in the Costa do Sol, saving us South African charges the next day before we were due to hand the car back. Yes, I am tight. Or maybe you can just say I like supporting the economy of the poor ;-) I remember Andreas's saying: "support the ladies' don't make the fat cats richer!". I also got things sewn and shoes repaired in the local market ;-) And my hair cut again for 75p to save the £8 charge back home in the UK!

Mozambique overview
We did visit some other places in Mozambique but didn't venture far. Namely, we went through the Maputo suburbs such as Benfica (very busy, typically "African", crowded roads, white minibuses driving recklessly etc) and to Marracuene, an old Portuguese village on estuary of the Limpopo river. Unfortunatley, this didn't provide so much of an overview of Mozambique but time is perhaps life's biggest enemy. I am told that places further north, namely Inhambane and Mozambique Island are very much worth a visit. For me, Maputo is probably in my top 5 cities in Africa. The Latin feel (including the music); lovely yet modest people and old Communist architecture are wonderful for me.

Mozambique - a success story
Mozambique, ended its civil war in 1992 and ever since, has had a fast growing economy and is considered to have good governance. It had a major set back with the serious floods of 2000 and 2001, flooding a quarter of the country and destroying major insfrastructure. Do you remember the woman giving birth in a tree live on TV? The helicopter could not get to her. She is still a national celebrity in Mozambique. The country is back on its feet again and is one of the countries that the West likes to focus on to show how poverty can be fought successfully. Gordon Brown (Chancellor/Finance Minister of the UK) who wants to the next UK Prime Minister, went to Mozambique in April to announce a huge boost in the UK's aid package to Mozambique, specifically to improve the education of the country. He chose Mozambique because of its successes and wants to show off his "human" credentials and show he supports a social, caring agenda.

One thing I remember about Mozambique: it was the only African country to donate money to the world financial response to the tsunami tragedy of 26 December 2004. It donated £250,000, which isn't a lot but perhaps appropriate for what it can afford. This was apparently in solidarity with what the world did for Mozambique when they needed help in 2000 and 2001. Sweet, don't you think?

Next drove back to South Africa.]]> Sun, 20 Aug 2006 07:47:00 EDT http://chriswilliams.tigblog.org/post/42227 http://chriswilliams.tigblog.org/post/42226
We drove towards the heart of Swaziland via a road where we gave lots of lifts to hitchers and settled at a backpackers in the "royal Ezulwini valley". We visited the National Museum not far away and the nearby King Sobhuza II memorial. Both provided us with info on Swazi history and culture. The nearby stadium was hosting a school dance contest, which we went to take a quick look at. On the grassy car park, we chatted to a drunk taxi driver. He was being paid 18 pounds for the full day's hire and he was persuading me to have a beer (the young lads he was chauffering were drunk and on the look out for school girls for a bit of jiggy jiggy). I read in the newspapers that the Swazi Minister of Economy or Tourism or something like that was complaining that the police were fining too many motorists for drink-driving as not allowing people to drink and drive was reducing leisure revenue as fewer people want to go out for some fun if they can't drink and then drive home. Hmmm...have they heard of DES? (British will hopefully understand that).

We spent the afternoon in Mbabane, the capital city. It might as well have been in South Africa as it was modern, quite built up and there were clearly plenty of people with spare cash! We stayed the night in a friendly backpackers in Mlilwane wildlife sanctuary, saw a "traditional" dance and then drove around the sanctuary the following morning. It was pretty and has lots of antelopes, zebras, hippos etc. It allows for nice walks but we had no time for that! We spent lunchtime in Manzini (the largest city), which was bustling and much more African than Mbabane. In the afternoon, we went to the annual reed dance ceremony at the King's Palace. It is one of the two major cultural events in Swaziland each year and involved hundreds of colourfully-dressed women with tall reeds. Zulu women also attend and a few female tourists joined in! We were within 20 metres of the King of Swaziland and security was comically relaxed. One could run walk in front of or behind the King when he was seated and shoot him no problem. Clearly, Swaziland hasn't annoyed any country or radicals of any religious group lately so they need not worry! The King, mind you, has about 13 wives (his father had over 70 when he died) and a large number of cars including a $500,000 Daimler Chrysler Maybach 62. He did want to buy himself a jet for $45 million but that was shelved. Each of his wives gets a new palace built. So it's no wonder he gets criticised in the Western media when 4 in 10 people have HIV and many people are starving! This kind of press causes bad press on Africa as a whole as so many people think "oh yes, that must be happening every in Africa so what's the point of donating money to the poor?" I'm afraid it isn' t happening everywhere in Africa! The distribution of money in Swaziland was very odd even when the royals are discounted.

Then drove into Mozambique.
]]> Sat, 15 Jul 2006 07:46:00 EDT http://chriswilliams.tigblog.org/post/42226 http://chriswilliams.tigblog.org/post/42225
We slowly made our way to Malealea, a place we knew of a well-run lodge that runs activities. On the way, we stopped to take a picture and suddenly lots of children came from nowhere, hence their nickname "pop-ups". This is not so unsual as "we were in Africa again" ;-) But Rachel was not used to this and their passionate pleas for sweets and money didn't bounce off her not-so-hardened skin and she found it hard to say no. For the first time, it is. Most tourists do give something or course ( e.g. a pen) but giving nothing but a smile is the most appropriate, which I will come to in my summary email. Whereas the people asking for money or whatever would normally be left way below me outside the truck, this time, the very sweet children had their noses pinned up on all of the windows around the car, which somehow made leaving them a little harder.

On the way to Malealea, we picked up our first hitchhiker - an elderly man who hardly knew where he was I'd say and didn't really speak English but his grandson (probably) told me where he wanted to go. We dropped him further down the road and then went off the tarred road towards Malealea Lodge. Here, as in most rural areas and some urban areas, most Basotho (meaning the people of Lesotho) were dressed in the traditional Basotho blanket, which looks like a rug wrapped around people. Ponies and horses are still commonly used, which is fairly unique in Africa. I have seen very few horses in Africa. Oxen pulling carts and sheep were also common. A lot of animals here for an African country! Driving towards the Lodge, we came to a peak, where there was a gap in the rock. The view was absolutely spectacular, hence it hance been dubbed "The Gates of Paradise". It's no surprise to me that I could find a picture on the web of this, which is pretty good considering most photos of views don't come out very well. Look at the top of this page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/novosad/page2/ It unfortunately shows you the view through the gates and cuts out the rocks that look like gates!

I was pleased to stay at Malealea Lodge for 2 nights in our own little hut (that amused Rachel). The Lodge is very much community-orientated with a local choir and a local band singing and playing music every night. They receive money from tips and sell their music. Children are asked to give tours of the village; older locals act as guides for pony trekking, walking tours etc. The workers at the Lodge have set up Malealea Development Trust. Over the years they have done some fabulous projects in the area.

[Aside for the few people who I think are interested in the area of child sponsorship...
The Lodge's website is comprehensive on what they offer a visitor and what they do for the area. The following is a link to interesting thoughts on child sponsorship, e.g. why you should check out the organisation (if applicable) via which you sponsor a child etc., what goes wrong sometimes with child sponsorship etc. The Lodge comments on problems they had with their own sponsorship scheme and how they operate it now. The interesting newspaper cartoon may be headed "why not to sponsor a child" but in the context of their website, it is highlighting the pitfalls. http://www.malealea.co.ls/development_scholarship.htm]

First morning there, Rachel went up to the nearest public phone at the Gates of Paradise pass, 5km away, to make a phone call to work for her seat choices (she's a trainee solicitor). The chickens in the metal shack and the calf running around outside amused her. Far cry from the people she was calling! We then went on a walk using Joseph, a school leaver we met the previous night, as our guide. We hiked down a pretty gorge, dodging the river running through it (normally dry at this time of the year). We stopped for lunch (beetroot chutney sandwiches...lol) at some cascades. Unfortunately, Rachel slipped into a deep rock pool as her short legs proved to be a disadvantage. She was not amused! Just as she started to dry off, a ladder which used to provide walkers with a dry route over the river had gone, which was unknown to Joseph. So we had to throw our shoes over to dry land and then slide off a rock into the river, which is shallow away from the rock pools. Hiking our of the gorge was almost a rock climb.

Leaving Malealea the following day, we were stopped by two policemen. They asked if they could have a lift to the main road. How can I refused? It's important to avoid them suddenly finding a fault with the car or something! We drove to Maseru, the capital city. Finding a place with unleaded petrol was not an easy task. LRP and diesel is what people in Lesotho are still mainly using...this tells you something about the vehicles in Lesotho! We walked around the centre a little, which was quite modern but modest and small. We drove along the South Africa - Lesotho border, passing through some attractive mountainous areas with alpine-like trees and cute villages. Then crossed back into South Africa.]]> Sun, 09 Jul 2006 07:45:00 EDT http://chriswilliams.tigblog.org/post/42225 http://chriswilliams.tigblog.org/post/42224 Wow! This country has history, it has issues and it has a lot of energy. There is no doubt that South Africa is very unique, thankfully.
Most know a lot about apartheid in South Africa, which was pulled down in the early 1990s by President F.W. de Klerk who realised that it was doomed to failure. Given widespread knowledge, I won't write a lot about this so don't fret! Nevertheless, the history of apartheid is still dominating the way this country works. I will mention race in places in writing about South Africa. This is not because I am so shallow that when I see a person, I see their colour first. In South Africa, race is everything. In places, I will mention the race to give you an idea of history (where races settled etc) and so on. Behavioural practices ( e.g. carrying of weapons, living in townships etc) tend to depend on race as well. Where I seem to be making generalisations, please challenge me if you are unsure if I am being just.

First impressions
We crossed into South Africa from Namibia via a busy border crossing. It was fortunately busy with (mainly white) South African tourists crossing north into Namibia for their winter holidays. School children were on holiday, hence the mass exodus. Guns were all being checked by the police to ensure they are legal in Namibia. It is a common belief that all white South Africans carry guns on their person or in their car to protect themselves from the massive crime problem the country is faced with. Clearly, some like to take them on holiday too. We were rejoicing in the fact that the border was busy because South African customs officers occasionally makes very detailed searches of vehicles crossing into their country. Once, Andi and Grant's Oasis truck was thoroughly searched to the extent that smelly socks were being turned inside out and hair brushes were being dismantled in the search for drugs. Oh, and South Africa has a major drugs problem too.

First stop was Springbok, a town named after one of the country's national symbols. Given the lovely name for the town, I was quite optimistic about this place. Oh, how horrid it was. We were there on a Saturday lunchtime. It is a provincial town with a horrible atmosphere. Normally, I am keen to spend time walking around towns but just a short time in this one was more than enough for me. The general atmosphere of the place was unpleasant. It's hard to put my finger on why I (and I think everyone actually) didn't like this place but I would say that this arises from unfriendliness, drunkenness, some begging and a fairly depressed economy.

Before I came to South Africa, I had heard how Afrikaans, one of the country's 11 official languages, was despised by non-whites because it was seen as the language of white oppression. Here in Springbok, I thought I would be looked on in a slightly better light when I say to people who speak to me in Afrikaans "Sorry, I don't speak Afrikaans", prompting them to speak English. But no, Springbok has one very dominant race: coloured. Coloured means mixed race in South Africa (and it's politically correct to use the term to mean mixed race). Coloured people are descendants of Dutch settlers who came in the 17th Century and bred with the native Khoikhoi people. Coloured people are the dominant race along the Western coast of South Africa and in Cape Town apparently, although I didn't notice that in Cape Town. Coloureds, like Indians, were seen as superior to blacks but inferior to whites under the apartheid regime. Coloureds were given better education and so started speaking Afrikaans long before the government tried to force it upon the black population. I guess Springbok people thought that they would be pleasing me if they spoke in Afrikaans and so were more likely to do business. But no.

From Springbok, we drove south via some pretty mountainous scenery with winelands to the town of Clanwilliam, a small town with some pretty Cape Dutch architecture in the centre. The reason we came here was to stay in the camp site alongside the pretty Olifants river and be undistracted (not much to see or do in the town) so that we could clean up the truck. We wondered around town on the night of the England vs Ecuador(?) looking for a place we could watch it. No luck at all. This is a quiet town where most of the population of coloured and white people are not interested in football - rugby is the game most popular within these racial communities.

Next day, everything, without exception, was cleaned on one day of scrubbing tents back to white, the tent bags back to a colour I never remember them; attempting to beat out all of the dirt from the seats collected in 8 months; scrubbing off the black soot around the pots and pans and getting rid of the maggots that we discovered were living under our kitchen etc etc. We were rewarded with pizza, probably taking more money out of the company's pocket (I think we overspent a lot as the prices have gone up a lot for the next trip) and managed to persuade the owners to allow us to have the football on (Italy vs. Australia).

Again, the atmosphere in Clanwilliam was not so great.

Stellenbosch + turning heads over racial mixing
Penultimate stop with the truck and our 2nd of 3 stops in a youth hostel on the trip (you see how I got back into a "Western life" again?). Stellenbosch is the 2nd oldest European settlement in South Africa after Cape Town and is a pretty University town with a lot of Cape Dutch architecture, not far beyond the Cape Town suburbs. Here, the atmosphere was thankfully welcoming and relaxed. Despite the old facade, the town is modern and people mixed well (I mean different races spoke to each other or even had friends of other races) and were quite friendly. It is a student-dominated town, which is never typical of towns in any country. The student scene though is no doubt why the town is modern and not stuck in the past like er, Springbok. Not feeling like I am in apartheid South Africa 20 years ago here was nice. Maybe I had misjudged South Africa after all? Others too. Nevertheless, the race issue was still around, for example, I went to get my most expensive hair cut in Africa here (2 pounds) at a barber's shop. Only coloured people were inside. If I were in the UK, I wouldn't think anything of it but here, it meant, me, a white man, was crossing racial boundaries and mixing with "the others". Not that this was explicitly pointed out to me but the way heads turned and people gave me attention when I walked in; a slight unease at the start by the barber unsure if he was supposed to treat me differently to how he is used to; and the questions of the barber as he cut my hair were very obvious signals to me that I was behaving very much not like a white South African is expected to. There was definitely no unfriendliness directed at me though. The barber was very enthusiastic and making an extra effort for me. He seemed really happy to meet me but when I left the shop, I thought that while I have just added to the perception of interracial mixing, it's sad that such an event is something of a rarity. I found my behaviour normal, not strange. If going there to get my hair cut is strange in one of the most forward-looking places in South Africa, then this country has a problem.

Wine Tour
What we really went to Stellenbosch for was to go on a wine tour through the Cape Winelands. A few of us took the wine tour in a minibus through some gorgeous scenery - a mixture of Alpine-like mountains with beautiful vineyards in between and pretty Cape Dutch architecture. This is where the French settlers first introduced wine to South Africa. They settled in the town of Franschoek ("French corner" in Afrikaans). Our tour took us to four wineries and a nice spot for lunch. Wine, more wine and more wine was the order of the day. Apparently, the best way to get a good impression for the quality of wine is to swallow it, not to spit it out! I'm sceptical of this though - I wonder if they really were thinking "drunken customers are the most likely to buy our wines". And yes, we really did get drunk but we can't waste wine already paid for, can we? Frankly though, of the perhaps 15 to 20 wines I tried, none of them were particularly nice - they were all just OK or poor quality. I had to throw away a few of them! The best thing was the cheese offered in one winery, which was outstanding. At that winery, Fairview, they use goats milk for most of their cheese and wittily call their wine "Goats do Roam" (a little like the French wine "Cotes du Rhone"). And yes, the tacky name reflected the quality!

CAPE TOWN --> much to say so interspersed with more side-headings
Driving to Cape Town - culture shock
Driving to Cape Town (last drive on the truck) was a further culture shock. Yes, I had been getting used to Western living gradually over the past 2 months but I was still very much in the "developing" world and chocolate, skyscrapers etc. were only tasters of the developed world in isolated places, mainly capital cities. Driving to Cape Town on a 6 lane motorway (that's 3 lanes each way) with bridges, flyovers, slip roads and a mass of vehicles was shocking. As we approached Cape Town at 53mph/85kph (the fastest the company allows the truck to go), i.e. crawling compared to everyone else, we could see Table Mountain getting gradually closer. The motorway was getting more and more built up, the road network and infrastructure were getting all the more sophisticated, advertising bill boards all over the place, there were a few townships and a theme park. Into the city centre of Cape Town with all its skyscrapers which really are flash, it's abundance of flash cars and so on, things really were beginning to seem a little surreal.

A place to call home...
We made our home at Aardvark Backpackers in the Sea Point district of Cape Town, once the place to be (15 years ago) - it's an elongated fairly central district of the city crammed in between the mountain and the sea, hence the abundance of sea view apartments, mostly builts 10 or 20 years ago. Nowadays, it has gone downhill (hence the banners proclaiming that Sea Point is a "City Improvement District" and not the flashest part of town but there is worse. I liked it. So did others. There was a mix of races all walking the streets suggesting that it's safe.

At Aardvarks, 12 of us got one dormitory/flat with 12 beds in 2 rooms. I got in the 4-bed non-snoring room, which was great. The flat soon felt like home. We had a kitchen and a bathroom so the dorm, filled only with people I had became great friends with was ideal. It reminded me of old student days or something. The chance to stay in one place for so long was great for me - 8 nights here beat my previous record of, I think, 4 nights in one place.

Discovering the city on day 1 + some thoughts on the city + meeting some people
First things first, I had to get out to discover the city. I don't like being stuck somewhere where I am disorientated, feeling like a small dot, not knowing how I relate to the rest of the city. So I left Aardvarks and walked. And walked a lot. For those who know Cape Town, I discovered Sea Point, Green Point, the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront, the city centre and beyond up the hillside towards Table Mountain. The Waterfront is quite famous and is perhaps the most recognisable part of Cape Town apart from Table Mountain. It was built a decade or so ago to transform the sea front/port area of the city and now it is a pretty area for shopping and socialising - there is a huge mall and lots of bars, restaurants and souvenir shops. It is mainly for the tourists who flock in large numbers to this place. South Africans find the prices a little steep as they're used to fairly cheap living costs, partly due to low labour costs.

Via the business area, home to many posh hotels and very flash-looking offices home to global multinationals, I went to the city centre. Here, Long Street was a place I liked - a very long street that is now quite funky with "alternative" scene shops for music, art, bars and cafes. Just off here is Greenmarket Square, a small square full of souvenir stalls, selling a large variety of crafts of which only a few are South African! A few days later when I returned to the market, I really had a good look around and chatted to a fair few stall holders. Some were annoyed that I could walk up to their stall and say "Oh, how lovely...I saw thousands of these in Zimbabwe" or "Oh right, Malawi chairs have made it to South Africa now?". This meant they weren't going to make a quick buck from me! And of course, the prices here are inflated compared to the souvenirs I bought elsewhere. Some people though are impressed that you have been to their country and enjoy talking to you about it.

Another part of the city centre is where most of the mainstream shops (Mr Price and all) are located. It could be any other central shopping district of a British city. Interestingly though, there are almost no white people shopping here. They prefer to visit malls out of town near to where they live.

On my 1st day of walking about, I met a Big Issue seller (they have it in South Africa and Namibia only in Africa) with a nice air about him who ran down the street after me to show me that he is inside the Big Issue. He was featured that week as being one of the South African players in the Homeless World Cup 2006, which is being held in Cape Town in August(?). He also went to Scotland for the Homeless World Cup held there in 2005. I bought a copy from him, impressed that he made it into the magazine and he was the first Big Issue vendor I met in South Africa. When he put the money into his wallet though, it was literally bulging with notes, he could hardly close his wallet! Then of course I saw another million and one Big Issue vendors who found it hard to sell a single magazine! :-( I will point out that there are white people in Cape Town who are homeless.

The centre of Cape Town also had its fair share of conmen who come up with all sorts of reasons why you must urgently give them money. There have been a few (I mean a small number) in cities in Africa. I have normally listened to them and outwitted them to see through their lies because occasionally, there really is someone who really does need help and you only find them by giving street beggers a chance. I remember one "refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo" who chatted to me for about 5 minutes. He stupidly asked "Parlez-vous francais?" at which point I asked him basic questions such as "what is your name?" and "where do you come from?". He then told me that he is not fluent in French and doesn't know it to a very high level because he didn't get the chance to go to school.... Brilliant how he speaks fluent English then without going to school and has only lived in South Africa for a short time. He also didn't know the name of many major cities in DR Congo apart from Kinshasa. Not the sharpest pencil in the box is he?

Returning back to Sea Point from the city centre, I came across a minibus with a guy shouting something resembling "Sea Point". For 3.5 rand (30 pence) I got back to Aardvarks to give my aching legs a rest. I was so happy to get the minibus home. While my day of exploring Cape Town was great, I did feel a little sad that I didn't feel as though I was in Africa anymore. The dodgy minibus cheered me up on that front.

We all went out for a free meal at the Waterfront that night as a goodbye leaving meal as it was officially the last day of our trip from the top to the bottom of Africa with lots of squiggles to the left and right.

Table Mountain
I'm sure pretty much all of you have heard of this mountain. It dominates the Cape Town skyline and adds something special to the place, I feel. I walked up the mountain with Thoby. He set out with a plastic bag with water and sandwiches in. I set out with little more in a small backpack. We underestimated how long it would take to get up! We didn't go the most direct route up to the top but went on a much longer route taking us to the reservoir and slightly forested area on one part of the top of the mountain (about 700 metres above sea level). It was windy and not so warm. I was close to being caught out on this! On the real top (1000m above sea level, i.e. higher than all of England) we were afforded brilliant views right around. The city sprawl became obvious as did the city's unusual shape. After we had enough of the wind and laughing at the even less prepared tourists (in shorts and t-shirts) who came up on the cable car, we descended via a steep purpose-built path that was popular and the intended route to get up the mountain.

That was an exhausting day. That night, I saw a man who had been stabbed in the chest lying in the road in the evening in Sea Point, near to where we were staying. It seemed that I was the only passer-by shocked by this. Others either just walked past, took photos with their mobile phones or played around re-enacting the event. Doctors on call came to help and after one hour, the ambulance arrived! I should also mention other seedy aspects of Sea Point include the Nigerian drug dealers working on the main street of Sea Point. At least one approached me every day asking if I wanted anything. They were always very friendly and a couple of times I got chatting with them...Nigerians are soooo very easy to talk to - even Nigerian drug dealers are friendly, huh? Now, I thought I might find an exception there! If you remember my Nigeria email, you will have read my general enthusiasm for Nigerians. Also, further along in Green Point, one can apparently find curb crawlers (and maybe some ladies that attract them).

Meet up with friend, Chantal, and her views
Sunday lunchtime, I met up with Chantal, a medical student and friend of mine who I met when living in The Netherlands. She picked me up in Sea Point, which she said she was very concerned about because she steers clear of the place and couldn't believe that I was even passing through there, never mind staying there. We had a drink at the waterfront and chatted. She found my "adventures" in Africa amazing as she was so shocked that anyone would ever want to go to most of the places I've been. She feels that she is not African (an identity thing) even though she is and knows as much about Africa as the average person in the UK. This was interesting for me because almost everywhere in Africa so far, it was possible to easily talk to people about another African country or at least people would be able to identify with people of a country far away. I asked a black South African the same question and he said he doesn't feel African either.

I asked Chantal if she likes living in South Africa. Chantal lived in the US and the UK as a child as her father used to be a South African diplomat (in apartheid days I imagine) and so claims that she knows of the disadvantages of living in South Africa better than other people do who have lived in South Africa for all their lives. The freedom to walk the streets when in Holland and feel safe are lacking in South Africa. She fears for the future of South Africa more than other whites I think. With a little prodding, she told me that she believes that things are going to get far worse before they get better. She then went on to suggest that South Africa may end up like Zimbabwe. I claimed that this is crazy talk as Thabo Mbeki (President of South Africa) or any other politician is not so stupid that they would risk the collapse of a strong economy for the sake of getting revenge at white people of which there are 5 million. She disputed my positive talk, claiming that the feeling of "black power" is so entrenched that it is very possible. I was scared by this but I have since heard (right wing?) claims that once Nelson Mandela dies (he's now 88), there will be a massacre of white people. I really sense that is ridiculous talk and the foul talk of right wing white or black groups who stir up racial tension and hatred (oh, a bit like the BNP in the UK then).
Chantal also believes that there is more racism from the black community directed to the white community than the other way around. Positive discrimination is an important policy of the government whereby a black person has to be employed instead of a white person if he/she has the same qualifications as a white person who has more experience and therefore is probably better at the job. This is to hasten the closure of the economic segregation that still is very very obvious. Chantal didn't say she disagreed with this as such but used it as an example of why white people find it "harder to live" nowadays. Racial quotas at schools is another example. Being told you are the wrong race and therefore cannot send your child to a particular school sounds outrageous in most countries but so deep are the wounds here, radical action has to be taken to heal the wounds and reconcile the past.
I would recommend reading the following if you at all interested in the racial politics and racist perceptions in South Africa etc. Read it once you've finished my email though ;-) http://www.economist.com/research/backgrounders/displaystory.cfm?story_id=760691

Another day of exploring + dodgy train journey
I had another day walking around town today of which a few things are worth space. I spent some time wondering around the market area in front of City Hall where Mandela made his first speech on release from prison and on being elected President. In the afternoon, I took the train to Rondebosch, a district of Cape Town home to the University of Cape Town, 15 minutes from the central station. STA Travel have a branch there and is where my flight tickets were waiting. I was strongly advised not to take the train as it is dangerous and now the domain of non-whites. Recently, there was a train guard strike and a lot of deaths from "train surfing" (people doing dare devil tricks running on the top of trains or jumping along the side of them). The guards were now back thankfully but that doesn't stop much. The manager of our hostel in Sea Point was robbed and thrown off the train at 50 km/h a couple of weeks previously and an Oasis traveller was also thrown off once when travelling to Stellenbosch, not far away, a few years ago. Still, I had nothing but 30 rand with me (£2.50) and 50 rand tucked in my sock. When buying the ticket, some unusual words were directed at me: "you want first class, don't you?". My response was "erm...well, do I have to? I mean, is that the safer?". I passed through very high security gates to prevent anyone sneaking through to the train. First class was perhaps the dirtiest train carriage I have ever been on. Graffitti was everywhere and it was generally unpleasant. Still, there were a few other white people and a couple of people of Indian-descent in my carriage. One woman had a laptop bag and two guys were on their mobile phones so I felt I was not top of the pecking order to be robbed (that's generally my tactic - don't make yourself a target!), especially not in the 15 minute journey! Rondebosch proved to be a pretty area and a nice leafy district in which to live if you don't want the hustle and bustle all the time. I went back on the a minibus, passing a lot of "Adult World" sex shops, which appear to be dotted all around Cape Town. South Africa is a liberal country.

Rachel arrives
Tuesday and Rachel Sales, a friend from University arrives at the airport. I went out at 4:30 a.m. or something like that, just after my friends got in from the bar. Rachel was the last person into the arrivals lounge (by which time I had lost all hope!) with no luggage due to her 1st plane being late, leaving a tight connection in Frankfurt. We slept, I showed Rachel around town in the afternoon and we caught up on gossip.

Tour of South African Parliament
Today, we toured the South African Parliament. The Parliament is a source of immense pride for the South Africans as they have only had democracy for 14 years. The tour was interesting and as usual, apartheid history was prevalent. Interestingly, the main chamber, which is quite new, is of the British model (government and opposition on opposing benches) as opposed to the semicircle model adopted by most of the world. The South African Constitution, I believe, allows for one President and one Vice President from each party that gains 20% or more of the vote, which means the ruling MDC and 2nd placed Democratic Alliance (most whites vote DA) have one Vice President each. The MDC (Movement for Democratic Change) however is still hugely dominant in South Africa, receiving very nearly two-thirds of the vote. The South African pride in their Constitution, adopted in 1996, means they allow anyone into Parliament with the minimum of security checks and they don't even have a record of those who visit. South Africa's proudest part of the Constitution is the clause in the Bill of Rights, which reads:
"The state may not unfairly discriminate directly or indirectly against anyone on one or more grounds, including race, gender, sex, pregnancy, marital status, ethnic or social origin, colour, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, conscience, belief, culture, language and birth"
http://www.polity.org.za/html/govdocs/constitution/saconst.html?rebookmark=1 for the full Constitution

District Six Museum and National Art Gallery
We spent some time in the District Six museum on the same day. District Six is the name given to the former coloured area of Cape Town that was bulldozed in the apartheid era as it is was prime land suitable for the expansion of the central commercial and white areas. The museum is very personal and is much for the people who lived through that time as it is for tourists.

The National Art gallery was good and unsurprisingly, had displays on modern art aiming to reconcile the differences between races and art on apartheid. Thankfully, there was other art: both modern and classical as well as an exhibition on the woman heroes of South Africa, which I liked.

In the evening was Amelia's birthday party in the bar of the Aardvarks. We all had to wear dresses (Jason somehow made this trendy on the trip, wearing it in shopping centres in Uganda and the like, which is brave given we've seen a child beaten by the public in Nigeria for doing exaclty that). I may have worn a black silky jump suit (had to mention this before Rachel did!). Hmmm...

Robben Island museum
Rachel and I had booked to go to Robben Island, the place where black, mostly political prisoners were kept in apartheid times. White political prisoners were kept in Pretoria Central Prison. Unfortunately, the sea was too rough due to the wind and rain. It is winter in Cape Town and this weather is like this sometimes, although I had almost nothing but sun and clear skies when I was in Cape Town except this morning! We were refunded and spent our time looking around the Robben Island museum at the Waterfront, which was very interesting.

The following word's on the wall of the museum are important for the museum and for the future of South Africa...
While we will not forget the brutality of apartheid
We will not want Robben Island to become a monument of our hardship and suffering
We want it to be a triumph of the forces of human spirit against the forces of evil
A triumph of wisdom and largeness of spirit against small minds and pettiness
A triumph of courage and determination over human frailty and weakness
Ahmed Kathrada, 1993

I couldn't help noticing the parallels of Robben Island with British prisions. Robben Island prison was an institution where political prisoners educated themselves en masse. It's like petty thiefs going to prison today in the UK who come out as graduates of the University of crime!

Camp's Bay and Clifton
In the afternoon, we chilled out in Camp's Bay and Clifton, further out of the city centre beyond Sea Point. They are elongated and spread up the side of the mountain, full of luxury homes with beautiful views. This is one of the playgrounds for the rich and suitable for a peaceful end of the day for us :-)

Start of the road trip: Cape Peninsula and Gugulethu township
Just as you thought I'd seen the back of the great road trip, Rachel and I hired a small car to take us around South Africa. I said my goodbyes to those who were left, I reminded myself how to drive and with Thoby, we went around part of the Cape Peninsula, which was beautiful, doing a loop back into the centre of Cape Town where I met up with Paul, a guy I met earlier on in my stay. Paul lives in the townships and agreed to take me to where he lives, only we kept putting it off until today so off we went onto the busy, badly planned Cape Town highways where every driver seems to be on a suicide mission. Paul lives in Gugulethu, which is not a particularly poor township at all and not the image one has of a township. For a start, it was a shock that we could drive to Paul's house and park on his driveway! The house, like all others in Gugulethu (meaning "Our Pride") was brick-built. Some others in the street were quite flashy. Admittedly, Paul's own room was a shack in the back garden but still he had his own room and own bed with a nice quilt cover and matching cushions! Every house had shacks in the back garden but they had access to a toilet at least, a kitchen, a lounge etc. in the main house. Paul and his friends were not embarrassed about where they live but they were sure about what we would think of it because they assumed what kind of place Rachel and I live in. Well actually, I didn't think the place was so bad. I mean, they had a sofa, some chairs, an equipped kitchen, a sideboard with best plates and cups on etc. Yes, they are poor but this is better quality than more than 90% of African accommodation, hence it didn't shock me at all. It didn't shock Rachel either. She was expecting a place full of shacks like most of the accommodation in Cape Town's largest township, Khayelitsha. I suppose it is the perception of poverty that is important. They probably perceive poverty more so here than in many other parts of Africa because they see wealth all the time when they go into the centre of the city and they just can't have it. In other parts of Africa, wealth isn't flaunted into people's faces as often, if ever.

In the township, we also went to the local market, some cafes and bars and a shopping centre in the centre of Gugulethu, which is relatively tacky and dirty. Paul commented on this to the effect of "you see this, this is all we have for a shopping centre?". It was bigger than any district shopping centre I have seen in Africa! It was actually tidier and doing better business than some shopping centres I have been to in Birmingham ( e.g. The Swan, Yardley for those of you who live in Birmingham). Yet, Paul and his friends believed we were thinking "oh dear, I can't believe people live like this". I decided it would be good to get lunch from there so we went into a bakery. Coincidently, the owners were white and they were the only white people I saw in Gugulethu! The white woman who served us asked where we were from and what we were doing here. She said that "we were out of our area" to which I said "I don't really care...I like to see how other people live". She seemed put out by that. Chantal told me to not go into a township under any circumstances but tours have been safely running to townships for years and the Lonely Planet says as long as you have a black friend with you, you are safe! Apparently, very few white South Africans have ever been to a township. Yes, there is a crime problem in South Africa. Yes, a disproportional percentage of criminals in the country are black but really, townships are relatively very safe as criminals don't expect to find easy prey there and most importantly, it is common for criminals in townships to be punsihed by their neighbours. The strong community means that people often don't call the police if someone is robbed or whatever but prefer to stone them, which is a bigger disincentive to carry out crime!
Two more observations: in the township, heads didn't turn on seeing me and Rachel. And the township definitely had more of an African feel to them than the rest of Cape Town with people being friendlier on the surface, welcoming into their community etc.

This was the end of Cape Town for me. I loved this place actually. It may sound like I was banging my head on the wall due to race relations being such a problem but I have written about that because it's so significant. 99% of the time, I was just having fun, appreciating the positive, vibrant atmosphere that exists. Race relations are relatively good in Cape Town when compared to other parts of the country and crime is controlled relative to Johannesburg. Paul told me "in the roughest part of Johannesburg, Hillbrow, it would be normal for me to hear 5 to 10 gunshots daily but in Cape Town, I hear only 1 gunshot a year". It's also safe to walk in the city centre of Cape Town but in Johannesburg it is stupid. Thoby is still in Cape Town, doing an internship for marketing giant, Saatchi and Saatchi. He thought that getting such an internship in Canada or Europe would be incredibly hard but in Africa, there are fewer qualified people within those countries knocking at their doors so he considered it would be easier to get experience in Africa (he's right and I would consider it). By that time, I wished I had been more organised and tried to get myself some work (unpaid though due to high unemployment in South Africa). I could see myself staying in Cape Town for a while.

Garden Route
I finally left Cape Town (had to drag myself away) and headed out on the N2 road, which is the main road through the so-called Garden Route, a picturesque part of the South African coast east of Cape Town. We chose to divert slightly and go on the so-called Route 62 (the tourist board sets out a lot of driving "trails").

First night, we stayed in a lovely farm house in Montagu with beautiful mountains around and a couple of peacocks in the farmyard. The owner thought my accent was French (get that one). Rachel had to push the car in the morning though as I was reminding myself on tactics to get a car to start on a cold, frosty morning. Half of town was pretty with old Dutch architecture and very white. The other half of the High Street and the town was coloured and black and poor. We went to a lovely farmers' market in Montagu. All white of course except a small group of black people in the centre who were selling tourist souvenirs. OK...maybe I should stop mentioning this racial stuff. In this case, one can't say racism has anything to do with the farmers' market being very white. It's simply a cultural difference - historically, farmers have been white and the people who eat the expensive delicacies on offer are white because they were always the people with the money! I am uncomfortable with it but I could come to terms with that in my head and would probably overlook if it I lived in South Africa for some time.

For us, passing along Route 62 and through the Garden Route was about the scenery. It was definitely pretty in many places - mountainous inland with some attractive "passes" (narrow roads through mountains that come close together) and forested nearer to the coast, which has some beautiful bays in itself. Near to the town of Oudtshoorn, ostriches were everywhere as here is the centre of the world's ostrich meat industry. I wanted to get Rachel on one but she'd have none of it. Some show farms make their money from ostrich rides!

We stayed in Knysna the next night on the coast. Here and Plettenberg Bay just further along were beautiful. We stopped at Bloukrans bridge to have a look at the world's highest bungee jump (2nd highest in NZ, 3rd at Victoria Falls) off the world's 3rd highest road bridge. Still couldn't see myself doing that! We ate lunch on the beach at Port Elizabeth; inspired an ice cream seller do a shaking bum dance after giving him a 1 rand (9 pence) tip and then headed north through areas with many aloe trees - strange green aloe shaped leaves with orange flowers. We stopped at a B+B in Queenstown and watched the World Cup final from bed. I remember asking the owner if she had a TV in the room because I want to watch..."tennis" she interrupted by saying. I was a little shocked. "Erm no, the football final". Can't be many places in the world where people did not know the world cup final was about to take place half an hour later! Dare I say it, most white South Africans are not very interested in football but love rugby! It was here that Rachel was shocked by the very friendly female owner saying that when she went to London to visit her son and daughter working there she had to do her own washing and ironing - it was a culture shock she claims! Rachel was lost for words listening to this!
Yes...Queenstown felt a little like Clanwilliam or Springbok but the atmosphere was not so bad. It was stuck in the past though.

[Now entered Lesotho. See Lesotho section for intervening days]

We drove for the remainder of the afternoon to an awful dreary town called Standerton where we stayed in a "chalet" complex with a greasy spoon cafe. It was really a soulless motel. I remember getting directions to this town at a service station. I asked a (black) worker on the station forecourt for directions, handing him my map. He explained perfectly well how to get to Standerton. As I was about to go, an imposing (white) guy came storming over speaking Afrikaans, standing in front of the worker and asking how he can help me as he was taking the map out of the hands of the worker. Well some people may find this the "helpfulness and friendly, caring approach of South Africans" but I don't. Unfortunately, I could only assume he had ingrained prejudices and that's what I took away from this encounter.

[Now went to Swaziland and Mozambique. My blog explains my actions on those days]

Back in South Africa, we crossed a disorganised border (yes, last border for me :-) ) to make our way to Johannesburg, taking 2 different people certain distances along the way. In Jo'burg or Jozi as it's sometimes called locally, we dropped off our hire car, which was thankfully considered as in as good a condition as we received it, despite 3800km of driving! That's long, huh? I've grown used to large distances in Africa. European distances now seem like a short trip! We were collected from the airport by the hostel, which was my home for my final 3 nights in Africa!

Johannesburg - apartheid museum and Soweto tour
Next day, we spent the full day doing what most tourists come to Jo'burg to do: went to the apartheid museum and on a Soweto tour. We spent 3 hours in the excellent apartheid museum, learning about South Africa before apartheid, how apartheid came about in 1948 (although forms of it existed before then), the resistance, riots, violence, sabotage, international sanctions, negotiations and so on. Two interesting facts:
- South African government employed just one black person during apartheid. His job? To train guard dogs to attack black people!
- More people died during the 1991-1994 negotiations for a democratic South Africa than during all the years of apatheid resistance!

Next on our organised (not much choice in Jo'burg) tour was a visit to Soweto, an abbreviation of South Western Township. An old nuclear power station greeted us as we arrived in Soweto whose two cooler towers have an advert and a mural depicting life in Soweto. The power station used to provide power for Jo'burg but not for Soweto. No surprise there then.

First stop was the Hector Pieterson museum. Hector was the first child to be murdered by the South African police in the 1976 school anti-Afrikaans marches. The government decided to force teachers teach many subjects in Afrikaans and for pupils to learn it as there was a need for more Afrikaans-speaking workers. Few teachers knew Afrikaans and the pupils were outraged at their education being interfered with in such a way and the opressors' language being forced upon them. The Soweto schools march was masterminded by pupils alone and was intended to be entirely peaceful and it was on the schoolchildren's part but once the children refused to turn back on their march, the police killed Hector Pieterson, thought to be the ringleader (he wasn't actually). Obviously, this was not the response the children were expecting. One boy picked Hector up in his arms and has also become a hero. In the end, a large number (thought to be 200 to 600) of people were killed over the days of unrest.

Next stop was Nelson Mandela's former home, which has around 1000 visitors every day now. Mandela lived here before he went to prison and moved back on release from prison but lived there for only 11 days as he had underestimated the profile he now had and the sheer number of journalists coming to his house was something he couldn't deal with so had to move out to a place that allowed him more peace. His home is a one bedroom house with bathroom, toilet, kitchen, living room and dining room and in reality is little more than a monument to the 88 year-old these days with many of his honorary degrees on the wall, foreign gifts, paintings and so on. Archbishop Demond Tutu happens to have lived in the same street, making it the only street in the world where 2 Nobel Prize winners have lived. Winnie Mandeal still lives in the area, in a large, luxurious house with bullet-proof windows. She still owns the cafe opposite her old house, which is operated out of a metal shipping container.

We also made a visit to the Catholic Church, Regina Mundi. Gatherings of black people in South Africa were banned under apartheid in case they were plotting a protest, sabotage etc. Churches were therefore often used because people could go there on the premise of going to a service but were actually going for a meeting. Many people went to the Regina Mundi during the Soweto uprising for safety but the police shot at it from the outside and from the inside to stop any gathering.

We had a very brief tour of the informal settlement of Mustwaledi where we were shown the worst of conditions in Soweto. The loaded language about the poverty there was interesting because I have seen many places like this in Africa. Yes, this one is certainly poor but the presence of chemical toilets (!) and perhaps more consumer items owned made it seem a little better than some other places. I deeply resented being guilt-tripped to give a tip to go in there, although the money does go the community development fund. What I don't like is where my relationship or my welcome only goes as far as my money goes, which has been a problem now and then in Africa but not normal. I am happy to donate money to the needy but I don't like the way it happens here. I am not used to it but is it a neccesary evil here?

Most reading this will no doubt have an image of a township in their minds but it probably isn't very accurate of the reality. Soweto has 3 million inhabitants. With 7 million live in Johannesburg, they together they make up 10 million of South African's 47 million people! Soweto consists of some makeshft settlements as I just described. Next up, it contains social housing given to the needy (on a very long waiting list) for free. These are basic homes with electricity and running water but small. Next up are the older social homes which are of higher standard (like Mandela's), now making up "respectable" areas. Of the highest standard are luxury homes that the new black elite live in (sometimes called buppies or black yuppies). Many black people who "make it" decide that living in a soulless Johannesburg suburb is not for them and they move back to the township where there is a strong community spirit but still get their luxurious home anyway.

Johannesburg city tour
On Rachel's last day, I did something that I had never done before now...go on an organised city tour! Johannesburg is the only city I have been to in Africa that is simpy too dangerous to venture into by ALL accounts, yet it is Africa's richest city and one of its most significant. While I am here, I felt it was unfortunate to not see its centre, which is visible due to the mass of skyscrapers, and so I paid for the tour anyway. One area we passed through was the central district of Hillbrow, which used to be a white-only area in apartheid days but nowadays it's incredibly rare for a white person to venture there as it is probably the area with the highest crime rate in the whole country. It is also an area with very few South Africans as it's well inhabited by immigrants (illegal and legal) from the rest of Africa, particularly Nigeria, DR Congo, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi. Immigrants don't have the best of images in South Africa. I did see a government TV advert encouraging people not to victimise immigrants. Shame the British government doesn't take a leaf out of their book! Just beyond Hillbrow, there is a very tall circular building remisicent of the Rotunda in Birmingham, UK. It used to be a thriving commercial centre with apartments, shops and offices but now it is occupied entirely by squatters. The Eastern side of the city centre is mostly derelict as industry has moved out of the area due to safety, white business owners fleeing the country after 1994. In the central business district, many businesses have also moved out but there are some still operating there as they have underground carparks for staff to drive into and so people can feel safe, not having to walk the streets! I went up to the 50th floor of the Carlton Centre, Africa's tallest building. It provided us with a good view of Jo'burg from the suburbs to the inner city, townships and gold mines, the latter being the reason for Jo'burg's existence. The centre has few shops as most people go to out of town malls for safety reasons and practical reasons. Why shop in a dangerous city centre lacking atmosphere?

Crime
Crime is a huge fear of the white community across South Africa. Big walls, gates, security cameras and guards are not so rare. Crime is rife and has spiralled ever since the fall of apartheid. Given the average white person is richer than the average black person, white people are far more likely to be a victim of crime. This is one reason cited for white emigration (the UK is a popular destination for them!). Car jackings, armed robbery or robbery at knife-point are all common. I read that a Shoprite supermarket has recently been attacked by no less than 70 armed robbers at once, probably by the striking workers who know where money is kept! South Africa has a sky-high murder rate with around 20,000 recorded homicides per year, although the government thinks that a further 10,000 murders go unreported. Up until July 21 when I learnt the statistic, no less than 56 police officers had been murdered so far in 2006. That is 2 officers murdered every week! A police officer being murdered in the UK is rare and when it does happen, it makes major news for weeks and months if not years. It is well known that crime *tends* to relate to the difference between rich and poor - the larger the gap, the bigger the crime rate. In South Africa, this certainly has some truth! Johannesburg is the city with the biggest reputation for crime, hence the dead city centre and general restrictions on people's freedom. In the townships, the community spirit tends to keep crime lower as a whistle system is in place in many townships where if anyone blows a whistle continuously, neighbours come rushing and then stone the thief to death or something similar.

The volume of crime probably makes South Africa the most dangerous country that I have been to on my travels, yet I doubt it was a place where many of you were "concerned" for my safety. Going to the deepest, darkest parts of unknown Africa probably made most of you more concerned but that was actually really safe.

HIV in South Africa
-Thabo Mbeki, the President, has in the past doubted whether HIV leads to AIDS!
-Jacob Zuma, the Vice President, has had sex with a known HIV+ woman without using a condom. He was cleared of rape but he told the nation "he had a shower after sex to try to stop contracting HIV".
-The South African Health Minister was recently lambasted at the UN Conference for HIV/AIDS in Toronto as she currently downplays the usefulness of antiretrovirals and instead emphasises the need for a healthy lifestyle, eating many fruit and vegetables in order to build up the immune system.
-South Africa has the 2nd largest number of HIV+ people (5.5 million) in the world after India. South Africa has a prevalence rate of around 19%.
-At least Bill Gates is more use than Bob Geldof!

Summary of South Africa
South Africa is a place I could talk about for some time but I have mentioned only the starkest things in my mind. Yes, this has often involved race but this is because race is such a big issue in the country that most of my most prominent thoughts involve race. But race did not dominate my thoughts when I was in the country itself. Instead, the beautiful scenery, the people I met and having fun were dominating my thoughts, although the most vivid issues involve racial problems. For the problems that exist in South Africa, I would find it very hard to live there and in many places, I just couldn't live. Overall of course, the country has achieved some remarkable, if not almost unthinkable progress in the past 20 years (mostly in the early 1990s of course) and noone could really expect things to be back to normal by now. The country's economy is growing fast (6% per year) and equality is slowly being achieved but there is still a marathon to complete and its internal affairs will remain volatile for some time to come. And more important than anything, here, like everywhere, people are deep down, generally good people.

]]> Thu, 29 Jun 2006 07:42:00 EDT http://chriswilliams.tigblog.org/post/42224 http://chriswilliams.tigblog.org/post/41218 Windhoek
First stop in Namibia: Windhoek, the capital city. Only stayed there a short time over Sunday lunchtime, nevertheless, I got a good impression of the place. It was something of a shock for us. It's modern, clean and developed. Yes, we have seen a progression of this since East Africa but this is the most modern yet. It has the first real KFC since Morocco (not so exciting), there are many white people living there (from the recent days of South African rule and from German colonialism long ago). There are a few old German colonial buildings and the city has a European feel. A large industrial estate in the suburbs was something new to us too!

Next brief stop was Okahandja, a town north of Windhoek (was an extended stop for diesel really) but what was interesting there was the congregation of women from one of Namibia's tribes, the Herero tribe. The German colonialists once tried to kill all Herero people - another genocide! Herero ladies, congregating, were dressed in traditional clothing with their colourful dresses (like a ball dress or something) and their strange hats ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4623516.stm scroll down for a picture - recommended viewing!)

Etosha National Park
Etosha National Park was our destination for 3 days, a large national park in Northern Namibia dominated by the Etosha Pan, a large area of grassland and salt pan where little can grow. We did several game drives and stayed in the rest camps in the park. It is undoubtedly one of Africa's best game parks and definitely one of the best value for money but driving around for hours on end staring out of a window and taking 20 photos of an elephant standing doing nothing just doesn't do much for me I'm afraid. The 1st time it was great but 2nd less good, 28th time a little dull. Sound spoilt now, I know but honesty is a virtue. Seeing animals in research or rescue centres or doing more than eating is really interesting. Walking with the lions for hours on end in Zimbabwe, for example, is something I much prefer to staring at lazy lions lying in the sun in a game park. My opinion is not particularly shared by others...some people never lost enthusiasm for game drives and were less enthusiastic about animals in a research centre for example that get wheeled out for show when tourists turn up!
On the viewing front, there is little to report other than managing to get past an irate elephant on one road that a load of cars had been attempting to pass for an hour! One afternoon, I decided to not go on a game drive and instead watch the world cup in the house of one of the rest camp workers. Unfortunately, people who did go saw the very elusive leopard rolling all over the road, which is very rare as they are shy. Not too mortified though...I'm sure there are leopards in London Zoo ;-)

Cheetah Park
Otjitotongwe Cheetah Park, I was more excited about. We saw 3 tame pet cheetahs before going on the cheetah feeding drive where huge chunks of donkey are thrown to each cheetah, one by one. The family used to be farmers from 1931 up until 1994. They became dismayed that farmers would kill cheetahs when they threatened livestock and nothing was being done to protect them so they converted their farm into a cheetah park and now promote cheetah conservation. There are just 7500 cheetahs left in the world of which 2500 are in Namibia. The Namibian government prohibits breeding and disallows exporting cheetahs despite some countries begging for cheetahs to be reintroduced to some of their national parks! Cheetahs are treated as pests under Namibian law and by Namibian farmers. The project is failing to promote wild cheetah population, which begs the question why they are still running the project. Apparently, they want to keep the captive cheetahs (albeit in a growing large fenced area) in case cheetahs ever do get wiped out in Namibia, which is possible given noone cares for them. For the keen: http://www.cheetahpark.com/
It was at Cheetah Park that the meat eaters ate kudu (a large antelope that can jump 4m into the air) for the first time - people rave about this meat. It is very tender and red and apparently has a distinctive taste.

More malaria
Next morning, we stopped in the tiny town of Kamanjab where Nick went to see the Dr about malaria. Yes...he had it. This is his 2nd time, making him case no. 3 of round 2 and case no. 18 overall I believe! I also think this is the end of my "malaria counter" as noone has had malaria since then as far as I know and almost everyone is home now.

While Nick was with the Doctor, we met some more Trans Africa people. There are quite a few couples or groups of people travelling across Africa depending on your viewpoint, normally with their own vehicle. We have met a handful. The ones we met have the following websites:
http://www.bigyellowmog.co.uk/ and another site I can't find. They had some interesting stories to tell us about their experiences, such as one Ghanaian-British traveller with them who used her Ghanaian passport to travel through Africa. She didn't have entry or exit stamps for Ghana for obvious reasons. The Angolan authorities thought that she had been up to no good because she had been with her friends for the whole time who did have Ghanaian entry and exit stamps. All of them were nearly denied entry to Angola for this.

Desert and rock carvings
From here, we went into desert territory once again, although this Northern part of the Namib desert has a lot of rock formations, which gave us some great scenery :-) There were a lot of huge hills that consisted of piles of huge boulders. They are natural but I can't explain how they would form. Through the desert were dirt roads that were very smooth, even in the rockiest of areas. We visited Twyfelfontein, which means "doubtful spring" dubbed this by a German settler who believed the 1 cubic metre of water each day originating at the spring was not enough to support life. How wrong he was! The area has thousands of 6-thousand year-old rock carvings. They helped the San bushmen of the time to get into a trance, develop their hunting techniques and to pass time.
It will interest some that the visitors' centre at Twyfelfontein is environmentally friendly, built from local stone, bones, waste oil drums. It's powered by solar energy and liquid petroleum gas. Interestingly, it cost just £120 per square metre as opposed to £400 per square metre for a standard building of that type.

Seals
From here, we headed through the desert towards the coast where the landscape changed to almost no vegetation at all on the flat open land of very poor soils. The temperature change there was sudden - dramatic change from hot to cold as we crossed the meeting point of the desert winds and prevailing cold ocean current. The soils become very salty as well as we drove in the far south of the famous Skeleton Coast towards the Cape Cross seal colony. The seals there are actually eared seals, which makes them sea lions. The several thousand of them on the beaches here live here because the Beguela current brings them much fish and seafood from the south. In fact, the seals eat 1.3 million tonnes of fish per year, which is 300,000 tonnes more than the Namibian and South African fishing industries put together. Government has tried to cull seals to favour the fishing industry but that just provides less competition for whales and other marine life who then grow in numbers, hence Japan's, Norway's and Iceland's strange reasons to continue whaling again and them paying poor African nations to support them in international negotiations! There is some market for seal products. Seal genitals are sold in Asia as aphrodisiacs; meat is sold to Taiwan and the skin is sold in Europe. The rest of the seal can be made into a proteinaceous sludge for cattle feed!
It was really cool to see the seals lollopping (lying) around, being noisy and very smelly. A lot of cubs were feeding off their mother's milk and the females were very aggressive towards other females to protect their cubs. One seal had a fising net stuck around her.

Swakopmund - SKYDIVING, Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Britney Spears
I hope not too much promised by that title! This is a section everyone can find interesting. Let me justify the title first. Swakopmund, a coastal city, is where Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt chose to have their first baby. He or she (I forget) was born about a week or two before we were there so you may have seen Swakopmund in Hello magazine or something. Rumours are that Britney wants to go there too but she denies it. Maybe she wants to set her own trend?

After a wet night (the wind was coming from the sea overnight and brought moist fog, which soaked all of us who slept outside that night, including me), we arrived in Swakopmund on a cold, grey morning. First impressions were that it is a cold-feeling, tacky, artificial town trying to make itself like Las Vegas but failing. It quickly grew on me though and I realised it wasn't as I first found. There is actually a lot of old pretty German buildings, making it one of few places on the trip with cool architecture.

Swakopmund was also the first place where we stayed in a youth hostel. The camp site is far out of town and is known for crime apparently. The city was perhaps the first town where the majority of people were white. May seem shallow to even notice this but I write this to show the heritage of the place. There is a lot of German and Afrikaans around and I would often be spoken to in one of the two until I said "sorry?". It was also a place with a lot of Western shops. It was really a South African city. It was the first place with the South African chain store Mr Price...more than half of the truck bought new clothes to replace their clothes of the trip that progressed to the orphan bag! There is clearly a lot of spare income in the city with lots of shops, restaurants, cafes etc., many of which really are not aimed at tourists. It was a comfortable place to spend 4 days.

It was also the place for adrenaline activities. It's Namibia's answer to Victoria Falls!
1st thing for me: sandboarding. This involved walking up a big dune (surprisingly easy if you follow other people's footsteps) and sliding face down on a piece of flimsy piece plywood at speeds between 40 and 80 km/h. Some others did stand-up sandboarding that is like snowboarding but harder. All that was cool and the lie-down was very easy. That didn't stop a South African woman messing it up every time, spinning around as she went down or once, rolling down the dune for about 10 turns before she stopped. Paul had a bad accident on the very last dune when he requested to go extra fast so they gave him 2 boards and greased them really well. Unfortunately, it is also the dune with a lip in the middle, allowing you to leave the dune and fly in the air briefly. This meant he flew to a position where he was almost standing in mid-air, span and landed on his head. We wore helmets but this wasn't enough to stop him getting concussion to the extent he didn't even know he was in Africa.

2nd activity was quad biking. Sounds bad for the dunes. It is, although we stick to specific tracks to allow the wildlife to live in the other areas. Not so much to say here but it was a lot of fun making circles on the side of dunes at a 45 degree angle or going down steep sides and the like.

3rd activity for me was a sky dive. Not so sure how I ended up deciding to do this one. Wasn't pressure from anyone else. In fact, most chose not to do this. I was quite anxious about it beforehand as the 3.5 second freefall at Vic Falls was scary. The thought of a 30 second freefall here sounded horrifying. Myself, Matt, Amelia, Jason and Jamie (with his arm in plaster!!) all did tandem skydives. We went up in a light aircraft with a roller shutter for a door and only one seat (the pilot's). The rest had to sit on the floor next to the windows taped up with gaffer tape to stop them falling out. Still, I was taking my safest flight ever with a parachute attached to the guy I was attached to. Jumping out of a plane is not normal and it's hard to imagine what it's like beforehand. When on the plane (we all sat on the floor cramped up and the windows were attached by strong tape), I was quite chilled out, enjoying the views of the dunes, bays and the ocean for 30 minutes before the sliding door opened and Matt who had to go first edged around for a couple of minutes with a sheepish look on his face. Then it was my turn and I sat on the side straight away with my feet dangling out. After about a second (all the time it takes to concentrate on getting your position right), we were out and after about half a second, it was just fantastic...hard to describe what the free fall is like. You're hardly aware you are falling when the ground is so far away - you just feel the rush. Then when the chute is pulled, it's a pleasant 5 minute glide to the ground :-) Think I may have a taste for that now - oops! Speed for this activity: 220 km/h from 3300metres (10,000 feet).

Red sand dunes and desert
From Swakopmund, we headed to the area with Namibia's famous red runes. We saw sunrise on the imaginatively-named Dune 45 and spent more time at Soussusvlei, which is the highest dune here and I believe could be the highest dune in the world, at least the highest red dune. This area is beautiful.

We drove through the desert with a lot of attractive rocky mountains, grasslands and the occasional desert lodge for tourists to Fish River Canyon, the deepest canyon in Africa and 3rd deepest in the world I believe.

The last night was spent bush camping - our last ever bush camp! After an hour or so, we were approached by a vehicle. One can never know who this is so people approaching us understandably makes us wary. It turned out to be a couple from the US/Romania and their servants. The man was a Dr in Biology and the woman was apparently (he said) a figure skater he smuggled out of Romania in the Communist days to France on the gypsy trains. Whether this was true, who knows because the couple entertained us for about an hour. They weren't aware of the entertainment value though. They told us of biology that the rest of the world is unaware about such as:
1. A Sasquatch-like creature they are researching. They have seen its enormous footprints but have never seen the creature.
2. The "3-stepper" snake that takes 2 moves from first sight to biting a human to kill. More lethal than a black mamba, which is widely regarded as the world's most venomous snake. Another snake in their area is also more venomous than a black mamba, they say.
3. A mammal species that was reported to be extinct since 150 years but they have seen on their land.

Their eccentricity and more stories I forget made every line they spoke seem less and less believable but they kept us entertained.

Politics/History
Briefly, Namibia became a Germany colony in the 19th Century, South Africa seized it during World War I and ruled over Namibia or "South West Africa" under a League of Nations mandate. The UN eventually changed its policy to support Namibian independence, which was only achieved in 1990 after a long war within Namibia. South Africa gave Namibia independence on the basis that Cuba would withdraw its troops from Angola and South Africa would also do the same.

Now, Namibia is a stable country with economic growth. White migrants have stayed in Namibia and race relations are relatively good compared to its neighbour, South Africa. Land is now being bought from white settlers and given to landless natives.

That's it...nearly in South Africa and out of the malaria zone by this stage.]]> Tue, 20 Jun 2006 18:04:00 EDT http://chriswilliams.tigblog.org/post/41218 http://chriswilliams.tigblog.org/post/41217 Crossing the border into Botswana was refreshingly easy, quick and efficient, although we did get our Zimbabwean eggs taken off us. Botswana is seriously paranoid about diseases coming into their country via food, especially meat. Eggs, we protested, are not one of the prohibited items on the sign but due to bird flu in Zim, they are now banned in Botswana. Of course, bird flu can't be transmitted by eggs but nevertheless, we're still in Africa...facts don't count for much in most parts. The officer was miffed that we gave them to a woman entering Zimbabwe rather than her. The veterinary officers don't have to buy much food as the confiscated food is conveniently not destroyed but eaten at home instead!

It was a short drive to Kasane, our 1st stop in Botswana. Jamie, while still in plaster for his broken wrist, managed to get a thorn stuck in his foot (we often walked bare foot or in flip flops). He spent forever trying to get it out. He got himself a Coke, took a sip of that without looking at the can (still concentrating on the thorn) and the wasp on top of the can stung him on his lip, which was already inflamed due to his horse accident. His reflex action was to wipe the wasp off his face, which he managed but ripped off the huge scab off his lip at the same time! Jamie is disaster-prone and this is rather typical for him!

Chobe National Park
Chobe is known for its huge elephant population, indeed, so large that limited culling takes place on an annual basis in Botswana, mainly done via hunting licence. Rich Westerners pay several thousand US dollars to come to shoot an elephant. If they don't kill it with the 1st shot, the ranger has to kill it fast to put it out of its misery/stop it endangering people so your thousands of dollars could kind of be wasted! The only lions in Africa known to kill elephants are at Chobe - they have adapted to this very abundant food source.

We took a late afternoon/sunset house boat cruise on the Chobe(?) river, watching the animals in and beside the river. We saw monitor lizards, fish eagles, hippos and lots of elephants, including babies and elephants courting in the water.

Kalahari desert and my birthday
The next day, 5 June, was my birthday :-) We left Kasane and took a long drive in the Kalahari desert. It doesn't seem like a desert whatsoever and there is not really any sand, just poor white soils that supported a lot of vegetation - sometimes just grasses; at other times trees, though there was little diversity. The road was very quiet. Botswana is a large country but very sparsely populated so you don't see many people! And noone can really survive in the desert by living a traditional way of life. Some of the few people we did see were the veterinary checkpoint officers. At the borders of every province, there would be veterinary officers inspecting our truck for dairy products and uncooked meat. As usual, we had to disinfect our shoes (including shoes not being worn). Botswana is particularly paranoid about foot and mouth disease. The government built a 3500km long fence long ago stretching across the country to prevent animals migrating between the two sides. Their thought was that if a foot and mouth disease outbreak did occur, it would be possible to confine it to half of the country only.

My birthday evening was spent at quite a cool and very cold bush camp. There was sufficient amounts of red wine and some friends cooked me a great birthday meal. Presents were: a big mushroom, a Swiss roll, apple crumble (yes, can make this on a camp fire!), runny custard and a pen. We're easily pleased and low cost on our truck :-)

Maun
Next stop was Maun, perhaps the largest town in Northern Botswana, population around 50,000. It is in the desert but has grown very much during the past decade due to the growth of tourism to the nearby Okavango Delta. In Maun, the modern and traditional rub shoulders - modern fast food joints, South African supermarkets and posh cars go past people transporting goods around town by donkey. Most people live in grey breeze block-built homes. Noticeable are the many immigrants in Maun from South Africa, Southern Asia and China, mostly owning businesses. Botswana has an economic policy that encourages foreign direct investment and it's easy to emigrate to Botswana if you are going to set up a business there.

Botwsana --> is doing well
Based on 2003 figures, Botswana has the highest GDP per capita (money per person) in Africa except Libya but then in Libya, all of the money is rested with those involved in the oil industry. In Botswana, money does filter to the poor, who benefit from good healthcare and education. The British were not very interested in their colony of Bechuanaland but they resisted requests for "ownership" from South Africa. Soon after independence in 1966, diamonds were discovered in Botswana. Successive stable and sensible governments have exploited this one and only resource that the country has to develop the economy, educate the population etc., hence the success of the country. Even today, Botswana has a very high economic growth rate. On the other hand, it is an expensive country in which to live, 1 in 3 are HIV positive, urbanisation is rapid and it has the 3rd highest population growth rate in the world (population now 1.7 million).

Okavango Delta
From Maun, I went to the Okavango Delta. The river Okavango has its source in Angola, passes through the Caprivi Strip of Namibia and used to empty into the Zambezi but shifts of tectonic plates long ago meant that the river now flows into the Kalahari desert and the water never makes it to the Ocean because the water is absorbed by the hot, dry desert. The Delta is very shallow and some unique biodiversity. Bptswana has a policy of high cost, low impact tourism - this means limiting the number of tourists but charging them a fortune. Many tourists obviously like the idea of not going to some tourist trap where there are another 10,000 people with cameras around you. The cheapest room at a Lodge in the Delta is $600. Prices up to $2000 are not uncommon. The government has also closed almost all of the roads leading to these isolated Lodges in the Delta, preventing too many people going to them and preventing locals setting up villages to rely on souvenir income etc. and also making the need to get to the Lodges by plane make the whole experience seem all the more exclusive, hence justifying the price. Maun Airport, unbelievably, is the busiest in Southern Africa. Johannesburg is probably the busiest airport otherwise. Maun Airport is full of light aircraft to fly tourists to their Lodges in the Delta. Thankfully, there is one part of the Delta that is still open to "budget" travellers. The budget way of visiting the Delta is to stay at a camp site in Maun and arrange the trip with a company there and then camp in the Delta. The experience still seemed quite exclusive as we saw almost noone for the 3 days we were there. Only 3 of us went to the Delta as everyone had run out of money/was prioritising it for something else. Andreas, Jason and I joined a group going on from the Africa Travel Co. truck, who turned out to be a great bunch of people.

Going to the Delta, we sat on the benches of an open truck, and got cold! We arrived at the "mokoro station" and met our guides and polers for the 3 days. A mokoro is a wooden canoe dug out of a sausage tree. We slowly glided through the calm water of the narrow channels of the Delta, feeling almost invisible as we were sheltered by the tall grasses and reeds by the side of the channels. Home was a wooded bush camp on an island. The polers had collected elephant bones and an elephant skull to adorn the area. Ras, our guide, took us on several bush walks during the 3 days, mainly in the morning and late afternoon. Ras was very serious when it came to wildlife and nature. We were on no jeep safari now. He wanted us to wear natural coloured clothes, walk in single file and not talk. Sounds like a military boot camp but he had a good manner and explained that the animals are not used to humans so we have to be very discrete. His knowledge and experience was soon apparent. He could recognise the prints of paws and hoofs and tell how fresh they were. The areas we walked suffered a bush fire 2 weeks previously so the area was not as it was, although not everywhere was burned. It created the area even more picturesque in a way. The animals had returned after initially running from the fires as they wouldn't have been able to live in other animals' territories for too long. We never encountered many animals - zebras, a giraffe, an elephant, baboons and mongeese will be the most recognisable names. We also has the privilege to see short-tailed eagles and red-billed quilla birds, small birds that would fly in groups of several hundred. They would fly together in synchrony, making jerk movements left, right, up and down. They would land together, eat briefly and then take off again and do the same thing. The frequent landing and taking off would creat a lot of noise and dust but it was fascinating to watch.

Ras was keen that unlike on jeep safaris I have done elsewhere, we don't disturb the animals. The aim is to not get the animals used to humans. This would mean that we would keep our distance. Ras and the polers really were fascinated by nature. They spent two hours once around a page in a "Birds of Southern Africa" encyclopaedia, teaching themselves about another species and discussing it in detail.

One afternoon that we went out poling on the mokoro, we approached hippos. I was trying to scare the girls, telling them that hippos are the animals that cause the most human deaths in Africa. The hippos were making a lot of weird noises, the polers were slowing us down and at a huge wave of water was heading our direction fast. The polers all simultaneously screamed for us to get out and were rocking the mokoro. Everyone ran out of the river onto land, only for the polers to burst into laughter for about 10 minutes. Very funny! This freaked out Marcella from California to such an extent that she went to select a tree that she could climb just in case a hippo did charge (and they're fast when they do). The hippos were warning us with the wave they created and noises not to get too close. We also tried poling, further away from the hippos! It's surprisingly difficult when compared to punting. The mekoro are lighter and smaller and less stable. 2 or 3 people fell in when trying to manoevre a mokoro, which is what the guides had been hoping for...they're easily amused!

Back at camp that day, we ate together. The Oasis $1 per day food budget looked awful when compared to the great stuff the Africa Travel Co. truck had. Their guide cooked for us. Veggie sausages for the vegetarians was quite a treat. There is no way we could ever afford that on our truck and there, of course, few places one can buy veggie stuff. I think we did well out of the deal to share food! The guides and polers sung and dance for us in the vening in a thankfully non-touristy, non-artificial way. They actually wanted to sing and then insisted we carry on once they'd run out!

End of Botswana
After being back in Maun, we headed out to Namibia through the Kalahari desert. After some time, we were on the Trans-Kalahari highway, which stretches from Johannesburg area in South Africa, to Gaborone in Botswana to Windhoek in Namibia.]]> Mon, 05 Jun 2006 18:02:00 EDT http://chriswilliams.tigblog.org/post/41217 http://chriswilliams.tigblog.org/post/41171 Crossing into Zimbabwe was easy enough - efficient border officials and posh immigration offices. As you may expect, British had to pay for than most for visas: $55US as opposed to the standard $30US, although Canadians have to pay $65US. They must have upset Mugabe too. Within the offices there is a "National Reserve Bank" foreign exchange office, though noone was silly enough to change there, handing money right to the Zimbabwean government. The official bank rate is 100,000 Zim dollars to 1 US dollar but the black market offers much better than that. It is not possible to buy foreign currency in Zim. The country has serious economic problems right now. It has fallen from being an African shining star to a fraction of its former self. Since Mugabe's "reclaim" of farmland owned by white Zimbabweans, food production in the country has fallen by 60%. The farms have been taken by corrupt politicians or given to peasant black farmers who do not know how to farm at the commercial level. So Zim has to import much food now for which it needs a lot of foreign exchange! Mugabe offers poor rates when one wishes to purchase Zim dollars and Mugabe stockpiles forex for his priorities. Businesses wishing to settle foreign bills, people wishing to travel abroad, even to a neighbouring country, have to use the black market to purchase forex. Foreign companies don't buy so much from Zim these days either because the exchange rate makes everything so expensive for them!

We drove to Harare. First stop - change our money on the black market with ***** who works for ***** in Zim (they have a workshop there). From him, we got the going rate at the time: $210,000ZW to $1US. When changing perhaps $3000US between us, that's a lot of money and a real load of notes. The largest bank note at the time was $50,000 for which you can buy nothing (loaf of bread is $90,000; newspaper $80,000). Patrick could only get $20,000 notes. That meant a huge bundle for each of us. Paying for anything involves a lot of notes and means one has to carry around a lot when going anywhere. With an inflation rate of 1200% at the moment, people spend it fast too.

I spent a day in Harare with Thoby and Andreas and met a couple of guys called Simba and Luke. Luke is the President of the Zim UN youth society and works for the Zim National AIDS Council. Simba is the Treasurer of the society and works for the youth work department in the Ministry of Education. They are both attending the World Youth AIDS Conference in Toronto in August. In order to purchase forex, they have a special letter from the Government and can get the money from the National Reserve Bank.

Harare is a fairly commercialised city with modern shopping centres, fast food joints, wide streets, a good infrastructure, lots of green spaces and parks, however, it is getting tired. For the untrained eye, things look to be normal but apparently, the city centre is very quiet now because of fewer jobs there and people having less spending power to shop or go to bars, restaurants etc. There are hardly any cars compared to a few years ago.

We stayed at a camp site within the city. Next to the camp was the Cranleigh Park Club, similar to a working man's social club in the UK. In effect, it's a white people's club but these are actually allowed to exist so a few black members of high flying professions are enrolled as members but most of the time, the only black face is Mugabe's image looking at people as they enter. Thoby put this on a slant to show disrespect. Oh and then there's the barmen. The racist talk would only start when they left as when the bar closes, they would leave the place for the President to lock up. The Club was one of those places where I could spend time merely because of the chance to watch people and wonder what a psychologist would make of them. I know it's not the kind of place where you would find a good cross section of white Zimbabwean society but it was cool to talk to and observe them to learn a thing or two. They were mostly old (young white Zimbabweans tend to run to other countries, mainly South Africa and the UK, to find a future they like the sound of). The people generally seemed as if they were taken right out of the 1970s or 80s. Perms, mullets and stilettoes were very much in fashion still. Alcoholism was also normal. Most people then drive home. I heard about one guy drink driving a couple of years ago who was stopped by the police while having a bottle of beer between his legs. The policeman said "Sir, do you know it is illegal to drink and drive in Zimbabwe? Please go and finish your drink under the tree over there".

Next stop was Antelope Park. This is a private game park with various antelopes and giraffes but the main aim of the park is lion conservation. Lions now number just 15,000 in Africa. They are not on the endangered list but their numbers are falling so their aim is to prevent lions joining the list! The place is also set up for tourists (and there aren't so many of them in Zimbabwe these days!) really well with nice rooms, really organised and helpful staff, free tea and coffee all day, though no alcohol as they believe this changes the relaxed atmosphere they try to create. There are plenty of activities for people to do too within the park. The highlight is walking with lions. They allow groups of people to go on guided walks with lion cubs. While they are cubs, this does not mean that they are small! Some of them are pretty much the size of and have the strength of adult lions. I walked with lions 5 times - about 1.5 hours each time. In the mornings, the cubs are more frisky as it's cold (really cold high up in this part of Zimbabwe) and the younger the cubs, the more playful they tend to be). The cubs treat us as part of their pride but do like to play with us as part of their learning to hunt. Seeing lions in the wild on safari with 5 other Land Cruisers around them is quite cool but they tend to be just lying down, doing very little. Walking with lion cubs for hours is a lot cooler and you get to see some of their natural behaviour. Volunteers pay 1000 pounds per month to volunteer at the Park, although they tend to do very little - mainly just going on lion walks and ticking a sheet on a clip board to document the behaviour of the lions, e.g. if they start to hunt an animal in the park, the guide, lion trainer and volunteers stand back, allow them to stalk and monitor the development in their skills. Eventually, lions are sent to large game reserves where they fend for themselves. I also went horse riding in the park. When the horses are not being ridden, they are allowed to mingle with the animals in the park so that the antelopes etc don't run away when people go for horse rides, allowing you to get close to them. My horse, Khan, was not too obedient though, unfortunately. I think he knows there are new riders every day! Jamie went on the advanced horse riding, had a horse that is blind in one eye; it ran straight at a tree, wouldn't turn when Jamie tried to make it to, noticed at the last moment and threw Jamie off the back of the horse, breaking his wrist. Most of us went to the lion feeding too. This was less personal as there were so many people watching at once but it was funny to see that they were often distracted from their donkey meat by children who were watching from the outside of the enclosures. We were allowed inside, though the children had to wait outside (and were never allowed on lion walks!). Also at the park, you can go on elephant rides and see elephant training. For many, the Park was a highlight of their trip.

Great Zimbabwe ruins were next. dzimba dza mabwe means "great stones" in Shona language. It is also the origin of the name of the country once it became independent in 1980. Great Zim is the only major African ancient ruins south of Egypt. It also shows that Africa did reach civilisation in ancient times. It had been thought that Africa was largely uncivilised at the times that Europe had ancient empires but in reality, most buildings were probably made of mud and so don't last as long as stone. Great Zim was a city of 10,000 to 20,000 people andwas thought to have traded with the Middle East, India and the Far East. I won't go into any more details. This turns most people off ;-) Getting into Great Zim was interesting. It was $15US or 1.5million $ZW but noone wanted to pay the US price as this is twice what we would actually be paying as noone uses the bank rate. We couldn't pay in $ZW unless we had bank receipts proving that we changed money legally. Andi told them that we would not camp there unless we were allowed to pay in $ZW, which would mean they would lose a lot of money. The Manager fudged the paperwork, writing that we were 30 locals instead of 15 foreigners (Foreigners pay double for camping). The guide, *****, who took us around the ruins was saving forex to get to the UK. He has saved 600 pounds so far. He will go to South Africa, get a flight to the UK and enrol on a tourism course in Portsmouth where he has been accepted but he is deferring the place until he can get enough forex (which costs him a lot to buy) to leave. A flight from Zim to the UK would involve too much inquisition from the Zimbabwean security services who believe the UK is enemy no.1 (makes a change not to be George Bush!). Just outside the ruins site is a craft market. Zimbabwean crafts are mostly made of stone, setting them apart from most of the wooden giraffes other countries have on offer! The people there were desperate for business. They would accept a pen for a small craft though most didn't insult them so much by offering a pen. Exchanges were what they really wanted as Zim dollars are worthless before long. The vendors would beg for toothpaste, flip flops, jumpers, food and so on. While the people here are no poorer than others elsewhere in Africa, they used to enjoy a higher standard of living but they are not yet used to the lower standards, making it hard for them compared to people in Mali, say, who are poorer but used to it. Malians are less likely to brush their teeth for example but Zimbabweans want to still do that if they can. Who can blame them? (Malians are more likely to use a wooden stick!). It's surprising that the market is still there as Mugabe fears tourist markets are havens for the black market currency trade (and indeed this one is!). Mbare market in Harare was burned to the ground by Mugabe's cronies. The stall owners were given just 24 hours notice to clean up and move out. The market was a huge thriving place for food, clothes and crafts.

Next stop was Bulawayo, the 2nd city, pop. 1 million. We attempted to go to Natural History museum here as it has a good write-up and has the world's 2nd largest stuffed elephant(!). Only, we again had currency discussions at the entrance as $10US was just too steep. Zim dollars would have been OK. The museum looked as if it was once grand. Nowadays, I would say nearly noone goes. The building and park around it could do with some attention! Next stop then was the National Gallery. Full of student's artwork plus students' own studios and a dead cool coffee shop. Was just 6 pence to enter this place - quite a contrast to the price of the natural history museum. Apparently 20,000 $ZW is more than locals a willing to pay! Was nice to see that one student managed to get away with some political paintings. Freedom of speech is not as restricted as you may think in Zim. There are blatant anti-Mugabe newspapers. Also in Bulawayo, we went to the cinema, tempted by Western advantages. It was just 40 pence to see the movie but 60 pence for the popcorn. Was a Hollywood blockbuster movie quite recent. I forget the name :-S

Bulawayo itself has a nice atmosphere. It feels quite American with its wide streets arranged in a grid-like pattern and tall buildings. Other observations: a fair few very old cars; some colonial buildings; a struggling economy; very little available from the menus in the cafes (about 10% of all that is advertised on the menus); huge queues for ATMS (can't cope with all the notes needed to be distributed) and petrol stations (people don't know when fuel is going to run out again and know the price is forever increasing).

From Bulawayo, we all took the overnight sleeper train to Victoria Falls. The train was old (Rhodesian Railways was still written in a lot of places) and not too glamorous but still in good condition, although the doors didn't close and the odd light didn't work. It was just 2 pounds each for the whole journey. The train was fully booked but one carriage was missing due to a derailment a few nights previously so the people who were booked on that carriage were told to go to get a refund rather unsympathetically. Two of us were booked in that carriage but the Train Manager overlooked it as we were a large group. On boading the train, most of our beds were taken so we asked the Train Manager what we should go. He said that we white people were bound to cause a fuss and could tell as soon as we got on the train. Nevertheless, he was useful given that he did tell one guy that he had him "marked" as he had seen him night after night hanging around "white people's cabins".

Victoria Falls is a small town in North-Western Zimbabwe, funnily enough, right next to Victoria Falls of waterfall-fame. I mentioned the Falls in a previous email when I visited them on the Zambia side. By this time, they were at their highest in 10 years! The town almost entirely living on tourism - half of the town consists of tourist accommodation, tourist shops, travel agencies, cafes and the like, while the other half is where the workers live. These days, it's relatively quiet and shops are closing as tourists (needlessly) fear coming to Zim or purposely boycott the country. I poked around a couple of posh hotels, one of which Michael Jackson is rumoured to have a stake in. Would make sense given its Vegas-feel and some tacky aspects! Further along the gorge, Richard Branson owns a luxury lodge. I spent one day cycling around, mainly in Chinotimba where the workers live. Its consists of well-built homes - all stone, breeze block or concrete. Interestingly, a lot of people grow food in their gardens as food is so expensive and sometimes in short supply in Zim. I met a lot of men who were drinking scud, a home brew made from sorghum, costing just $100,000 ZW (about 30 pence). It's so filling and so cheap that some men drink this instead of eating. It's the same price as a loaf of bread and consists of carbohydrate, just the same as bread, although is 2% alcohol too....you can see the logic behind it, right? The bakeries in Vic Falls often have no flour due to the national shortage and therefore have no bread either. In the butchers' shops, as elsewhere in Zim, there was hardly any meat for sale - the display cabinets were almost entirely empty. People can only afford the cheapest "economy" meat.

I visited Vic Falls government hospital in Chinotimba. As expected, I asked if I could look around although unusually for Africa, there was no welcome. I first asked a nurse and then a receptionist - they both nervously deferred me to the next person. It was *****, who anxiously agreed to quickly show around me and Andreas. He did ask "Are you American?" before he said yes. I asked what that was supposed to mean later on but got no straight answer. Drugs are scarce in Zim and a lot of their well trained Doctors have emigrated. We met a Cuban Dr. Cuba has a huge number of quite well trained Drs and export many of them to Africa. One interesting poster was:
"Sex with albino adults does not cure HIV
Sex with albino children does not cure HIV". Hmmm!

Once we had finished our flying visit, ***** seemed to be a little less nervous and outside, volunteered a lot of his opinions to us. His negative opinions of the government are as you would expect, although he claims that Mugabe doesn't know everything that is going on in Zim as his advisors lie to him to keep him happy. He explained that it is hard to allow tours of the hospital these days because of government secrecy. In the past, Drs on holiday have wanted to visit the hospital but the secret service have had to check them out in advance and also have officers to go with them when the tour is being conducted! Jeremiah is a good guy and cares a lot about his profession but it hurts him to see the hospital suffer so much.

My main "activity" at Vic Falls was to go on the adrenaline day. Adrenaline is not a word that would normally attract me to do something but somehow I overlooked that. The day was spent on the Zambian side of Batoka Gorge, the gorge carved by Vic Falls over thousands of years. I did a couple of 54 metre abseils, a "flying fox" zipwire thing over the gorge and a rap jump (face down abseil), which were all really cool apart from the walk up the gorge after each activity. "Adrenaline" referred to the main activity: the gorge swing. Sounds innocent enough but that doesn't explain the 53 metre freefall lasting 3.5 seconds before you swing at all. You reach a speed of 140 km/h by the end of the fall - the rockface appears to move fast by the end! Jumping off a cliff attached to a rope is not something that I would normally relish doing but Cade, Nick and myself managed to work each other up so much that I did it anyway. And then I did it again!

Zimbabwe is a wonderful country with some lovely, warm-hearted people but I fear for them :-( Perhaps some Zimbabweans reading this think I am toeing the line of the West, a puppet of the West. I'm sorry but I came to all of these conclusions myself based on evidence from Zim. I spoke to people of different political beliefs.]]> Mon, 15 May 2006 19:05:00 EDT http://chriswilliams.tigblog.org/post/41171 http://chriswilliams.tigblog.org/post/41169 Coming into Malawi, I had a fever. I was wearing all of my warm clothing and inside a sleeping bag - this is a tell tale sign of malaria! Zoe was suffering from malaria by this time too (person no. 15, case no. 17). Malawi is a strangely shaped country - elongated north to south and dominated by Lake Malawi. As we drove south into Malawi, we were driving on the narrow strip of flat land with the lake to one side and mountains to the other. It was densely populated as people are forced to live on the fertile flat lands. My fever broke during the night at Chitimba beach where we were staying.

I'll remember Chitimba for the banter with the curio sellers outside the camp. Most were about 18 and still at school, working as curio sellers to make money for school fees. They offered everything from curios to shoe repairs to washing laundry. They did unfortunately have bad relations with the Manager of the camp site. I got them to make me a Malawi chair (2 planks of wood, put together to make a chair) and a togalosh - a huge wooden spiritual figure with a long face and huge belly - something you love or hate. At Chitimba, I went to see the local Dr, a government Dr in the health centre. The government can't afford to do malaria tests routinely but he offered me a HIV test :-S I described my symptoms and diagnosed me with malaria. When asked how he had come to that conclusion he said it was because I had a fever the previous day! A fever is a symptom of so many illnesses! I ignored him and waited to see if the fever came back (as it normally does with malaria). It didn't. Turned out to be the flu! Incidently, the reason so many British holidaymakers die of malaria each year is because they believe their antimalarials protect them entirely and that when they get a fever back in the UK, they think they have the flu until it's too late!

Heading further south, we rose up into the mountains, which gave us fantastic views over the lake. We stopped in Mzuzu for Zoe to go on a drip (she had been vomiting for about 2 days so was weak). Here I met Ephraim, a school leaver who paints and sells his work to tourists passing through. Unfortunately, the Malawi government is very controlling in many ways. Recently, they cleared all street vendors off the streets, telling them to open shops to do their business but most are too poor to afford the rent and so are pushed into real unemployment, even more informal work, begging or crime (but this is rare) unless they are discrete about their work like Ephraim. Ephraim has since had his work confiscated by the police.

We took a pleasant late afternoon drive further south, passing a lot of friendly villagers and going through rubber plantations where children were selling rubber balls by the side of the road having illegally tapped rubber. We arrived at Kande beach, home no. 2 in Malawi. This was a gorgeous place wirth clear calm waters, a lovely sandy beach and an island to go out to. Myself and a few others went over there to do some fishing with a local guy. A memorable moment from Kande was buying a stick of sugar cane outside the camp from a young boy, perhaps 8 years old, using the translation of a curio seller. I gave him 10 kwatcha ( 2.5 pence), twice the going rate. His smile was enormous. Adding this to the 10 kwatcha he already had in his hands (African kids seem to like to ensure they don't lose money by forever holding it), he could nearly buy an exercise book. Thinking about it, I sound really mean by not paying more but giving money for nothing creates a dependency that cannot be sustained forever and is dehumanising in the long term. By doing business with the child, myself and the curio seller taught him a lesson.

Leaving Kande, we were stopped at the first police checkpoint. The policeman was acting tough and quite intimidating as he searched parts of our truck, hinting that he wants things that he found. This is rare behaviour for police in Eastern and Southern Africa but we'd had worse than this in Central Africa. He was quite proud of himself but got nowhere. The joke was on him.

Next stop was Blantyre, Malawi's biggest city and commercial capital, situated in the far south. We seemed to get a few middle fingers as we drove in (Tanzania was the only other place for this) but most were friendly. The city is modestly developed, though there was still plenty of poverty in the suburbs.

Ovens!
In the camp site/hostel where we stayed, there were some people from the German Overseas Development agency (glad to see they take budget accommodation!!). Their work was to set up businesses or approach existing businesses in Malawi and other countries in Africa to produce and sell fuel efficient ovens. Malawi, being densely populated, is one of the countries with a deforestation problem, which not only leaves the poor short of fuel and house building material but eventually leads to poor soils and hence less food! The fuel efficient ovens use 10% of the wood needed for an open fire, are affordable for the poor and provide new business for the locations they promote the product. In Zambia, I saw solar ovens being promoted, which use no fuel, can be bought cheaply or made easily. They need no fuel - just sun. Obviously, have to cook during the day.

We didn't stay for long in Blantyre as we had only come here to get Mozambique visas but now one can get them on the border so we left the next day.

History and Politics
Malawi used to be the British colony of Nyasaland (Nyasa is the local word for "lake"). After independence, it was ruled for 30 years by the totalitarian President Banda. He resigned in 1990, there has been democratic improvement since then but the situation is still not perfect. Malawi suffers from rapid population growth, bad governance, AIDS is endemic and the economy is performing poorly. Up until 1994, all tourists to Malawi had strict dress codes. Men had to have short hair (that meant shaving heads in airports and at borders) and near beards while women had to wear skirts.]]> Wed, 10 May 2006 18:24:00 EDT http://chriswilliams.tigblog.org/post/41169 http://chriswilliams.tigblog.org/post/41168 The first visit to Tanzania, we entered from Zambia and drove through pretty mountain scenery. Sunflowers and traditional huts are the things that stick in my mind about that area. Our first bush camp in Tanzania not so straightforward. We pulled up at a school with an extensive school field and asked the 2 security guards if it would be OK. Their English was broken but it was obvious what we were doing and they were delighted to have some company for the night. They helped collect firewood for us to help with the cooking and watched us put up our tents. We'd been there for about an hour when the Headteacher drove into the school. He was fuming. So angry. And extremely rude. He gave us almost no chance to speak. Our driver was very calm, reasonable and trying to talk to the man but noone could get a word in edgeways. He was extremely rude, perhaps one of the rudest I have ever met. He was happy to stand their mouthing off about how white people are abusing Tanzanians. Apparently, we were "trespassing on government land and abusing the fact the security guards don't speak English very well". We've used school lands for bush camps before. We've always asked for permission and the school staff have been very excited to have us.
We didn't have the warmest of welcomes to Tanzania. In general, I received a mixed welcome in Tanzania for all the time I spent there - some great people, some less friendly.

We drove through forests and Mikumi National Park (seeing many animals from the road, including a lionness) as well as through sisal plantations on the way to Arusha. One place we stopped was Chalinze, the busiest junction in Tanzania. It's the junction of the main roads between Dar es Salaam (Tanzanian capital) to the East, Malawi and Zambia in the West and Kenya to the North. Tanzanians love to travel about and their excellent roads allow for huge coaches to race around the country. At Chalinze junction, there are countless numbers of street vendors who run up to coach windows shouting the name of their products: bananas, pineapples, cashew nuts, Coke and so on. I spoke to one street cafe owner who served me a traditionally Tanzanian chips omelette. He said that due to the many travellers coming through Chalinze, there is a high HIV prevalence

Tanzanian roads are really dangerous. We would typically travel at around 80kph (50mph) but coaches would fly past us, overtaking on blind bends etc. One coach we saw went on to 2 wheels as it skid around the corner, going on to the other side of the road. Few things happen fast in Africa but for some reason, people want to get from A to B as fast as they possibly can, taking all risks necessary. There are also broken down trucks everywhere.

Arusha, in Northern Tanzania, was our first city. It's Tanzania's 3rd largest and perhaps most touristic town on the mainland. We stayed there one night and then stayed at a bush camp one night near to the Kenyan border with another Oasis truck.

Rwandan Genocide Criminal Tribunal
On our return to Arusha (2nd time in Tanzania, one month later), Martyn and I went to the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (UNICTR), a UN court set up within the Arusha International Conference Centre to try the perpetrators of the Rwandan Genocide. There are 4 courtrooms inside with a viewing gallery, allowing guests to watch the proceedings. When witnesses testify, the curtains are drawn. We saw the Former Rwandan Minister for Women on trial. She didn't have the face of someone who could plot to kill a million fellow countrymen. It's mind boggling to think that someone who was responsible for fighting prejudice could be a killer of people who just happen to be of a different tribe. Up to now, 26 people have appeared before UNICTR in Arusha. 5 people have been acquitted, while 21 have been convicted. Mali, Swaziland, Benin, France, Italy and Sweden are the countries that have volunteered to imprison those convicted for the period dictated by UNICTR. The UNICTR hopes its work will be concluded by 2010. Some people feature on a wanted list within the building. A huge multimillion US dollar reward awaits any information leading to an arrest. In Rwanda, small trials have taken place for those who perpetrated crimes during the genocide.

From Arusha, we went on "safari" (now you really feel like a tourist) to the Ngorongoro Crater, a volcanic crater that is teeming with animals of almost every kind. Driving there was through the clouds but once you descend into the crater, there is no cloud as it remains at the crater's edge. Most people went on to the Serengeti but Martyn and I didn't bother - 200 US dollars for 2 days (that means about 3 hours per day of game driving) is a crazy price and I don't enjoy going from animal to animal to take a photo anyway. There's no time to learn much about the behaviour of the animals.

We went back to camp, Snake Park, just outside Arusha. It's run by a South African couple and is really popular. Locals take snakes found in the local area to the camp where they have enclosures for snakes and a vet to look after them. They also keep crocodiles, tortoises and owls that have problems ( i.e. would die in the wild). A couple of weeks ago, a local gave them a baby grey striped hyaena that was found near to its mother who had been killed by some other locals with poisoned meat. At this time of drought, the hyaena was going to farms and into a village to find food but at the same time, the locals' are struggling for food.

Snake Park works well with the community. They have built a Masaai museum and leave it up to local Masaai to maintain it and give guided tours. Masaai can sell souvenirs outside the museum too. Camel tours and village walks can also be conducted from Snake Park. Andreas, Thoby and myself walked around the village in which Snake Park is located. It didn't involve a long walk at all. Sadly, very few people who go to Snake Park ever bother to step foot out of the camp site, which is saddening. What's the point going all the way to Tanzania only to never speak to locals other than the woman who cleans the toilets?

Masaai
This area is near to the traditional lands of the Masaai people. Indeed, the name Serengeti comes from the Masaai word "siringit". The British then threw the Masaai off the land and created the Serengeti National Park. The Masaai are still not allowed to live in the Serengeti but they are allowed within the Ngorongoro Conservation area. They have set themselves up there but the government won't build schools, supply electricity etc. The government doesn't like the Masaai (who don't hunt animals) living in an area that brings in so much tourist revenue. The Masaai are allowed to take their cattle down to the crater floor for grazing during the dry season. There still remains battles between the governments of both Tanzania and Kenya with the Masaai people over land rights. The Masaai hold on to so many of their traditional practices in a world that is increasingly Westernised in Kenya and Tanzania. The colourful Masaai blankets, tools, huge earrings, ankle bracelets, bracelets, necklaces and enlarged ear lobes are characteristic of the Masaai. To see this combined with a mobile phone and a brief case is bizarre! Masaai children (boys and girls) are often put through circumcision. A cow is slaughtered in the name of the boy who drinks both the milk and the cow's blood. The warrior practices of men are still retained where they go to eat meat in the bush away from their family. Their continued commitment to their traditions has to be admired. In Kenya, President Kibaki downgraded Amboseli National Park to a National Reserve, thought to be a move to win the votes of Masaai in the 2005 Constitution referendum.

In Arusha, I got my hair cut. I chose the "numbers", which relate to the length of hair you would like (as most men will know) but the barber never actually put the clippers on my head but rather just skimmed my hair with them for around 1.5 hours. Bless! Patiently, I sat wondering what he was doing until he claimed to be finished and showed him how I'd like the clippers used afterwards!

Next, we went to Dar es Salaam, a city of 3 to 4 million people andf growing fast. The centre is commercial but less so than Nairobi. It has an Arabic quarter, which has tall buildings and feels a little Middle Eastern, which was cool. From the centre, we took a ferry over to the peninsula where we were staying, which consisted of a few cars being carried across and scores of foot passengers.

We said goodbye to an emotional Chris, the youngest person on the truck, before going over to Zanzibar island on the slow ferry. Paying the higher "foreigner" price, we got 1st class seating, which meant we were less cramped - we had sofas upstairs. We sat through the repetitive seeminly endless Arabic prayer to Allah that was to ensure that the ferry doesn't sink. Zanzibar is mostly Islamic. One passenger was carrying many chickens.

The ferry took us to a very rainy Stone Town (really called Zanzibar town), capital of Zanzibar island, the principal island of the groupd of islands called Zanzibar, which united with Tanganyika in the 1960s to form the United Republic of TanZANia. I stayed in a decent cheap hotel for 10 US dollars per night. For the first evening, we dried out in Mercury's bar, named after Freddy Mercury who was born on the island.

Zanzibar was once part of the Sultanate of Oman in the Middle East. Later, it was colonised by Germany and later swapped with the British for the cold tiny island of Helgoland just off Germany. Nowadays, Zanzibar still retains many links with Oman and many people are of Omani race but the family has been Zanzibari or Tanzanian for many generations.

On the 1st full day, several of us went on a spice tour, which took us inland to see a spice area. We saw and tasted spices including lemongrass, cinammon, clove and vanilla pods among others as well as many fruits and perfume flours. At the end, we were given lemongrass tea with vanilla essence - divine :-) Biryani (traditional Swahili coastal food) and juice was for lunch. For the rest of the day, I spent time shopping for paintings (some good ones in Stone Town) and spent quite a lot of time sheltering under doorways, taking photos of people acting crazy in the rain. In the evening, I ate at the seafood market - stalls on the sea front cooking cheap fish and seafood meals. It's nice to chat to a lot of the chefs here, as well as to eat good food. I ate for free because one chef claimed that the reason some of my friends ate at his stall was because I recommended him (we had chatted the previous night). I did try to pay but he wouldn't accept the money. Nice, huh?

Most people had gone somewhere around the island after the first day or two in a hire care or on a motorbike. I did intend to get a bike but the hire people were trying to give me all sorts of dodgy licences from Switzerland or with other people's faces on. Hmmm!!! I didn't want to go to a rainy beach much anyway! I stayed in Stone Town, which I liked a lot. It has so many narow alleyways with densely packed tall buildings, reminding me of the Moroccan medinas. Great for artistic photos. I met a guy called Hassan, aged 22, still at school, who took me to the more modern part of Stone Town where there are long blocks of flats, forming government-owned social housing. This allowed for some great grafitti photos of shots of ladies cleaning or hanging out washing on their balconies...I was in my element here :-) One interesting thing I learnt from Hassan is that secondary school is free in Zanzibar - perhaps the 1st place I've been to since Morocco with free secondary school. Zanzibar is better off than the rest of Tanzania. It's no wonder that many people campaign for independence.

Back in Dar es Salaam, I met driver Grant who was suffering yet again from malaria (case. no 16 on the truck. He is case no. 1 of round 2!). Scott, Maree, Cheri and Helen (Kippy) all left us in Dar es Salaam. Kippy came down with malaria again once back home in Wales (case no. 2, round 2!!!).

I met a guy called Tommy who studies at the city's Institute of Financial Management, a good institution. He works for a Tanzanian youth group as well. I tried to meet him in the British Council but they wouldn't let me in as I was not a paid up member. Everywhere else, British get in for free. Tommy's Institute was impressive. I really felt it had a positive learning environment, it had accommodation on campus and the students seemed professional and hard working at all hours of the day. With Tommy, I visited a suburb where his Aunt lives. Here, he told me about how the ruling CCM party is corrupt and uses corruption money to buy the votes of poor Tanzanians at election time or buys their polling cards, returning them after the election. He hopes to be an Independent MP some day and in the meantime, to mobilise youth awareness of the unfair electoral practice. The result counted is the real result but the campaign is unfair.

Tanzanian history and poltiics
Tanzania's first President, Julius Nyerere, adopted socialist policies after independence by nationalising farms, industry etc. and promoting ujamaa meaning community or togetherness. The policies failed, Nyerere resigned (rare for African Presidents! He is still adored by Tanzanians) and the country turned towards capitalism. It has only achieved slow growth since the 1980s. Tanzania has been a peaceful country despite it being the country with the second largest number of tribes for any country in Africa (after DR Congo). Swahili was adopted as the national language, promoting the Tanzanian ujamaa and patriotism. Tanzania did nevertheless, invade Uganda in 1979 (or thereabouts) to overthrow the President Idi Amin who was a disaster for Uganda and its people.


Black market at border
Malawi doesn't tolerate a black market for foreign currency exchange so in order to get the best rates, we had to change on the Tanzanian side of the border. This is nothing uncommon for us but the money changers here were the most persistent and crafty of all we have used. They are constantly on the ball, trying to confuse by confusing rates for different currencies, giving huge quantities of small notes to make it too difficult to count, telling you a rate higher than they are willing to give and so on. Really challenging when there are 15 of us trying to change over the side of the truck and 30 of them shouting left, right and centre.]]> Mon, 01 May 2006 18:23:00 EDT http://chriswilliams.tigblog.org/post/41168 http://chriswilliams.tigblog.org/post/41167 Masaai people
Coming into Kenya for the 1st time from Tanzania, we were bombarded by Masaai ladies at the border, selling souvenirs. They were all in their traditional dress and their energy was boundless. The Masaai tribe lives in both Kenya and Tanzania, mainly near to the border. Their homelands are the Serengeti and Masaai Mara areas (the 2 famous national parks) but due to the modern economic value and importance of conservation, they have been moved from both areas and are less able to continue their traditional ways of life. The governments of Kenya and Tanzania do give a percentage of the income from national park fees to the Masaai a compensation but they would much appreciate the chance to return to their homelands. They are certainly one of the tribes in Africa that is retaining its traditions the most.

For meat eaters...
We arrived in Nairobi, the capital, after just 3 hours. Its a big city (perhaps 3 million people) and expansive. It has many factories on the outskirts as well as an Oxford University Press Office :-) We stopped near to the famous Carnivore restaurant, a huge restaurant that has served huge meals comprising of game meat for many years and has become one of the most famous restaurants in the world. Recently, the Kenyan government has made all consumption of game meat illegal because the system of controlled hunting in appropriate areas was not working as poachers would bypass the rules and sell the meat for a cheaper price. They believe that if they make all game hunting illegal, there will be no confusion over whether meat in shops etc is legal or not. Carnivore is now left with a declining business with just farmed ostrich, camel and crocodile on the menu as "exotic meats".

A rant about passports
First full day in Nairobi...important job to do - get to the British High Commission and get new passports. (small rant coming up so skim read!!) The Embassy was 80's looking and security was strict (the US embassy got blown up here a few years ago killing mainly Kenyans). I had a clean British passport when I left home but pages were running short (due to stamp happy African immigration officials) and so I would not be able to complete the trip without a new passport :-( It cost 100 pounds to get a 32 page (actually just 25 visa pages) passport. The larger (48 page) travellers passport was currently unavailable (what's that about - a paper shortage?!). The three of us signed each other's forms, claiming to know one another for several years and got new high security Big Brother style biometric passports within 3 days. For the British who are interested, the new passports are light blue inside and have images of birds. There are Welsh and Scots Gaelic instructions too. And then there's your silicon chip in the back! The high price is because there's an additional charge for "consular services", i.e. the service to help overseas British expats and get travellers out of jail (remember Cameroon?).

Nairobi city
I spent the rest of the day exploring Nairobi. The centre is built up with many high rise buildings. A lot of Western and African businesses have their East African HQ here as Kenya has been a reasonably stable country since independence. The streets are mostly grid-like and the centre is compact. It's busy with a Western city feel - crowded streets with lots of men and women in suits walking quickly avoiding eye contact at all costs (not very African). I walked through the area where there are many Government Ministries. It was interesting to note that there were many signs referring to corruption including "This Ministry is now corruption free", "Welcome to the friendly checkpoint" and a "Corruption and complaints reporting office" in front of another ministry. President Kibaki has hired Saatchi and Saatchi to run a 3-year publicity campaign to help stamp out corruption in Kenya. He was elected in 2001 I believe. Anti-corruption was one of his main policies. Unfortunately, scores of current and former Ministers have resigned when corruption was discovered. Around $1 billion is thought to have gone missing in 3 years. The Netherlands recently pulled the plug on all of its aid to Kenya. Apparently, Kenya is one of the few countries on the Continent that could actually make ends meet without aid but obviously, the additional income is still very important. Corruption is a major issue in Kenya right now but at least it's being confronted and it's becoming something shameful whereas it was once "OK because everyone is doing it".

As well as the rich centre, there are many poor slums. We walked into a poor inner city area where suddenly people decided to stare as opposed to avoid eye contact, though it wasn't a threatening stare as in one or two occasions on the trip. It was more of a "what are you doing, crazy guy?" River Road is the well known dodgy street in the city centre and is where shoestring backpackers often stay but their seedy "hotels" so often get robbed, often with the the owners being part of the robbery. The contrast from the centre, River Rd and then into the poor inner city area was quite stark!

Nairobi is very multicultural with many Southern Asian people, white Kenyans and Westerners living in the city. It does have an unfortunate nickname of Nai-robbery. No explanation needed! Oasis start many trips in Nairobi. One girl once flew to Nairobi. The taxi driver who took her into town warned her to look after herself and if someone tries to rob her, he advises her to shout "thief" and people will come to help. Indeed, this did happen. She screamed for help. The help was a little too overwhelming...the man was stoned to death on the street. She flew back to the UK the following day as she was so mortified. In Uganda, I heard of how a child was stoned and then set on fire for stealing a bunch of bananas. In the Tanzanian papers, I saw people burning in the streets there. This vigilante "justice" is illegal but the local population is so upset about crime that they feel they have to take things into their own hands. Life is cheap in Africa :-(

Also in Nairobi, we went to the David Sheldrick Foundation within Nairobi National Park. This was set up by Daphne and David Sheldrick to care for orphaned elephants and rhinos. This was a pretty cool outing as the baby elephants and rhinos got fed bottled milk with added nutrients so that it's close to their mother's milk.

Out of Nairobi, we drove along dual carriageways (a novelty in Africa) up in the Rift Valley, which provided stunning views. We stayed for a couple of nights on the shores of Lake Naivasha, an alkaline soda lake home to hippos and visited by a lot birdlife. The hippos come up to the camp at night time to graze. They are the number 1 animal killer of humans in Africa. They are vegetarians but they kill if they feel threatened (like elephants in this respect). Thankfully, an electric fence kept the hippos from us so we could see them from safety! Last year, an Australian woman went over the fence to get a photo. She was gone in 2 chomps.

In the area of the lake, there is a stretch of several kilometres of greenhouses growing flowers for the Western world. It's a big employer and many homes have been built for the workers, providing all the basic living standards. The area is also the sight of a geothermal power station. Geothermal power provides 15% of Kenya's electricity needs and could provide much more. Kenya has all the science and engineering necessary to develop further geothermal power stations.

Here, I cycled into Hell's Gate National Park. There were few animals (antelopes, giraffes, zebra and the sort) and no lions or elephants, hence making it pretty safe for walkers and cyclists. It was mainly a wide gorge with 2 volcanic plugs (chunk of rock sticking up far into the air - great for climbers) and pretty grasslands. It was peaceful and scenic to cycle through. At the end of the cycle, we could walk down into a narrow gorge. We didn't take a guide as we're overconfident and have a "I won't be taken for a stupid tourist" attitude by now! However, the path wasn't obvious and we ended up very lost and found nothing but a dead buffalo (Kenya was suffering from a drought at the time, which needed Western food aid for the arid north of the country). Thankfully, a small 15 year-old Masaai boy, Joseph, called out to us and guided us instead down the gorge and to the "Boiling Point", a pool of hot water where you can boil an egg. The water was so warm - strange to see for the first time.

After Hell's Gate, I cycled along to Elsamere, the former home of Joy and George Adamson of Born Free fame. They were a couple involved in conservation after they killed a lion for their own safety. The lionness was full of milk and so they searched for the cubs and looked after one of them, Elsamere, at their home on the shores of Lake Naivasha. Joy and George studied lions, leopards and cheetahs over the years before they were killed by poachers in 1980 and 1989. People older than my generation will probably have read and/or seen Born Free. We learned about their work, their lives and enjoyed high tea in their beautiful home. Civilised!

On the return visit to Kenya, we visited Lake Nakuru, another soda lake that is famous for its covering of pink flamingoes. It is surrounded by a beautiful national park with a range of trees, rocky areas and grasslands. Here, we saw a rock hyrax, a small marmot-like creature (or rabbit-like) that lives among rocks and is apparently the elephant's closest relative! The view over the lake from higher ground was beautiful, especially given the moody weather not far away.

In Nairobi again, a few of us visited the giraffe centre, a project to conserve the rare Rothschild breed of giraffe (there are 4 breeds altogether). The area consisted of a typically English country manor house with green lawns with giraffes strolling across and many acacia trees. We got to feed the giraffes, sometimes by holding food in our mouths and allowing the giraffe to pull it out, leaving slobber all over our faces. Of course, we were on a platform for this.

On leaving Nairobi, we headed back to Tanzania. Sam had a staple stuck in his gum all day because he ate the staple from the bag he ate his cake out of. Funny at the time!
]]> Tue, 25 Apr 2006 18:22:00 EDT http://chriswilliams.tigblog.org/post/41167 http://chriswilliams.tigblog.org/post/41166 Gossip
My first time in Uganda started with a stop in the town of Jinja where we picked up brothers Martyn and Paul who jumped off the truck in Cameroon so that they could spend time with their girlfriends. Paul had been planning to propose to his girlfriend, Alpa, for months. He had spoken to her Dad before coming out to Africa, bought the ring in Kampala where her mother was born and all of Alpa's Indian relatives had been invited. Paul had kept the ring in his pocket for that special moment. Trudging through the mud in Jinja market, Paul dropped the ring from his pocket, a lady ran after him shouting that he'd dropped a ring. Alpa was trying to tell the woman that it must be someone else's so Paul got down on one knee in the middle of the bustling market and proposed. And Alpa's response...a maybe...that later turned into a no. Alpa is opposed to the idea of marriage but wants to be with Paul forever. Her Dad was mortified; Paul not bothered.

Alpa, a TV News Presenter on Anglia regional news (formerly a correspondant on HTV Wales regional news) and Bob, a friend of Alpa and Paul, jumped on the truck for about a month. They made a great addition. Bob, also of Indian descent, created a laugh or two. Her family is very traditional and want an arranged marriage for her but they have advertised her on an Indian dating website. She tried to convince her Grandma that she is a lesbian but her Gran didn't understand and thought she was saying that she wanted to be a librarian! Her parents arrange for prospective husbands to visit. Bob has to dress up in traditional address and act nicely but she deliberately spills the tea or picks her nose when her parents are not looking.

More serious stuff
We drove to the South West corner of Uganda via a bush camp one night in a place where Andi and Grant know of a lovely boy called Naboth, who is now sponsored by Nancy who work's for Oasis, running trips through Uganda. He's such a bright boy (about 13) and has the most fantastic smile. We bush camped in his garden pretty much, near to his house. The rest of his brothers and sisters and his cousins spent the evening with us as well as his grandmother who can no longer walk so shuffles around using her hands as feet, lifting herself off the ground and lurching forward to move along. All of the children were lovely and kind of felt at home given Nancy brings new people there every 4 months. They were not as timid and didn't keep a distance unlike most children we have come across along the journey. One of them was Manchester United mad (like about half of Africa's children). I took a photo of him and intend to send it with a player's signature (surprisingly easy to get if you write to them).

We stayed a night at Lake Bunyoni, a beautiful lake high up in South Western Uganda. This is the area where HIV/AIDS was first discovered in the early 1980s and for some time had the highest rate of HIV/AIDS in the world but thanks to government policy, it's now right down to 6%. The epidemic has left many orphans. I visited a street child centre near to the Lake run by a local man. It runs as an NGO but is small and led by one man and a group of Directors advising him. It is far from professional but I was touched by his work. He does nevertheless, achieve above average primary school exam results for the children at the orphanage/school. Left on the streets of the nearby town of Kabale, children are abused, beaten and sometimes killed. Street children are seen as the spawn of the devil.

From here, several of us headed to Bwindi Inpenetrable National Park. The journey, cramped in a minibus (or matatu as they call them here), went through some beatiful countryside. It was hilly and looked like a patchwork quilt of small brown and green fields on the slopes. The area is quite densely populated and poor - each family can only have a small area of land for their subsistence. Tea is a common crop there - most of it is exported to the USA. We stayed in Bwindi, a village that is surrounded by coffee, tea and banana plantations that go right up to the edge of the rainforests of Bwindi National Park. The people there are very much used to tourism but its sustainable there, the people benefit hugely and are well educated on how to benefit from tourism. They maintain excellent relations with tourists. A lot of orphans get sponsored by tourists coming to this area.

It was here that I saw mountain gorillas, which are found only in the rainforest on the borders of Uganda, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. There are just around 700 of them left but the population is slowly growing and is exceptionally well protected in Uganda and Rwanda and also well protected in the DRC due to the huge tourist income generated as a result of the gorillas. Of the families that conservationists allow people to visit, just 8 people are allowed to visit each family of gorillas per day for one hour only. Visitors must keep their distance to prevent transmission of diseases. These rules are in place to prevent undue stress to the gorillas and to prevent transmission of diseases. This one hour of fascination was the most expensive activity I have done on the whole trip. I was glad to learn that the majority of money goes to conservation efforts. I was convinced that gorillas are beautiful animals and I am glad that they are well protected. The sheer number of Ugandan Wildlife Authority officials and armed soldiers means that every corner of the national park is covered. The last time someone tried to poach a gorilla had his arm badly damaged by the Silverback and then he was arrested and jailed! Oops!

In Bwindi, I met Moses, an orphan who is sponsored to go to school by a London lawyer. He calls her his Mum because he has no mother! I got the impression that he feels that he can have a life only because of the generosity of his Mum enabling him to go to secondary school. Without a decent education, few Africans have much of a chance of having anything but a life based on subsistence farming or scraping by doing odd jobs in the cities.

Back in the town of Kabale, I met a really nice guy, for the 2nd time, called Jeremiah. He is 18, sells newspapers for a living, making around 70 pence a day. I approached him to buy a paper and asked which paper is biased towards the government, which is independent etc. Most newspaper sellers I have met on my trip have hardly understood English or French. Jeremiah, on the other hand, was able to intelligently describe the bias of each of the papers and tell me why the Government of Uganda is awful and why the Opposition were cheated in the recent elections. I was a little shocked so enquired into his life. He's an orphan too but is really desperate to get a good education and go on to University. He has sold newspapers for a few years to gain money to pay for his school fees. He was not pleaing for help or anything but merely answering my questions. He is also a friendly guy. My heart went out to him. I have had a privileged University education and some great teachers in the past who have inspired me to work hard. For those who are so keen to make something of their lives but have little means to be able to do so, I feel for. For the first time in the trip, I donated money to an individual, to Jeremiah..around 8 pounds in total...he makes this in 10 to 12 days of work so is relatively a lot. He was so very grateful and bought me a watermelon to say thanks, which is really sweet of him! I'm still in touch with Jeremiah.

After this was my Rwanda and Burundi trip. When I came back to Uganda, I was on a ridiculously fast bus with Thoby and Andreas. The coach was overbooked so people were sitting on the floor in the aisle or on small benches. It was dark for much of our time in Uganda, the coach was travelling at almost full speed, 120kph (about 80 mph) on the main road through the country, which has just one lane in each direction. The coach's lights were not as bright as they could be, which didn't allow the driver to see too far down the road. Thoby and I were in each other's laps for about 3 hours. We veered off the road at one stage, passed a petrol tanker that had fallen down a bank and we hit an antelope, smashing in one corner of the coach. Passengers were chanting "pole pole" (slow, slow) and stamping their feet on the floor. The drivers just smiled and the driver at the time turned on the lights to shut them up, carrying on at full speed to Kampala. By some miracle, we arrived safely. Now I know why locals sometimes take valium to knock themselves out on such journeys. I have never been so scared while travelling on the roads and will avoid travelling at night on anywhere with such bad road safety.

We arrived late into Kampala (about 11pm) after a full day's travelling. I fell down a hole while on our way to a hotel. I think half of Kampala's sewage was down there. No real damage. We stayed in a place called the Park Side Inn, which was seedy, reminding me of a disgusting Dutch coffee shop with its bright colours or a brothel.

Thoby and I stayed together in Kampala. The city is compact despite having a population of one million. It's also very multicultural despite all non-black Ugandans being given 90 days to leave the country by Idi Amin not long after independence. This policy led to the collapse of the economy at that time. We visited 2 Hindu temples and a Sikh temple. It also has Africa's only Ba'hai (spelling right?) temple and has mosques and many churches. We visited the impressive colonial 1959 National Theatre, which has encouraged arts in Uganda for a long time. Outside was an educational campaign day. Uganda has a reasonable standard of education from my perceptions (many people speaking fluent English and quite knowledgeable) and primary education is free and compulsory. The President, Museveni, abolished school uniforms as some parents couldn't afford them. The cost of uniforms was the principal obstacle for families wanting to send their children to school and still remains a problem in many African countries. I have seen many children with no buttons on their shirts or huge rips or holes in their clothes.

Kampala is relaxed, very safe given its size, and the people are really friendly, just like in all of Uganda that I saw. The city is full of boda bodas (motorbike taxis). People are all busy trying to make money some way even if they are doing the same thing as so many other people and hence make very little. In some African cities, I have seen so many people doing next to nothing. In Kampala, people are prepared to walk around in the heat to sell a handful of bottles of water in one day or to wait on a street corner to get just 2 passengers on their boda boda.

For the rest of my time in Kampala, I stayed with Alex (French) and Eric (American) at their huge house in the Kampala suburbs. Thoby did work experience for them at the Ugandan branch of an African house moving firm. They took us to expat bars, a gorgeous Italian restaurant and we stayed in the guests' wing of their house. The luxury was a shock to the system. The 4 cheese pizza at the restaurant gave me stomach cramps as I had hardly any cheese on the trip up til that point. The chance to watch DVDs and see some British news was welcome :-) I had an interesting insight into the life of expats. Alex and Eric are invited to functions at so many embassies in Kampala and truly have a lot of benefits, especially due to the low cost of living here.

Thoby and I spent about half a day at Kampala's Owino market, which is enormous. One wing is full of food and people cooking food. The central part is crammed full of people making clothes or selling second hand clothes from piles. The other end was home to more second hand clothes sellers. The clothes are from the UK and probably the USA and being sold from 30 pence to 3 pounds. Most seemed as good as new to me and many would cost a fortune in the UK. I made cheap purchases, which I was pleased with. The best thing about the market was the banter we enjoyed with so many people. At each corner, workers would wind us up and us the same to them. I could spend days in that place if I lived in Kampala. A lot of expats go the market too. One health promoter was walking around the market handing out condoms called "Lifesavers". People were happy to take them, which is great to see :-) No obvious stigma here anymore. One guy taught me about the symbolism of a "thumbs up" and a V made with 2 fingers (the peace symbol). They come from the recent General election, the first multiparty elections for some time. Museveni banned multiparty democracy some years ago but allowed all to stand as independents. He believed political parties would result in tribal politics. In 2005, the country voted to reverse this policy in a referendum. Museveni improved human rights, developed the economy and loosened the state's control of the media in the first 10 years of his Presidency in the late 80's and early 90's. The government has also been one of the only governments in Africa to bring the AIDS epidemic under control (ish) from a prevalence rate of over 30% to just 6% today. In more recent years, Museveni has started to worry the West, amending the Constitution, allowing himself to run for a 3rd term and intimidating the opposition in the 2006 elections. His main opponent, Paul Besigye, is on trial for treason and rape, which the opposition says is politically motivated.

During the campaign, Museveni supporters put their thumbs up to show their political persuasion. Besigye supporters, gave the peace symbol.

Back at Jinja, Thoby and I met up with the truck, only to find that Nick had had malaria while we'd been away (no. 13) and Martyn was currently suffering from malaria (victim no. 14). Cheri, a Canadian who had worked for a charity brightening up schools in Uganda, got on our truck here for about a month. She was a friend of Paul and Martyn - they had all stayed in Jinja for some time.
Jinja is commonly thought to be home of the source of the Nile river as the river comes out of Lake Victoria from here but scientists claim that the real source is in Burundi. ]]> Sat, 22 Apr 2006 18:21:00 EDT http://chriswilliams.tigblog.org/post/41166 http://chriswilliams.tigblog.org/post/41164 I went to Rwanda with Thoby, Andreas and Chris. We took a taxi to the Uganda/Rwanda border with a blind guy about to go to University in Rwanda! Quite impressive I thought. While I get the impression disabled people are respected in many parts of Africa, I think it is quite a hurdle for a blind person to go to University, find a job etc. Not to mention expensive!

Into Rwanda, we took another taxi (cheap) to Kigali, the capital. The car had no suspension so the few places that the road was churned up meant a fair bit of damage to the car. Like Burundi and south west Uganda, the scenery was hilly with small farms in different shades of green. Really attractive! Rwanda calls itself the country of a thousand hills.

Kigali was small given the huge population of this small country (around 8 million). The centre is set on the top of a hill and modern buildings, including some tower blocks, represent the economic growth and regeneration of the city since 1994 (aka, the time of the Rwandan genocide). The rest of the city is spread across other hills and the narrow valleys in between them. The rest of the city is typically African - mostly poor quality housing and shops, bars etc. intemingled.

We met up with Josh on the one full day that we were in Kigali. Chris and I met Josh in Uganda - his Uganda to Rwanda bus was pulled up in a police station due to an accident (and they're quite common). We met up at Hotel Mille Collines (Hotel Thousand Hills), one of the 2 main
superior hotels in Kigali. It was full of NGO and UN workers, which is unfortunate because I don't think anyone NEEDS that luxury and what a waste of money! Josh devotes his time to his business, Cards from Africa, a social business he set up with a British guy in Kigali, providing employment for orphans of which there are many in Rwanda due to the use of rape by HIV positive men as a means of wiping out Tutsis during the Rwandan genocide. I have no shame in encouraging you to
buy cards online from: http://www.cardsfromafrica.com The prices are quoted in pounds (but can pay with credit card wherever you live) and are very cheap compared to cards bought in the standard greetings card chain stores found in the UK and elsewhere. If anyone knows of shops willing to stock cards, please do let me know!

Our day in Kigali was dominated by the genocide! Josh is half Rwandan and half Ugandan and lived in Uganda during the genocide so doesn't have the same scars in his memory as many Rwandans do, allowing him to speak about the genocide with ease. We all went to the National Genocide Memorial. Outside there were attractive gardens set around some of the mass graves for those killed in Kigali. A Minister was giving a talk outside to a couple of hundred people. People still have very fresh, vivid memories of the genocide. Noone forgets the
horrors in 12 years! Inside, the museum displays told the "story" of the genocide and had skulls, personal belongings and photos of loved ones as well as videos of personal accounts, all adding a personal touch to the political history of the 100 day or so massacre. Upstairs, there were smaller exhibits on other genocides of the 20th century including:
*Holocaust
*Armenian genocide (still not recognised by the UK, USA or Turkey but was recently recognised by the EU Parliament. It's quite hypocritical of those EU countries that don't recognise the genocide when the EU together expects Turkey to recognise it as a condition for EU entry!!)
*Kosovo "war"
*Bosnian "war"
*German colonial genocide of nearly all members of one tribe in modern day Namibia.

The most touching thing for me was a display upstairs howing large black and white images of young children massacred and captions underneath listing their favourite foods, best friend, favourite game etc. which ended with method of killing, often "bludgeoned to death with a blub" or "slashed into pieces by a machete". To look at their face and then to method of killing was quite moving. Downstairs, 2 separate people were taken out wailing and screaming as their memories were coming back to them. For many, it's a huge step to go to the
memorial centre but something they want to do to show their respects or come to terms with what happened.

I can honestly say that it's perhaps one of the best "museums" I have ever been to. It was professional, to the point and respectful. I've written a summary of the Rwandan genocide at the end of the email. I strongly recommend reading this. It's shocking - not only what happened but makes you wonder how human beings can carry out such
atrocities and how the rest of the world just turned its back on
Rwanda despite knowing full well what was happening at the time. People can sometimes be so strange!

The newspapers in Rwanda are still full of genocide. We bought several and they all had articles on the genocide - personal stories, articles about the way forward after 1994, articles about investigations, memorial events etc. One article was about the Rwandan Parliament (which has the highest % of women MPs in the world at 47%) voting to open an official enquiry into the negative role of France in the genocide.

In the evening in Kigali, the centre was almost deadly silent, even at 9pm. Josh tells me this is a symptom of the genocide. People rarely eat at restaurants or cafes that are not in their neighbourhood because at one time, food was used as a means to kill off Tutsis or Hutus via poisoning and most people haven't yet rebuilt their trust. This is also the reason that there is very little street food being sold.

Rwanda has a shocking recent history but the current President, Paul Kagame, who has been in power since 1994, has done a lot to rebuild trust between the Tutsis and Hutus and is adored by the population at large. In the most recent elections, he polled around 99% of the vote. People of both ethnic origins like Kagame despite him being a minority Tutsi (the tribe that was on the receiving end during the
genocide) . They fear that if they elect someone else, the
reconstruction efforts in Rwanda will not be continued. Today, it is said that the new enemy is the one who refuses to shake hands when someone offers, i.e . anyone who refuses to make peace with the former enemy is the new enemy of the united people.

Interestingly, Kagame speaks Kirwanda (national language of Rwanda) and English, not French, as he was raised in Uganda. He has made English an official language of Rwanda, along with French, is taught in schools instead of French and it will soon become the administrative language of Rwanda. Rwanda is converting from being Francophone to Anglophone. This made things confusing when in Rwanda.
I often had to ask which language people spoke before going into conversation with them. In general, the older people speak French and the younger, English.

RWANDAN GENOCIDE
-Tanganyika, Rwanda and Burundi were once all part of the German Empire, together making Deutsch Ostafrika.
-Belgium was awarded modern day Rwanda and Burundi by the League of Nations in 1919.
-The Belgians found it easier to work with more educated people. Those people also tended to be richer. The Belgians classified any family with 10 or more cows as Tutsi and the rest as Hutu. It was with the Tutsis that the Belgians liked to work. Before the Belgians came, the people were very united.
-Hutus became resentful of the fact that they were treated as inferior to Tutsis so tribal hatred grew.
-Before Rwandan independence, the Belgian general in charge put the Hutus in power for fear of an uprising by Hutus. Belgium subsequently encouraged Hutus to establish themselves as the dominant tribe.
-In the late 1980s, the Hutu government introduced heavy propaganda to assert Hutu dominance and encourage hatred of all Tutsis.
-1990 to 1994, Tutsis were occasionally rounded up and killed. In the meantime, the West did nothing other than send peacekeepers. France stood by the Rwandan government diplomatically, politically and militarily. In 1993, France sold arms to the Rwandan government despite the massacres. (This is a direct quote from the memorial centre).
-The Rwandan Hutu government was training Interhamwe militia at a fast rate, planning to use them to slaughter Tutsis. A prominent insider sent a telegram to the UN in New York via UN peacekeepers. The UN acknowledged the telegram but took no action.
-Tutsi rebels shot down the plane of the Rwandan President as he was flying into Kigali airport with the Burundian President. Both Presidents died. The genocide began almost immediately as the Interhamwe massacring Tutsis, as had been planned by the deceased President. The Vice President was shot dead within 24 hours before she even had chance to address the nation. From here on, the genocide was in full swing, killing around 800,000 people in around 100 days. People killed their best friends, family members etc. The killing was relentless and barbaric. Some people ran to churches for safety but many Ministers who allowed Tutsis to shelter in their churches, actually killed the people once the churches were full! People used whatever means possible to kill. There were a number of heroes who refused to kill and instead, hid people in their homes, underground etc. One traditional witch Doctor hid Tutsis in her house and told soldiers who came for them that she would cast a spell on them if they came in!
-The only foreign forces to come into Rwanda before the end of the genocide were French troops who created a safe haven in the south of the country, which served only to shelter Hutu instigators of the genocide. On their way to the south, French soldiers told Tutsis sheltering in hills that it was safe to come out. They did so and were killed!
-A Tutsi, Paul Kagame, led an invasion of Rwanda from Ugandan soil with the support of refugees and Rwandans living in Uganda. They stopped the genocide by force and Kagame was elected President.
-Many countried have since apologised for failure to act in Rwanda. Kofi Annan has claimed his share of the responsibility for the failure to act. The Head of the UN Peacekeepers in Rwanda at the start of the genocide said he needed 6000 troops to stop the chaos. 5500 troops were already there but the UN Security Council ordered their withdrawal despite acknowledging what was happening in Rwanda at the time and strongly criticising it. The Western media described the genocide as "tribal infighting" or "civil war" at the time. If only one side was fighting, that's a little off the mark don't you think? Was the Holocaust a civil war too?]]> Thu, 20 Apr 2006 18:19:00 EDT http://chriswilliams.tigblog.org/post/41164 http://chriswilliams.tigblog.org/post/41163
BURUNDI
Burundi is a desperately poor, small country, just out of a civil war where over 300,000 people have died. All sides have signed up to peace except one rebel group. The British government advises against travel to Burundi as although there has been a peace agreement and former rebels have been elected into government, one rebel group remains outside the agreement. The British advice was laughable to
the people I spoke to in Rwanda who really did know a thing or two and we took their advice after careful consideration. The British government has to be strict as they can never afford to underestimate the dangers in any country. The night time curfew that used to exist in Bujumbura was lifted in April 2006, when I was there, suggesting an improvement in the situation.

Leaving the truck in Uganda, I hadn't intended to go to Burundi, just Rwanda but when buying our tickets to Kampala when in Rwanda, I noticed a bus to Burundi, which we didn't realise existed due to the civil war there. We quickly rearranged our plans and decided we could squeeze in q brief "taster" visit to Bujumbura, the capital of Burundi. We were still a little wary of the security situation even when going to Bujumbura so were delighted to see that there was a
Canadian missionary on our bus and 4 foreign missionaries on another, larger bus. This suggests that we not so crazy to go there.

Entering Burundi, there was an abundance of children in filthy clothes who ran to the road on seeing our minibus approaching, energetically begging for money. They really did look poor and while people try it on in most countries, asking for money from white people, these kids did not see that there were any white people on the bus, yet they begged as if their lifes depended on it anyway. Further inland, the begging was less obvious and the children weren't quite as desperate
looking Was an alarming welcome to Burundi where people are poor even by African standards. A little book I bought tells me that the GNP per capita in Burundi was just 90 US dollars as of 2003, the lowest in the world. This doesn't take into account what people get for free though, e.g. food they grow.

The scenery was beautiful and similar to the that of Rwanda and South Western Uganda - rolling green hills with smaller farms marked out by hedges. Going through villages, the people, especially women were very colourfully dressed - fluourescent orange seemed to be a popular colour! As we approached Bujumbura, we descended from the mountains
down to the city, which sits on the side of Lake Tanganyika, a large lake and the second deepest in the world, apparently. In the distance were the mountains of D R Congo. There was not a single police road block (very common in almost all of Africa) on the way to Bujumbura. This shows how different is the reality from what the British Foreign Office describes on its website! The road was churned up in a couple of places to slow vehicles down. Armed soldiers on the side of the
road simply watched vehicles pass by.

First thing to do in Bujumbura was to change money. There is an abundance of money changers on the streets despite the fact there are no tourists at all! I think locals often changed money into dollars for their own sake to ensure their money keeps some value. Others may get paid in dollars and so need to change into Burundian francs for their own day to day use. Burundian francs are quite funny - there are huge notes worth 2 dollars and tiny monopoly money type notes for lower value notes, e.g. - 20 francs (2 US cents).

In a local cafe, we met the owner, Aloys, quite an elderly man who is a teacher and also an advisor to the Burundi Ministry of Education. He is intelligent, speaks fluent French and quite good English too. He took us to the Lake, which was pretty cool at sunset. I can't say the same about the beach, which was pretty dirty and now a home to a few homeless people who have migrated from rural areas to the city. I dare say, they will make themselves some poor quality home some time. Alternatively, they could have been mentally ill people - rejected so often in African societies. He took us to a zoo too, which we didn't go in (don't want to fund mistreatment of animals in poor quality zoos) and some kind of open air museum in the same complex. There, there were some traditional buildings and noticeably, some Burundi drums. I saw Burundi drummers in Scotland last summer - quite amazing energetic performers! I tried to see some performers in Bujumbura too but the practice I did find was cancelled due to rain in the practice hall! Aloys took us to meet his family at his large home. His wife runs the Burundi national lottery and his 3 children go to secondary school or University. All very friendly.

The following day, we walked around the central market - a colourful, vibrant place. Thoby stupidly left money in his open top pocket. Someone pickpocketed 5000 francs (5 dollars) from there. He knew pretty much straight away - untoward behaviour of others is often noticeable at the time of pickpocketing. So Thoby was annoyed that he left an open goal for pickpocketers! We also met an interesting "Cypriot" guy that day. He was perhaps 65, living in Bujumbura with
his brother but was born in Sudan. He is of Cypriot descent but his parents went to Sudan in attempt to make some money. The Cypriot baker as we call him was a friendly guy and the only non-black person we saw working in Bujumbura out of a UN vehicle. He says he loves it in Africa and will never go to live in Europe. The people are far friendlier in Africa, he claims. He cited an immigrant teenager in Belgium being stabbed to death recently for refusing to hand over his
MP3 player, as something that would not happen in Burundi. I bet it wouldn't! Our Sudanese-Cypriot baker gave me a CD of Burundi drumming too. So happy about that!

Bujumbura is full of UN vehicles. There are 5500 UN troops stationed in Burundi as peacekeepers and many UN workers in Bujumbura. This is perhaps the highest concentration of UN workers I have seen in Africa so far, although if I went to Eastern D R Congo, I'm sure I would see far more.

We ate lunch at a local place, primarily for male labourers. The place was dingy, hot, fly-infested and unfriendly. There was no welcome for us there - begging, snarls and unfriendly laughs come to mind. Not the ultimate African experience I am looking for! Nevertheless, beans, sweet potato and some spinach-like green leaf vegetable is healthy, even with the flies.
It rained pretty hard in the afternoon, flooding a lot of the streets as the sewers couldn't quite cope. Thoby and I were walking about just after the rains. At one point, where the entire street was flooded, locals were very excited to see us as they were sure we would not walk through the puddle and therefore willing to pay for a piggy back. How wrong they were!

One another observation about Burundi --> price of imported goods was huge! A box of Weetabix breakfast cereals was 10 dollars! We couldn't afford anything at all in the "supermarkets". ]]> Sat, 15 Apr 2006 18:18:00 EDT http://chriswilliams.tigblog.org/post/41163 http://chriswilliams.tigblog.org/post/41162 As I explained, we got a visa waiver for Zambia, saving us a lot of money! The immigration officials pretended not to know of the fax as usual in an attempt to take our visa money but not give it to the government. They can just put the visa waiver form on the books! Interestingly, the first billboard in Zambia read "Welcome to Zambia. Join our fight against corruption". We drove through Mosi-o-Tunya (meaning "smoke that thunders", referring to Victoria Falls) National Park - more animals visible from the road.

We spent most of our time in Zambia in Livingstone. Stopping there briefly, I met a guy who I was later told had HIV/AIDS. I think he was suffering from malaria and perhaps TB as well (hence keeping a rude distance due to the latter).

We stayed at a campsite called Grubby's Grotto, the former house of the British Governor of Rhodesia. Grubby is so called because of his appearance. Grubby, the owner, is not the smartest of people and has a voice that has become croaky due to a few thousand cigarettes. Nevertheless, he is a really kind-hearted chap and took a liking to us. He let us get our own drinks from the bar and mark our own tab. This site is popular with trucks (we're on the tourist trail now :-( ) and no others were allowed to serve themselves drinks! He told us that he found us different - not like the people on other trucks on shorter trips. The "Trans" mentality is something we have grown.

Victoria Falls is perhaps the adventure capital of Africa. I took a microlight flight over Victoria Falls - that's a small tricycle-like thing with a small engine and paraglide-like wing that somehow flies. From the air was the first time I saw the Falls and the Gorge downstream, known as Batoka Gorge. I was really impressed. The Falls were longer than I thought at 1.7km (1.2km in Zambia, 500m in Zimbabwe). Due to the huge drop, the water creates a lot of spray. The spray plus the sun makes a rainbow in the Falls. During the wet season, as much as 900 million litres of water can flow over the Falls per second!

Some other guys did a 111m bungee jump from the iron bridge connecting Zambia and Zimbabwe. Some others did rafting. I joined them on their jet boat afterwards. To meet them, we drove through some villages, all part of Mukuni tribal land. The King of the Mukunis is Harvard educated former Chief Executive of BP Zambia. He threw in this job when he was called upon to be the King of the 9000 Mukunis. I saw his palace, a modest white-painted small concrete house, which stood out among the traditional homes.

The rest of our time in Zambia was mainly transiting through. We stopped in Lusaka, the capital city, for a short time. It was one of the first capitals where a multicultural presence was obvious. White and Asian people live side by side with the indigenous Zambians. It's a fairly Western city in the centre. Perhaps that is best represented by the glue sniffers congregating around our truck?!

One bush camp was near to a traditional home. I visited the people there with a couple of others and spent an hour or so with the family there. They grow tobacco for income, which they dry in special huts with a concrete tunnel running through and a fire in the tunnel to create heat. Perhaps one of the first rural dwellings I've seen in Africa to have chickens. The family has 10 chickens to produce eggs and occasionally meat. The family also eats a lot of maize, pumpkin and okra as staple foods.]]> Wed, 05 Apr 2006 18:18:00 EDT http://chriswilliams.tigblog.org/post/41162 http://chriswilliams.tigblog.org/post/41161 Angola has a small enclave, sandwiched between Congo and the
Democratic Republic of Congo and was our next stop due to it being the
best route given the roads. It was the 1st place where noone on the
truck could speak the local language (Portuguese). The price of
commodities also increased substantially. Angola is a high cost of
living.

Cabinda province is pretty and still very colonial in flavour with
colourful Portuguese-looking churches and buildings. It was quite
wealthy in the town of Cabinda and the villages appeared slightly
better off than in many other countries. Cabinda is tiny but it
possesses 90% of Angola's oil off shore. Platforms and flares litter
the view from Cabinda's coast. One oil storage depot was surrounded
by a double barbed-wire fence with signs warning of land mines in
between them. Most oil workers just stay in their compounds and go to
and from work through fear of abduction by Cabinda freedom fighters
fighting for independence. Military presence is high in the province.
Chevron (American) and Sonangol (Angolan national oil company) were
the main drillers in Angola. Locals assumed we were Americans and on
2 separate occasions, wanted to know if the rapper, Tupac is dead. He
is popular in Cabinda and the nasty rumour he is dead was upsetting!

Angola has had more war than any other country in the past 40 years. It has only had peace and stability since 2002 and is well off the tourist trail, making it another country that was fascinating to visit. We spent over 2 weeks there.

ANGOLA
To put into context what I write about my time in Angola, it is useful to know about the recent history of Angola so read my summary if you have time...

History
-Uprisings against colonialism started in 1961 but were violently crushed by the Portuguese occupiers.
-There were 3 groups fighting for independence in what became the long independence war:
1. FNLA, supported by Northern tribes, Zaire and anti-Communist Western countries.
2. MPLA, a Marxist group transcending tribes, supported by Cuba, USSR and pro-Soviet countries.
3. Unita, supported by the USA, Portuguese right wing and apartheid South Africa.
The three groups fought each other, despite all having the same objective of independence.
-Independence was given in 1975 after the fall of the Fascist regime in Portugal, ending 400 years of colonialism.
-The Angolan transitional government collapsed almost immediately and the country ended up in a civil war. Half a million Portuguese were airlifted in the biggest airlift in history. Downtown Luanda (the capital city) became something like a ghost town.
-The Angolan civil war became a cold war battleground. The MPLA controlled most of Angola by 1976 and became the governing party. Unita became the opposition party.
-US oil companies Chevron and Gulf continued to work in Angola, even in MPLA-controlled areas. This meant that Cuban soldiers often guarded US oil interests from US-armed rebels!!!
-At the end of the cold war, a peace accord was signed by both sides in 1991. Unita lost the 1992 election that the UN said was free and fair. Unita went back to war. New oil and diamond discoveries provided a new source of income for both sides.
-UN sanctions on Unita diamonds in 1998 led to their finances being depleted and they lost control of the countryside.
-The Unita leader was killed by the MPLA government in February 2002. A peace accord was signed in April 2002. Unita officials were absorbed (or bought off?) into the Angolan government and army.

My experiences
The first place we stayed in in Angola was outside a school being constructed (common sight in Angola!) in a village not far from the northern border with D R Congo.
Given Angola was the first country I could not speak the European language (which is Portuguese), I thought I may enjoy Angola less than some of the other countries. First night, this proved to be untrue. I met Joao, the traditional chief of the village we stayed in. His 97 year-old Grandmother would be the chief but she is too old and weak now. Joao was a refugee in Zaire up until the late 1980s so he spoke good French. I was pleased to see that he and the people of the village are so optimistic about the future. I guess after decades of waiting for peace, the people are bound to be enthusiastic about the future. Joao set up a fruit cooperative for the people of the village, providing them with a much needed source of income.

Travelling through Northern Angola came with a pest problem! Tsetse flies, a little larger than normal flies, cause sleeping sickness, which can be fatal. Unfortunately, they are attracted to moving vehicles and given that we have no windows, we had a lot to contend with at any one time. We passed a fair amount of time some days slapping them with flip flops, often splashing blood somewhere around the truck! Most villages have a least one "device" to kill Tsetses..they look like the one on this page: http://www.itdg.org/?id=special_appeal_tsetse Scroll down to see. Tsetses are attracted to blue and black, hence the colour of the trap. They hang from trees.

The first town we went through was N'zeto, almost derelict. It clearly had something resembling an economy once, given some fancy looking buildings, a dual carriageway through the town etc. but now, everything is crumbling and people are living in the previously grand buildings with no windows, struggling to get by. Civil war and economic collapse led to problems here! We met a crazy Portuguese expat here as he is one of the few people with a water source and we needed to refill jerry cans. He runs a seafood business and gave us a few free langoustines.

Next was Luanda, the large capital of Angola. It was built for 0.5 million people but during the civil war, it has swelled to 3.5 million. The drive into Luanda and the time I spent there will probably remain vivid in my mind in years to come due to the inequality between rich and poor. On the edge of the city was industry, all fairly new. Closer to the centre, the slums became quite a sight! Slums filled the top of the ridge overlooking much of the city. Rubbish from the slums littered the side of the ridge like nothing I have ever seen. Children scoured the rubbish, looking for anything of value. The open air sewers at the bottom of the ridge had fluorescent green water. A couple of people on our truck who have visited favelas in Rio de Janeiro said that the quality of housing in Luanda was much worse. I didn't think there could be much worse than that! As we approached the city centre, the modern, shiny skyscrapers were obvious and provided quite a disturbing contrast. I was certainly looking at the poorest people I had seen on the trip so far. The high prices of food and other commodities makes it almost impossible for the poor to live in Angola. So many people fled to Luanda during the war and there is still not enough infrastructure to engage them all in work. Back in the countryside, they can't farm their old fields as around 20 million land mines litter Angola. Angola has 70,000 land mine victims. Luanda is the world's 4th most expensive city. Even the rich have to watch their money. A 5km taxi journey costs 35 US dollars in Luanda (and that is the official set rate), a burger and chips in a fast food joint costs 10 dollars!

Driving into the centre of the city, the economic vibrancy of the at least part of this city became apparent. The centre is set around a beautiful bay. The busy port (supplying most of Angola's food) and oil refineries occupied one part of the bay. The middle of the palm tree-lined bay was the economic heart - the rich drove their posh cars from office to office. Modern skyscrapers stacked up from the front of the bay up the hill behind it. The contrast from poor slums to rich extravagence was stunning - just 100m of nothing separated the 2 areas. Security guards and police officers were everywhere, a sign that there is something of a crime problem.

We stayed on the car park of the exclusive yacht club at no cost (thank goodness) with a wonderful view of the city. The city is almost beautiful to look at. The landscape aids the city enormously; the attractive design of the economic centre was nice to stare it with the slums overlooking all of that like the bad conscience of capitalism. I really enjoyed being in the city but the real poverty of the majority was just so disturbing and I almost felt guilty for enjoying being there but the necessity to eat in the cafes of the poor etc. due to cost meant that I supported their economy at least.

Jamie, my Northern Irish travel companion went to hospital when we arrived in Luanda. He had became really dehydrated due to sitting in the sun all day for days in a row, in the wind as the truck moves along, using no sun cream and drinking very little. He stayed 3 days in hospital but wasn't diagnosed with anything. They even gave him X-rays and ultrasound scans, clearly to bump up the bill for the insurance company, which stood at over 3000 dollars in the end. Grant, our driver came down with malaria, about the 14th time for him, case no. 6 in our group. Paul, one of the "brothers" who flew from Cameroon to Kenya to meet their girlfriends, came down with malaria not long after arriving in Nairobi. That's case no. 7.

Walking around Luanda provided plenty of interest. There were a lot of shops for the wealthy, many run by Portuguese expats. A lot of expats are working in business in Luanda. The poor come in from the slums, trying to make a buck by selling goods on the street. I walked through one slum area with Andreas and Thoby. Certainly not common for Westerners to do that, I am told but still, the people were not shocked. I think Angolans are quite difficult to shock. They have been through a lot! The homes were small and makeshift, made from scrap metal and wood, as well as tarpauling. The area did have a small market on the floor in one part of the slums. As we walked up hill, an area had been totally demolished to make way for new commercial development. Prime land close to the city centre is valuable. On reaching the top of the hill, we found the Brazilian and South African embassies looking down over the slums. Maybe looking at slums makes them feel at home? Further along is a Presidential home with a raised wall in one part so that the slums are not visible from the house. Maybe the President, Dos Santos, likes to look out over his oil. Angola is the 3rd exporter of oil in Africa, providing much income for the country, although he unfortunately creams off about one eighth of all the oil money for himself. Noone really knows as the oil income is so badly accounted. In a country that ranks as the 2nd poorest in the world (after Afghanistan) on the UN human development index 2004, this is a tragedy. A few years ago, it was also said by the UN to be the worst place in the world to grow up in as a child.

For myself and Thoby, we could just not stop looking over the city from the top of the hill, just trying to somehow rationalise in our minds how supposedly intelligent and caring humans could screw things up so badly.

Further along the top of the hill was the US embassy, a huge, grand looking building that looks like I would imagine Fort Knox. Next door was the tiny French embassy, needing a lick of paint. This shows who really has influence here! When one pays for a visa for Angola, it is the same price fore all Westerners but while the Americans get 2 years for that price, everyone else gets the standard 2 months. The US, along with Portugal and Brazil have a lot of influence here.

On the way down into the city centre again, we walked down steps through a small park. Running up and down the steps were Angolan Olympic athletes. We met the Angolan 200 metres champion, training for the next Olympics. With no money and a lot of will power, I respect anyone from a developing country who does well in Olympics and other such grand sporting events.

After that, we had beers in a square and chatted to a guy who showed us the tower block he lived in next to the square as we were intrigued. That was a good decision! The block was vibrant, almost a town in itself. There were several shops inside (operated out of someone's flat mostly), people socialised in the stairwells and landings. The people traffic was busy on the stairs due to so many people living in the block. With 10 to 20 people per flat, that makes around 2000 in the whole tower block. The views from the top floor were awesome - the city at twilight with its blue sky and lights coming on was impressive.

Another day, the three of us sat in an outdoor Western-style cafe in a small London-style green square, almost hidden from the city surrounding us. A young shoe shiner wanted to clean our shoes . We all thought we should support him (feeling sad about the inequality in the city) and debated about whose shoes should be cleaned because none of us wanted cleaning. Thoby loves his dirty flip flops for the street cred the locals give him! Myself and Andreas ended up getting the lad to clean some dirt of the inside of our shoes as an excuse to give him money and frankly, to feel better about ourselves for splashing out a dollar for a coffee :-S

The same night, I went out with Thoby, Cade and Jason to a few local bars. For quite some time, lets say! We ended up being stopped 3 times by police (once by the same officers in one hour) asking to see our visas. I mean, we look like terrorists or spies. One time, we were almost hurled into the back of a police van to be taken to the station. They were angry that we had remembered to take our passports and had valid visas because it meant they had to work harder for a bribe. We managed to wriggle out of that one. A few years ago, the Angolan police were known for serious corruption and the armed rapid reaction force was known for drunkenness and shooting civilians on the spot in the name of fun. Since the end of the civil war in 2002, all has improved. I forgot to mention that a very drunk police officer climbed through the narrow window of our truck at one police checkpoint in the DR Congo, again, after a bribe. He got us all off the truck, confiscated our shovel for pooing in the bush that someone had and got really annoyed when I sat down on the floor to show we were in no rush and passive.

Jamie left hospital with the insurance company picking up his 3000 plus dollar bill, having had X-rays and ultrasound scans for some unknown reason - perhaps just trying to earn themselves a bit more money? They failed to diagnose Jamie with anything but he recovered anyway with rest. Jamie was never informed of the results of a test that they sent to Johannesburg. They had his email address but never bothered to tell him anything.

Leaving Luanda, we passed through some rich suburbs - all the homes had high walls with barbed wired, CCTV cameras and security guards. You can make your own interpretations about that. Out of the city for maybe 300km, the sides of the road were littered with drinks cans. I mean seriously littered - we must have past several tens of thousands of cans. Unlike the rest of Africa, Angola does not use a reusable bottle system for drinks.

The scenery became more arid and dry, the further south we went. There were a few places where we saw salt collection in action. Areas of land were flooded with salt water and then blocked off with small mounds so that the water can evaporate and salt is left. After a climb in altitude, the climate became greener and a little hilly. There were pretty traditional villages. We passed through a minefield clearance zone and a Halo Trust office before we bush camped. The Halo Trust is a charity Princess Diana supported before she died. She made a famous visit to Angolan mine clearance fields despite advice not to go.

The scenery then became more arid again and we travelled along rocky mountainous roads, which gave the truck a hard test but it coped well! There was no traffic on the road at all. Apparently, the road hasn't been used for around 30 years. Almost noone lived in the area as water was seriously scarce. We did see one small girl running along the road with a machete in hand. That was all the life there pretty much apart from noisy insects.

That night, my tent partner Chris, or Little Christ as he is known (I am Big Christ!), was sick several times and had a fever. I had stomach cramps.

We continued along the same road. The area was still barren but attractive. Soon, we were on the flat and eventually on tarmac roads except where the road was diverted due to land subsiding and the road falling away. Chris and I were still not well, I had a low temperature (36 degrees) and stomach cramps with no appetite. Chris had a high temperature.

The following morning, far from a Doctor in war-torn Angola, Chris started malaria treatment - Quinimax pills. He was case no. 8. I developed bad diarrhoea - the kind where you just can't hold much in for long! Others were feeling a little rough in one way or another too.

We were soon on a brand new road, heading to the next city, Lubango. Amelia suddenly turned really ill, just half an hour after being in the most jovial mood of anyone. She was sick and had a high fever.

We neared Lubango and passed through some beautiful forested mountains, a waterfall and attractive rocky areas. Amelia developed convulsions (like an epileptic fit) due to the high fever. We all froze in worry and we got to Lubango within about 20 minutes and took her into the public hospital. She was lucky we were so close to a hospital for the first time in about 3 days. They gave her adrenaline injections, I believe to stop the convuslions. Her malaria tests showed up negative 3 times but the Doctor diagnosed her with malaria anyway and the tests often produce false negatives. So Amelia is case no. 9.

The hospital was seriously depressing. Everywhere was white, pretty silent and everyone had a terribly somber face. People seemed like zombies or something. I think Prozac should be given on entry to that place! Five of us got malaria tests. Two showed up positive the following morning - Chris and myself. I was case no. 10. I took artesunate pills over 5 days, which nipped the malaria in the bud. I had perhaps as mild symptoms as possible for malaria. Diarrhoea, stomach cramps and fatigue was all for me. No serious fever. Four more people had malaria tests at the hospital. None showing up positive but Maree had a lot of symptoms and they diagnosed her with malaria anyway (case no. 11). Amelia's treatment, overnight stay and 9 other people's malaria tests and time with a Doctor and nurses was all FREE! This is because the national oil company, Sonangol pays for the treatment of everyone at this and a few other hospitals! Good, eh?

One particular nurse saw that Amelia was in the hospital and given Amelia is white, she called a Canadian nurse who is part of a team building another hospital. The Canadian came in and told Amelia that she should stay with a Dutch couple she works with. They know many Doctors so they can visit her for free. Amelia and Maree stayed at the home of a wonderful Dutch couple and got lots of attention from well-trained Doctors.

We filled up the jerry cans at the site of the hospital that the Canadian lady and Dutch couple are involved in building just outside Lubango. The hospital buildings there are comparable with anything Western. The 3 work for Samaritans Relief. The hospital is to open as soon as the government gives authorisation. Noone will be turned away - people will be means tested. The poorest will get free treatment. In time, the hospital will be huge. There are plans for a University college to train Doctors as there is no such facility in Angola. A helicopter pad is eventually expected too! Three such hospitals are running in Sudan, paid for by Samaritans Relief but they were recently ransacked by armed gunmen.

Looking over Lubango is a statue of Christ, similar to that one in Rio, Brazil, and Lisbon, Portugal. The 3 statues face different directions but all point to a spot in the Atlantic Ocean. The Lubango statue is perhaps one of the less visited, don't you think? I have some good pictures of the statue and the 2 Christs on the truck (Africans have problems saying "Chris" so we end up being Christ!).

We tried to depart from Lubango once Amelia was much better but 2 hours down the road and she developed convulsions again. Back we went. Sam, the son of a vet, knows how to inject cows. He requested some adrenaline from the hospital in case of another problem. He jabbed Amelia in the backside, bringing her round. We had no choice but to leave her at the home of the Dutch couple and Amelia flew to Nairobi to rest there until we arrived in 2 weeks.

Leaving Lubango again, Frank came down with malaria. That's no. 12.

After Angola, we wanted to enter Zambia but the land mines in the east of Angola are many and it is very easy for a vehicle to veer off the poor roads and blow up. Didn't sound too good to us. This is why we headed to Namibia. The roads to Namibia were poor. At one lunchtime, we stopped right by where hundreds of bombs and shells had been burned in the aftermath of the war. Playtime for some! It was there that I came across some young cattle herders with whom I communicated with expressions if you get what I mean. I took a photo of 4 of the 5. They were nervous as they did not really know what I was doing even though I gave off a good impression :-S Seeing the digital photo made them ecstatic. The 5th boy soon wanted a photo. I also gave them a toy car that cost me about 30 pence. They were so grateful I think they were near to crying.

Another 50km or so down the road, we came across a field with around 20 former army vehicles: tanks, armourmed personnel carriers and amphibians. More play time! Some people were now living in this area, almost using the vehicles as a wind break. I camped right next to a tank that night too.

Before entering Namibia, we stopped in a place that had a cinema (building that plays DVDs with a small entry fee) made from used glass bottles cemented together! Innovative! Last stop for us was to fill all 3 diesel tanks we have - a total of 1000 litres. At 26 pence per litre, it's very cheap. In 2 years, the fuel cost to do the Trans Africa trip has overall doubled.

]]> Sat, 25 Mar 2006 18:15:00 EST http://chriswilliams.tigblog.org/post/41161 http://chriswilliams.tigblog.org/post/41158 "We advise against all but essential travel to the Congo outside the
main cities of Brazzaville and Pointe Noire" is the current advice on
travel to the Congo by the British government. This invalidates most
travel insurance policies but we all got special permission to be
covered as long as we give our route to the insurance company and
register with the British Embassy.

Congo has had some troubled recent history, which has led to much
corruption and a slide towards anarchy, especially as policemen and
soldiers were not always paid. They would go about making their money
through corruption instead. Things are much improved now but it is
still known for police, customs and soldiers to take whatever they
want from your vehicle for example. We keep our luggage under our
seats. We used spare seats to screw down a wooden board underneath
where we kept our cameras and alcohol. We claimed the board to be a
floor due to the presence of the diesel tank underneath when searched.

On arrival in Congo, it was raining a lot, making the mud roads very
slippery and hence quite dangerous as the road is not always flat - it
wouldn't be too hard to slide into a bank. We went a short distance
and arranged to camp in a village. The reaction from the locals was
one of surprise. White people coming through their village is an
extremely rare occurrence. We knew all of the tourists in the area at
the time as people tend to stay in the same place when overlanding in
central Africa (everyone looks at the same website for advice). Only 2
overlanding trucks have been through the area in the past few years.
Meanwhile, there are mor like 2 per day crossing into Kenya for
example. The locals were friendly and fascinated by us - something we
are very much used to.

I chatted to several people in the village, including:
*Gervys, the teacher. He is an intelligent man and the only English
speaker in the village. We gave him some literature in English because
he never gets the chance to read anything in English. He was also
frustrated with the lack of materials to help him teach. He is
passionate about his profession but he is pretty much alone, trying to
prop up education in that area. The school was brick-built with
wooden benches, holes in the roof, letting rain in. The only teaching
aid was a black board.

*School boy (forgot his name), aged 15. He offered me some gazelle
that he is living off for the week. He has chunks of gazelle on brown
paper, which he keeps in a cupboard in the corner of his room. He
wanted to sell it to us as he knew we had no fresh food (we have
tinned food to deal with those times).

*Gildas. Intelligent guy and friend of the teacher. He told me that
the local MP, to get re-elected, bought his village among many others
in the constituency, a huge satellite dish. In this village, it stuck
out like a sore thumb. It had been given to the bar owner and the
community comes to watch TV when they like. Gildas was furious that
the MP abused the "lack of intelligence" of most of the population to
win votes. It's not as though times are good when the school roof has
holes in it and the road is so poor that only about 1 truck per day
uses the road in each direction. To get to a hospital, one has to
wait for a truck and hitch a lift, long distance.

Gildas also told me about the civil war that blighted Congo. This is
all his personal account and is one side of the story.
1992 - Congo elected Lissouba, a Southerner. Gildas believes things
started to get better and address the lack of investment in the south
after years of domination by Northerners. Lissouba looked after
Congolese interests instead of those of oil companies.

1997 - Sassou-Nguesso seized power in a coup in 1997. Gildas claims
Sassou, a Northerner, was supported in his coup by Gabon and France!
Quite a claim! I do not know whether this is true. French and
Gabonese companies supporting Sassou's political campaign might be
more true! Elf oil company was accused of helping Sassou who looks
after Elf's interests. Elf's Chief Executive and 37 top officials
were tried in Paris in 1993 due to corruption and creaming off profits
for themselves.

There was civil war in 1993 (Sassou's militia fought against Lissouba
taking oil profits for himself), 1997 (due to the coup) and 1999 to
2001. There is now peace in every region as the Southerners have a
minister just for themselves within the cabinet. If a Southerner
became President again, the Northerners would get a minister. Every
region except the Pool region accept the settlement. The Pool people
are supported militarily by people of the same tribe over the border
in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Now, it seems peace for the Pool
region could also be reached. We did not need to travel through the
Pool region so went into entirely peaceful areas only, hence the
British government's advise being a little too cautious. The
Congolese laughed when I explained the advice to them. The political situation is still not perfect though. In the 2002 elections, Sassou held elections that were described as "seriously flawed" by international observers as they were so rigged. Sassou told people "Vote for me or hell" referring to the alternative to electing him was another bloody war!

At the customs office that we were obliged to go to the following day,
there was a truck search. One officer found the camera box of 2
brothers from our trip who flew to Kenya to meet their girlfriends.
They wanted to know where the camera is and were quite mad to not find
it. Explaining that it's in Kenya was not good enough for them!

The landscape as we made progress into Congo consisted of light green
rolling hills that remind me of parts of Wales or England. Further
in, the surroundings were forested. Logging trucks were a menace to
us in that area as their brakes failed on dangerous mud roads that
went up and down through the mountains or in one case, stalled and
rolled backwards down the hill somewhat. One passenger truck had 2
workers walking next to it with blocks to put under the wheels in case
of roll back. The truck was so bad that it could only move at walking
pace.

One bush camp was near a river (Niarey). As usual, we attracted an
audience of locals, who congregate around us, depite the fact we are a
km or so from any home, and stare for hours on end, discussing among
themselves how we live. They would all be glued to people who would
come with beers or soft drinks from the truck - a luxury they have to
save for, often. As usual, it was just me talking to them. One boy
had a scooby doo t-shirt but had no idea what scooby doo is. Clothes
come from the West en masse it seems, given the words you see on
clothes all over Africa. Locals would tell me that they "need" beer
or "need" a cigarette. I certainly had none to share with them and
would object to their word "need". I can't go begging friends to give
things to them. This is a common occurrence and hurts because you
know it's unjust that they are so poor but simply cannot give to
everyone who asks, especially those you don't know, i.e. people who
you have shared just a few sentences with. Africans have little
privacy. Everyone in each community know all about everyone else. It
is absolutely fine for them to go to observe what others are doing, in
this case, us. In this situation, it is frustrating they luxuries are
under their nose but they can't have them. If we weren't there, their
evening would not have been spent thinking about what they do not have
but enjoying themselves with friends, despite lack of money. I try to
lure people away from our truck if I see them set on staring for hours
on end.

Congolese children on previous days had run after the truck for up to
3 kilometres, with their hand out, desperate for a gift. People in
every (no exaggeration) village, held their hands out and normally
shouted "money" or gestured for a cigarette or beer.

It was in this village that a villager killed a 2-3 metre long snake
in the bush and brought it on to the road. They intended to eat it
later.

The only city we visited in Congo was Pointe Noire, the economic
capital and coastal city. The final part of our journey there was on
the Brazzaville to Pointe Noire road. It was busy and horrendous.
The mud road, the main road between the country's 2 principal cities,
was full of holes and huge puddles as trucks came along spluttering,
loaded full of passengers standing up in the back.

Pointe Noire had little obvious wealth given it is the economic
capital. It was full of poor plus a few people benefiting from the
off-shore oil industry and some Lebanese business people trying to
benefit from a hoped improvement in the economy in time. We stayed in
the car park of the yacht club for 2 nights. I walked around the city
with Thoby and Andreas, meeting many friendly people who were very
curious what we were doing. We were targeted by pickpocketers in the
market but were warned about them and being very used to being weary,
we spotted the people on both occasions. The 3 of us work together
well, are assertive, streetwise and are aware of scams and a lot of
tactics to lead people into situations putting people in danger.

Among the more "different" people we met in Pointe Noire include the
national rock and roll dancing champion who calls himself God, and
teenage prostitutes following us around.]]> Fri, 10 Mar 2006 18:12:00 EST http://chriswilliams.tigblog.org/post/41158 http://chriswilliams.tigblog.org/post/41159 The first thing that struck me when entering Gabon was the prevalence
of posters of the President, Africa's longest serving leader, Omar
Bongo, who has been in power since 1967. The posters on people's
homes were from the 2005 Presidential election. Bongo, originally
from Congo (a border town now part of Gabon) runs a stable, rich
country, which is quite the opposite to other Central African
countries, which have had more strife than any other region of Africa
since independence. The only civil unrest in Gabon was around 1990
when oil prices were low, hitting this oil rich country pretty hard.
Multiparty democracy was introduced. There was some fraud in
elections but there is genuine opposition allowed now and Bongo was
reelected in free and fair elections in 2005.

Gabon has a lot of oil for a country of just 1.4 million people of
which over half are immigrants from other parts of Africa and Western
countries. In Libreville, the capital, a lot of Western oil workers
live the high life and speed around the streets in luxury 4x4s. It is
also an important country for France and is well within the French
sphere of influence as Elf, a French company, extracts much of
Gabonese oil. Elf has been involved in much corruption with the
Gabonese government. There were famous Paris court cases a few years
ago, which caused a stir in France but in Gabon, noone really blinked
an eyelid.

My time in Gabon was spent in the capital, Libreville, and in the
provinces, which consisted almost entirely of rainforest. The
provincial rainforest scenery was attractive and teeming with wildlife
of which we saw and heard a small amount. Again, there were plenty of
live, dead and dried dead monkeys. Logging is a major industry for
Gabon as well as its rainforests have been relatively untouched until
recent years. The provincial people live in traditional housing as in
other African countries but the people appear to be slightly better
off than others. Everyone seemed to be well-fed, had no holes in
their clothes etc. but its hard to say without actually speaking to
them and looking at statistics to find out! I am aware that the oil
money doesn't filter through a great deal to people outside of the
Libreville elite but just before election time, Bongo goes on a
national spending spree, building more health centres, schools, roads
etc., benefiting the whole population.

Before Libreville, we crossed the equator twice. Our water did
different things when we got to plugholes. Libreville is still in the
northern hemisphere.

Libreville was a cultural shock to us. The seafront centre of the
city is very Western and has a large white population. Tall buildings
(some with giant Bongo posters on the side), expensive wine cellars,
banks, casinos, bars, hotels, supermarets and a posh French embassy
were all to be found here. The city is expensive though, partly
because there is little food grown in the country due to the provinces
consisting of rainforest rather than fertile farming land that we saw
in Cameroon. We stayed for 5 nights (waiting for Angola visas) in the
gardens of a small beach front hotel in the most expensive part of the
city, just 100 metres from where an Air Gabon plane had crashed 18
months ago. The district consisted of huge houses, mostly those of
Ambassadors from other countries, rich oil workers and the President
himself. His extravagent house was paid for by the Moroccan King.
Morocco and Gabon have some business deals together. Moroccan and
French troops numbering about 500 are employed to protect Bongo.

On the 1st full day in Libreville, Australian Cade was really ill with
bad diarrhoea and high fever. He went to the main hospital in the
city and was diagnosed with malaria (no.3). English Sam, feeling
rough for 2-3 days now, also had a malaria test, which turned out
positive...he was case number 4. The accident and emergency
department was fresh, clean and efficient, giving us confidence. I
was there for translation duties again. Cade was transferred to a
grubby ward. His drip was turned off while being transferred, which
seemed a little strange. On arrival, he was fainting in the
wheelchair but nurses were unconcerned and would just walk past with a
plain face when I protested. The ward had rubbish blowing in from the
open bin outside but he got a room of his own, mainly due to the fact
there weren't many patients (3 beds in his room). The toilet didn't
flush so Cade, very weak, was supposed to flush it with a bucket. He
couldn't manage it, which angered the nurse. To take his temperature,
we had to go to buy a thermometer from the pharmacy. For him to
drink, we had to buy him a glass. In case of eating, we had to get
him a plate and knife and fork! The many drugs and drips they needed
had to be bought from the pharmacy ourselves. The nurses couldn't
really get the drip right but the Doctor who actually was good, sorted
that out for us. Andi and Grant, our experienced trip leader and
driver, thought the conditions were unacceptable and were convinced
that there would be a better hospital in the city. Those of us who
took him to the hospital just thought it was standard for Africa. The
Canadian embassy, represting Australians again, arranged for Cade's
transfer to a Moroccan-run polyclinic hospital, which is owned by the
President's wife. I have never seen such a nice hospital in my life.
Even nicer than private hospitals in the UK (apparently!). Cade's
room was attractive, had an electric adjustable bed and TV. The
doctors and nurses were polite and well-trained. They changed much of
what had been arranged at the previous hospital. The duty manager was
so concerned that we had no SIM card for a mobile to call the hospital
to see how he was that she lent us one! Even the lighting in the
hospital had much thought put in to it, appropriate to the mood and
requirements in every part and complementing the decor!

Meanwhile, back in the old hospital, I was left to get some
reimbursement, dealing with some of the rudest people I have ever met.
I was left speechless by the snarling and unpleasant, unhelpful,
"sorry, can't do" administrative staff. Without going into too many
details, it was a bureaucratic nigthmare that took me many hours of
trying to politely discuss in French. Even the manager of the
hospital was incredibly rude. When we finally got the ticket to
collect money from the cash desk, the receptionist lifted up the cash
box and shouted that there is no money because it's after midday,
flapping the cash box in my face. The reason, we got there after
midday was because the hospital manager was 40 minutes late with our
appointment! I promise you, I don't exaggerate, I have never met such
unhelpful and rude people. It was not all but many members of staff.
I was asking for nothing that was not standard procedure.

With the rest of my time in Libreville, I visited a lot of the city
and met some interesting people in Libreville including:
* An American USAID employee who was visiting many African countries
to work out the scale of corruption in each one so that he can report
to the US government who then work out how and if to give aid.
* A Beninese teacher who teaches Spanish and is a reporter for
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation International radio. I spent the
day with him and 2 friends, visiting the Libreville suburbs, where the
majority live and benefit little from the oil profits. We also got
him an interview with a Canadian girl who we met, who works for a
medical charity in Libreville.

ATMOSPHERE ON THE TRUCK
From here on, the atmosphere on the truck has been really pleasant
with everyone taking a place, especially with regards to banter, in
the group. We became conhesive, there was little annoyance and no egg
shells to avoid treading on. Happy, happy from here on.

P.S. Something I forgot about Nigeria...
British and US citizens pay for visa $100
Irish: $76
German (and others in EU) $56
Canadian: $55
Australian and NZ: $20
......British foreign policy that I don't like, I pay for! ]]> Wed, 01 Mar 2006 18:13:00 EST http://chriswilliams.tigblog.org/post/41159 http://chriswilliams.tigblog.org/post/41125 went on to Cameroon, which feels a little West African and a little
Central African. It was a turning point in the trip. Things
certainly started to get harsher for us as a group!

CAMEROON
We arrived in Cameroon in the border village of Ekok. Due to the
rains in the previous 2 days, the road ahead of us was closed so we
had to stay the night at the border. Border towns are always
interesting places. This one is totally reliant on Nigeria for much
of the year because the road is impassable. The afternoon we spent in
Ekok was great. After watching the Africa Cup of Nations Senegal vs
Guinea on TV in which Senegal (my team in the 5 dollar per person
sweepstake) won, about half of us spent hours playing with the kids on
the school field on which we were parked and were sleeping the night.
There must have been about 100 children. They sung songs to us that
they were practising for the national youth day, we taught them
dances, played football and generally messed around, giving them piggy
backs etc. African children are so much fun. Obviously, very few of
them have an easy upbringing (1 in 3 in Niger, for example, die by the
age of 5) and get little or nothing in the way of material goods.
Given their large families, they also get little attention. An
African child with a childhood disease, for example, will get little
sympathy from his or her parents - suffering is a fact of life they
have to get used to! I think that most parents play with their
children very little and often treat them harshly, e.g. one man hit
his young son for shying away when I offered my hand to shake. Many
children are shy when white people meet them so that boy was acting
quite normally!. So playing with the children, even just swinging
them around and giving them piggy backs, chasing them etc. makes them
so happy.

Next day, we drove on the worst roads I have ever seen. It took us no
less than 9 hours to travel 19km, yes, that's about 3 times slower
than it could be walked at a leisurely pace! The muddy roads
consisted of holes, sometimes 3 metres deep with about a metre's depth
of water inside. Everyone except me (I had a recovering motorbike
exhaust burn on my leg) and 2 others, had to dig the truck out every
time it got stuck, use sand mats or temporarily drain the holes of
water with saucepans, sick buckets and washing up bowls. That could
be time consuming! And when we had local trucks stuck in front of us
(with the drivers doing very little to dig out!) and spilled loads, we
had to sort that out too. Our driver, Grant, was in his element. He
absolutely loves conditions like this. We all had fun too but if it
was like this every day, it could be tedious! The region we were in
is English-speaking, which is in the minority in Cameroon. The locals
claim the reasons their roads are so bad compared with the rest of
Cameroon is because they are not of the same tribe or share the same
language as the French-speaking President, Paul Biya. Having seen
some roads in other parts of Cameroon, read about the bias of Biya and
bearing in mind that the road is the major road connecting Cameroon
with its neighbour and most populous country in Africa, it did seem
strange. Apparently, the Chinese government offered to build a road
as long as the Cameroonian government paid compensation to the very
few people who would have to build new (traditional) homes a little
further away from the road. The Cameroonian government turned down
the offer. One man told us to spread the word to the world that
Anglophone Cameroon wants independence! Cameroon used to be a German
colony but after World War , half was given to the French and half to
the British. Part of the British half became part of Nigeria on
independence of Cameroon, leaving the French speakers in the majority.

We slept on the lawns of the police station in a village after that
long digging day.

Two nights later, still on quite poor roads, we bush camped under a
very impressive bridge that cost no less than 90 million pounds. I
didn't think it was really necessary either, especially given the bad
roads - it was just a bridge crossing a valley. What was so nice,
apart from the cool bridge, was the 20m high waterfall that we camped
near. It was also he night of our first very ill person - Kevin, from
Canada, had a high fever - it turned out to be malaria (case number 1
... do count them in the emails to come!!!).

Continuing through lovely Cameroonian scenery, we passed rubber,
banana and tea plantations before we arrived at the coastal town of
Limbe, which was colonial in feel. It was founded by a British
missionary in the 19th century and used as a base to campaign against
continuing slavery. Limbe was also home to the memorable bakery with
pizza where we ran to the shop, we were craving some Western food so
much! In Limbe, I visited the 3rd of the 3 Pandrillus (see Nigeria
email) projects, Limbe Wildlife Centre. Pandrillus bought the zoo
that used to be there and contained 200 animals in cages they could
not turn around in. Nowadays, the wildlife centre is hope to about 10
species of primates and a handful of other animals, all kept in
decent-sized enclosures. Again, they do some excellent breeding work
and great educational work with many visits from school children.
Unfortunately, the visitors' book was full of comments from locals
such as "this zoo does not have enough animals - it's boring". I
think they missed the point of the centre! It's even more worrying
given the amount of bush meat I saw in Cameroon - monkeys and all
sorts of other animals, dried or fresh being sold by the side of the
road.

From Limbe, I climbed Mount Cameroon, West Africa's highest mountain,
with a few others. The mountain is also an active volcano, which last
exploded in 1999 and 2000 whose craters are still visible when
climbing the mountain. Climbing was steep and a quite challenging.
First, we climbed through tropical forest, then savannah grasslands
before it eventually became rocky near to the top. It also got cold,
something that is quite alien to us. On the evening of the 1st night,
I was wrapped up in a jumper, jacket and woolly hat even though it was
only 12 degrees celsius. We really have adapted to the African
climate! We slept in huts with rats running underneath the platform
on which we slept. We hung up our food! At the summit (4095 metres /
13,000 feet, on the 2nd day, it was just 3 degrees celsius and really
windy - scarves, hats and gloves came out! From here, some people
descended the same day, while others, including me, went down a
sunnier, less steep but longer descent with a more varying scenery.
The 3 day walk included more forests, old lava flows and the 1999
crater. A 4 day walk would have included mountain elephants! 2 days
is really the quickest someone of good fitness can climb up and down.
Locals, however, participate in a Mount Cameroon race every February
with a large cash reward. The winner tends to run up and down in
about 3.5 hours, wearing jelly bean shoes!!! On the 2nd night, we
slept near to a spring. It was here, one week before, a hunter died,
having cut his leg while collecting firewood - one of our porters
wouldn't drink the spring water through fear that it has the hunter's
spirits inside! On arriving back to the base, locals greeted us with
"ashia", which in Pidgin English, is a recognition of the physical
task we have undertaken.
What was so great about the whole thing is that the walks are run by
an ecotourism organisation, set up in 1999 after too many tourists
were being left on the mountain side by unscrupulous guides. Today,
the organisation has over 800 tourists per year, pays the guides and
porters pretty well and the "profits" are spent in one village
surrounding the mountain each year to, for example, improve their
sewage systems or renovate a school. The porters tend to be hunters
or ex-hunters - they know the paths well but being employed in this
way means they have less time and less of a need to earn money through
hunting, which is obviously beneficial to much of the wildlife that
can be found on the mountain that is totally unique. This is an
example of tourism really benefiting local communities (it so often
has too little a positive impact).

On returning, Scott, a New Zealander, also had malaria. He was in a
hotel room on a drip with Kevin. That's 2 cases we're up to.

Next stop was Yaounde, the capital of Cameroon and Francophone
country. We stayed here for 5 days, on the lawn of a missionary, as
we waited for visas for Gabon, Congo and the Democratic Republic of
Congo. 3 passengers left us here (unplanned) as 2 didn't really like
the people on the truck (I would say they are not really the kind of
people for the trip) and one (Erin, the American girl), left as she
didn't really fancy going through Central African countries.

Yaounde is a large city (over 1 million people) and quite a nice place
to spend a few days, especially given its French patisseries and great
street atmosphere (common in Africa). I can't say our reception was a
particularly warm one here though. I remember the cultural shock the
Yaounde Hilton hotel brought me. Thoby and I went in to see what
Western civilisation looked like. My eyes lit up at the extravagence
and I felt cheap and dirty and out of place.

On one night, 4 of our people didn't come home. By the morning, we
became worried as the driver was one of the four and his partner
("tour" leader) has spent 6 years of travelling with him and he has
never done that before. As a French speaker, myself and Andi (tour
leader) went out looking for them. We knew they had gone to the
brewery to organise a tour for us (which we subsequently did and much
enjoyed) - all the security guards had seen them. At go-karting (was
supposed to be their next stop), noone had seen them. The police were
disinterested and unhelpful. The suggestion that they could ring
round to other police stations or call hospitals seemed like the most
outrageous suggestion of the century. We ended up at the British High
Commission, who found (after 2 hours of looking) that they had been
detained at a police station and then moved to immigration for having
no passport with them (passports were at the Gabon embassy). They
were being "interrogated" having been accused of being spies. Clearly
a threat to the national security of Cameroon! In reality, they were
asked no questions whatsoever and were just held just outside the
cells in a tatty, mosquito infested police station for 24 hours. They
were given no food or water (had a small amount of water with them)
but were grateful not to be in the packed cell they could see that had
a communal 20 litre bucket as a toilet in the centre of the room that
really stank. It could have been easy to escape but one other
prisoner tried that and was subsequently beaten!
As only one of the four detainees were British, 2 were Australian
(looked after by the Canadian Consulate) and one was a New Zealander,
it was up to the Canadians to go to immigration to release the 4 with
the passports we collected from the Gabon embassy. The British Vice
High Commissioner said that the reason they were not released is
because they did not offer enough money. The police do this now and
then (very few tourists in Yaounde but lots of white people in big
4x4s who are expats) to get some money for their own pockets. They
are supposed to ring the relevant embassy in this situation but never
do because that would only lead to their release without money. They
claim they cannot tell which embassy to ring if there are no
passports.
I have to say, the British and Canadians were brilliant in looking
after us and feel happy to know of their expertise when travelling.
Shame that New Zealanders are not represented though! The British
diplomatic service around the world has a database with copies of the
passports of all British passport holders - they can print out the
details and pictures when needed!

Meanwhile, an Irish independent traveller, also staying at the
Presbyterian missionary, had no more room in his passport and his
Cameroon visa was about to run out. He has no diplomatic
representation in Cameroon and so could not get a new passport. He
didn't want to fly home either! He was also put in prison in the
Central African Republic (a place one really should not go to!) on his
travels, accused of being a mercenary. After 2 days he was released
because other prisoners begged that he be let out as he pretended to
be crazy and insane and was causing too much disruption! Remember
that trick!

Politics
Cameroon is a peaceful country, although there are internal tensions
between the English and French speaking provinces. Also, a dispute
over ownership of the oil-rich Bakassi peninsula with Nigeria is
ongoing. The UN says it should be part of Cameroon but Nigeria
refuses to withdraw its troops. The President, Paul Biya, holds on to
power via rigged elections. The people do not have very much freedom.
The country is among the world's most corrupt.

----

Route change...from Cameroon we wanted to go to Chad, Sudan and
Ethiopia and then into Kenya. Due to the Darfur problem in Sudan, the
Chad/Sudan border is closed so a new route is needed. The Central
African Republic and travelling through much of Democratic Republic of
Congo is not a safe option. Instead we took a long route around to
Kenya, starting with Gabon...
]]> Tue, 14 Feb 2006 06:38:00 EST http://chriswilliams.tigblog.org/post/41125 http://chriswilliams.tigblog.org/post/41124 "One of the most corrupt, insensitive, inefficient places under the sun. It is dirty, callous, ostentatious, dishonest and vulgar. In short, it is among the most unpleasant places on earth" wrote Chima Achebe, a Nigerian and one of Africa's most distinguished writers.

Reading material on Nigeria is enough to put anyone off going there. I will list some statements from the Lonely Planet to West Africa (2002):
"it's sights are only accessible to the ascetic or truly masochistic voyager. And yet, if you don't visit, you can hardly say you've been to West Africa.".
"Lagos is one of the most dangerous cities in West Africa. More than one expat living in Lagos has said that it's not uncommon to see bodies on the side of the road on their morning drive to work".
"For travellers, armed thieves are the major problem".
"Bribery is everywhere...in Nigeria, there's one rule for the rich and another for the poor. Money can settle anything".
"There seems to be few places in Nigeria immune to random violence, demonstrations, mishaps and military action".
"Nigeria may now be a democracy but it often feels like a war zone".

On the day we arrived in Nigeria, armed robbers arrived by speedboat at the headquarters of Italian oil company, Agip. 8 police officers and 1 civilian were killed.
In Kaduna, northern Nigeria (Islamic part), there were major riots after the introduction of strict Islamic sharia law a few years ago. In 2002, some idiot chose to hold the Miss World 2002 Finals in Kaduna, which is obviously very insensitive to Muslims who don't believe in vanity of women. There were mass riots again and the final was moved to London at the last minute. Already by this stage, some contestants had pulled out of the competition as a Nigerian woman was going to be stoned to death for the crime of giving birth out of wedlock!!!

In Ghana, we met some former Shell employees who lived in Nigeria. One guy lived in a fortress and had an entourage of bodyguards. In his own home, a bodyguard had to walk throw the metal door separating every room to check the room before he was allowed to. He was never allowed to have any personal documents on his person accept when working and secured. He hated it but was paid a fortune.

A Nigerian working on the beach in Ghana threatened to "rip off the tits" of the Irish member of our group over a minor misunderstanding.

So how did I find Nigeria?

We crossed into Nigeria at a minor border post from Benin. We avoided the hectic one near to the city of Lagos on the coast, as its population of 13 to 20 million people (noone knows how many) and its role as the economic heart of Africa's most populous country (120 to 160 million, about 20% of Africa's population) makes it a nightmare. On arriving at the border post, there was no immigration staff and just one customs official watching TV. He called the immigration officer to come but we decided to spend the night at the border post as it seemed nice and the first part of the drive in Nigeria involves a lot of stops by police. The officials were really friendly. We watched Nigeria play in the Africa Cup of Nations (more important than the World Cup for Africans) with them. Also of note here was a local boy who turned up offering to sell us a monkey he had on a lead which consisted of a motorbike chain! Everyone was disgusted. It took African animal cruelty one stop step further in our eyes. We all made disapproving gestures and wagged our fingers. I drew a picture of a sad monkey on a chain and a happy monkey in a tree. The kids loved it. They understood the meaning but did quite take much note of it! This was after they were playing "let's throw flip flops at the monkey and see it jump". Our driver threw flip flops at the kids but they thought this was a game too.

Following day, it took 4 hours to drive 70km on perfect roads. This was due to the persistent check points. Police wanted to ensure there were no people or arms being trafficked and ensure we were legal in Nigeria of course. At one point, where police lived under shelters by the side of the road, the police would stop us at every shelter, every few metres as every group of officers wanted to see what they could find wrong and hence earn a few dollars. They always failed. Our driver and "courier" are experienced!

We got to the town of Abeokuta where we all changed dollars into Naira. For some strange reason, banks are allowed to sell dollars but not buy them in exchange for Naira! This forces us to the black market (or we spend no money in Nigeria!). Four of us did try to exchange cash at a posh hotel but they had no facilities to do so. On the way out of the hotel, a camera crew chased us and asked for an interview. They were excited that tourists were in town. Tourism is almost non-existent in Nigeria and it took us about a week before we saw a white face. We were interviewed by Africa Independent TV, shown on digital satellite (channel 256 or something) in the UK.

Abeokuta was a city of 1 million or so and hectic. We did not go to any huge cities to visit due to safety and insurance reasons, which is a shame. A couple of years ago, one guy went to Lagos alone with just a little money for transport and accommodation well concealed. He also had a bum bag to give in case of robbery (he kind of wanted to be robbed) but he was left alone (white people of any importance or wealth do not walk around Lagos), although he did see an armed robbery through the window of a shop he was in.

We did drive through Nigeria's 2nd city and Africa's largest geographically, Ibadan. It was really hectic. Motorbikes are the main mode of transport in Nigeria - they clogged up the roads but since you can get more of them in a small area, at junctions, there was always a horrendous noise from their horns! Also of note was the strong evangelist Christian presence (as in everywhere in Nigeria) and an Oxford University Press building (aah!).

Out of Ibadan, we drove on motorway, although there really were cars on the wrong side of the road at times. Don't ask me why. Off the motorway, we drove on rural roads. Before long, we got stopped by "tax collection officers". These people became to be one of our main sources of entertainment in Nigeria. The first motley crew, dressed in fluorescent green bibs that tried it on were soon stopped by police as tourists do not have to pay these local road or sewage (!) taxes. Then there was the next lot. It's hard to describe how their desperate and silly attempts managed to humour us so much. If you can imagine something like a group of 12 year olds trying to act as serious as possible in an important job but being hectic and struggling to take charge as we took the mick out of them, you can kind of imagine the situation. There were people running over with boulders that they could find to stop us from moving; one guy had a fake police ID badge to pretend to certify the activities of the officers; they were always trying to climb into the cab to take the keys away and with most of us surrounding the officers and feeding off the banter of our driver, taking the mick, the corrupt officers soon felt small and struggling to take control to get us to pay our sewage taxes. As usual in such a situation, we ate lunch by the side of the truck and chilled out as the whole thing became repetitive. This shows you're in no hurry and they give up. The funniest thing though, is a load of us, trying to act as serious as possible, stopping other trucks, pretending to be officials, which winds up the real officials much more and leaves drivers and passengers of other vehicles really bemused. On another occasion, we had an off duty policeman come with us to deal with the tax collectors but he was disregarded at one stop, we had about 100 locals and school children out watching and laughing as we joked and pulled over other vehicles, wearing the bibs of the officials and using their planks of wood with nails sticking out. On yet another occasion, we pulled over a car full of vicars, who had a stern word with the officials and they backed away. So strong is religion for many Africans that they will take more notice of a vicar than a policeman!

In central Nigeria, we stopped in the town of Lokoja. We parked in a chuch car park that had an infant school on site. The children were on lunch break or something and ran at us, surrounding anyone, fighting over our hands to shake it or space to touch the "oyobi" (white man). When I asked for someone to take a photo of me with the kids, the screaming instensified and they all crammed in to get into the photo. The feeling of being a celebrity was no more obvious than in Nigeria! When we drove through villages, I had the impression that some had never seen a white person. Almost without exception, people jumped around waving or screaming, normally shouting "oyobi". Particularly young children would sometimes run away from the truck as they were scared of us aliens. In one village, a girl shook my hand but she had unfortunately used it to wipe her bum and so there was a big turd in her hand, which obviously ended up with me wiping my hand in the bushes :-S On that occasion, I was thanked almost emotionally by a local lady as "we had made the children so very happy". It's nice to be able to have this effect by just walking to a village! The Nigerians I met seemed to be just genuine, honest, extremely friendly and bubbly people. The friendliest on the trip so far, by far. And a very far cry from the Lonely Planet fears I quoted. That book, we call the LP, has become a dirty word among us as its info is normally wrong and we generally disagree with the authors views.

In Lokoja, we stayed at a run down, once very expensive and impressive hotel (part of the Sheraton group). The large pool with swim-up pool bar was now green for example. When in town, Martyn was nearly robbed but managed to get out of it using some humour and some older men shouting out to ask what was going on. A young (maybe 12 years old) boy was dragged into the streets wearing women's clothes (including bra), stripped of all clothes except hot pants and beaten by a rowdy entourage of bystanders. I chatted to a nice lady who sells food, as she tried to understand strange white people like me. She was particularly confused and concerned about how dirty I was and she thought I was in my 30s while her neighbour assumed I was over 40. The dirt and beard really do make me look older but after 45 minutes, you would think they could work out my approximate age!

Another "random" observation was in the town of Ikom, not far from the Cameroonian border. I saw (and bought) an AIDS-awareness poster where a white man wanted to have sex with student prostitutes. Somehow, a dog had sex with a prostitute too and in the end, she was HIV-positive. She blamed the dog for her woes. The message was partly to be careful and partly about white men abusing black women. The phrase at the bottom read:
"MR WHITE MAN, you had good education only because of the conducive economic condition in your country. You have come to Africa when people live in fear in their own country as though they are refugees, to mess the frustrated citizens up. You must pay dearly for any bit of nonsense you do to your prey...YOU WHITE MONKEY".
Dangerous or what?

We stayed a couple of nights in a dodgy run-down hotel's car park, the Paradise City Hotel in the city of Calabar. The city itself was clean and pleasant. The first night at the hotel though, we had drinks in the bar, complete with crocodile stuck in pond and weird plastic fish everywhere that once shot water out of them I think. Probably one of the most unique bars I've ever been in. There were just about more prostitutes than customers (we were the only customers). Whenever anyone went away from the group to go to the loo or whatever, you got your crotch squeezed. In one case, Martyn was on the phone to his girlfriend at home while 3 prostitutes were dancing around him, pulling his crotch and neatly slipping a hand into his pocket to take out about 10 pounds. The following accusation in the bar created some loud arguments between prostitutes and the "boss" who claimed to search their insides in the toilets. Was an interesting night!

The best thing about Calabar was the "Drill ranch". Drills are beautiful monkeys and some of the most endangered.
See the link for a picture: http://www.earthisland.org/eijournal/new_articles.cfm?articleID=948journalID=82
Their numbers are small and only live in the mountainous forests bordering Nigeria and Cameroon and in Equatorial Guinea. They have very little protection. The Drill ranch was set up by 2 Americans, Peter and Liza, in 1988. Their NGO, Pandrillus, now has a successful rehab centre in Calabar and a particularly successful ranch in the mountains where drills can live in large fenced enclosures but in their natural environment. I also visited this place along with the others, where we stayed one night in an amazing setting. Drills are fantastic creatures to watch. One drill masturbated at the the females in our group! Pandrillus also has some chimps, which liked to throw coconuts, yams, poo, stones and soil at us to "play". Pandrillus never buys the animals but either persuades "owners" to hand them over or takes in orphans found by members of the public. They also try to educate the locals about the importance of preserving the creatures.
One very interesting thing that Liza told me was that Esso (ExxonMobil) have promised a $140,000 donation to Pandrillus but it will be given secretly, i.e. Esso will donate money but not use it as an example to show how "wonderful" Esso is. Quite a shock to me. The reason for keeping it hush-hush is because oil companies operating in Nigeria are expected to donate money to the communities in which they work, not in states where there is no oil like where the drill ranches operate. To give money outside the oil states would cause uproar in other states.

On our last night in Nigeria, there was chaos. We stayed at the timber yard, just outside Ikom. When we arrived the rain was really heavy as can be expected from African rain. Rather than sitting in the truck, waiting for it to stop, everyone rushed out to put up tents and erect nets underneath the shelters (just roofs on legs) that shelter the timber. The rain got worse. Much worse. The wind picked up. It had become a storm like nothing I had ever seen before. One New Zealander was shaking. She claimed the only storm she had ever witness so bad was when the windows blews out of her house in New Zealand. The shelter I was under was full of sawdust which blew in my face and every orifice! As I was choking on sawdust, one of the sheds/shelters collapsed in between the 2 sheds people were using for their tents. It collapsed silently too because we could hear nothing in the rain. I decided it was best to get back to the truck, as did everyone else where I found nothing but pandemonium as everyone tried to work out who was missing. There was noone missing. Noone chose that shed. A big stroke of luck! I ended up sleeping on a pile of timber with a mosquito net hanging from the beams of the shed. Most slept net-less on the truck, which I think itself became a big mistake (why is to come).

Politics
Nigeria is divided tribally and religiously into 3: the Yoruba Christians in the South West, the Igbo Christians in the South East and the Hausa Muslims in the North. Hausa are thought to make up more than 50% of the population. The tribal divisions have blighted Nigeria ever since its independence from Britain. A war, several coups and almost endless violence became the norm in Nigeria, especially as the Hausa Muslim majority could pretty much guarantee power legitimately but the Igbo majority in the army could yield power militarily. In 1998 or so, Nigeria held elections and democratically elected a southerner, Olesegun Obasanjo. He finishes his 2 terms as President in 2006 and the Constitution prevents him from running again but he is desperately trying to change this rule so that he can serve a 3rd term.

Everything in Nigeria depends somehow on the makeup of the population. Noone really knows the exact population or the make up of the 3 groups anymore. A census is currently underway, being conducted by an independent Census Commission, but it is still controverisal. If the Hausa lose their majority or one group falsely manages to get a larger figure than another group, it changes things a lot in Nigeria.

The people of the oil rich states benefit little from the oil money which goes straight to Western countries, the public purse and Nigerian politicians. The pollution in the area means that the water supply is unsafe and the fields are so bad that people can't grow food. So oil does more bad than good for those who don'd work in the industry. This and the fact oil brings in a huge amount of wealth is a major reason for all the violence and unrest in Nigeria.

Nigeria is complex, it has its dangers but none were presented to us. To generalise, the Nigerian people are the friendliest I have ever met I would say.]]> Tue, 31 Jan 2006 06:38:00 EST http://chriswilliams.tigblog.org/post/41124 http://chriswilliams.tigblog.org/post/41123 Crossing into Benin, another slither of a country right next to Togo, we put our watches forward one hour - seemed so strange to have to do this, looking at the geography. We are now no longer on British time. We got another 2 day transit visa, as we did for Togo, as they are easily available at the border.

Politics
After independence from France in 1960, Dahomey as it was then known went through 12 years of instability, being ruled by several military leaders. In 1972, Kerekou, born in Burkina Faso, seized power and restored order. He adopted communism as the political model, renamed the country Benin and nicknamed it "Africa's Cuba". The economy suffered and the government coffers were in a dire state. In 1991 (?), Kerekou called elections, acknowledging that the country needed a fresh mandate. He had changed his own favoured political system to a purely capitalist ideology around that time. A rival, Soglo, was elected and stringently followed the advice of the International Monetary Fund to improve its economy. This pulled Benin from ruin but the economy is still one of the poorest in Africa. Soglo introduced such stringent economic change that he lost the 1996 election and Kerekou was re-elected, this time on a capitalist platform. Kerekou stayed in power until February 2006 when he stood down due to constitutional conditions. A new President is in the process of being elected.

Benin is a stable country and is one of the two best in Africa for media freedom.

Voodoo festivals
Benin was probably, as one friend said to me, the closes to a National Geographic moment that I have come across in the trip. I was lucky enough to attend 2 voodoo ceremonies in my 2 days in Benin - one alone, another with Thoby.

The first was in the Benin voodoo capital of Ouidah. A friendly guy invited me to a voodoo ceremony in his area. The festival was to celebrate the return of the spirits of the community's dead who were buried a few years ago. Men danced in heavy, flamboyant dresses with their faces covered. They danced around, making good use of their dresses, before chasing men, aged about 14 to 30 around a tree and down the street - some kind of game aspect to the ceremony that the participants and spectators really seemed to enjoy. This is what made it all so funny.

The second ceremony (and the better one) was in a village near to where we bush camped off road. Thoby and I walked into the local village as we often do to meet locals, shake their hands (the children love this - they are excited to see a white man as it is but to touch a white man makes them ecstatic!) We heard some drumming and a jovial atmosphere so followed that and met a guy called Alain who invited us into the ceremony and explained to us its significance. We were introduced to the Chief (Juju) and we asked to take the nicest chairs they had in a prime viewing spot. We were given wine and gin - far too much of it but we had no choice in the matter. To decline a gift can bring shame upon the giver in some African societies. The ceremony is called kokou, an annual event that aims to ask the fetish to protect the village from evil sorcerors in the coming year. There is music 24 hours in advance throughout the night and day and then during the ceremony. Around 10-15 people from the village danced around like crazy, often low to the ground. Eventually, they are selected, one at a time, to put on a reed skirt and then continue to dance like mad. This enables the fetish's wife to observe them. They then add white ground maize to their faces and maize dyed yellow with maize oil. They continue to dance with the maize making them look stronger and more aggressive to frighten the sorcerors who are watching. Some of the older dancers got gin spat on them as alcohol pleases the fetish. The older (non-child) dancers also took a large knife and tried to cut themselves on the arm (one time, while shaking Thoby's hand) and neck. The supposed lack of blood is because the fetish protects them but of course, it's not true and blood did come from one person's arm. The lack of blood shows the sorcerors that there is no point targeting the village in the coming year because they are protected by the fetish.

This really was a highlight. I felt so fortunate to see it and be treated like an honoured guest.

Stilt village
The one touristy thing we did in Benin was to visit the stilt village of Ganvie. We took a pirogue journey across Lake Nakoue to the village, which was created in the 17th century by people fleeing the Portuguese. The Portuguese were not allowed to cross internal waters so left the people of Ganvie well alone. In the village, the buildings were made of wooden brances, held up on wooden stilts and sheltered by roofs made of reeds. There's a floating market, a hospital, school, some solar power. The village was pretty, although the locals were far too used to tourists and so they were regularly asking for gifts or money or simply covering their faces as we approached because they didn't want photos taken of them. The poor tourist relations with the locals took the edge of things a little.

So...Benin - action-packed given I was there for just 2 days. Was an enjoyable place to be.

PERSONAL HYGIENE
One of the more unusual side topics to include at the bottom of an email, I guess. It's hard to understand how foul we all are nearly all the time. On average, we shower once a week as we bush camp between towns and cities. After just half a day here, one gets really dirty, sweaty and smelly. Clothes are changed rarely (I have just 4 t-shirts for example, one more than I started with) and washed when they get really brown or black. Travelling along dirt roads means our clothes and faces are often red after an hour or so due to the dust. We don't wash our bodies en route as we can only carry enough water for drinking and cooking.

Toilets are not used to often - we use shovels to bury our business.

Really, we have lost a lot of dignity. I was asked in Nigeria by a concerned lady why I was so dirty. She was concerned that I slept outside all the time and rarely washed. Looking dirty and with a beard, she thought I was over the age of 40 (another person said the same another time)!]]> Tue, 17 Jan 2006 06:32:00 EST http://chriswilliams.tigblog.org/post/41123 http://chriswilliams.tigblog.org/post/41122 We were in Togo for a mere 2 days and my experiences here were limited so I can't pass too much judgement on the country. It is a tiny country - barely noticeable on the map of Africa as it is just 50km across - yet it is 1.3 times the size of the Netherlands.

Politics
Togo was a German colony until after World War 2 when it was divided between France and Britain. The Western, English-speaking part decided to become part of Ghana in 1957 as the people are of the same tribe and both speak English.

It has the record for Africa's first ever coup. In 1963, 3 years after independence, its President, Olympio (whose son is still the opposition leader today) was overthrown by Eyadema who stayed in office until February 2005, when he died. For years, Eyadema ran a dictatorship with a bad human rights record. In the late 1980s, France piled diplomatic pressure on Togo to hold elections. In response, the President aired propaganda TV programmes in 1990, showing riots in strikes in neighbouring countries, blaming this on their democratic societies. Pro-democracy groups protested to which the security forces responded heavy-handedly. 28 bodies were pulled from a Lome (the capital city) lagoon by protestors and dumped on the steps of the US embassy so that the whole world would know of the atrocities. Security collapsed, the country's relatively thriving tourist industry (similar to that in The Gambia today) collapsed. Elections were held in order to restore order, although they were said to be rigged and the opposition was suppressed. When Eyadema died in February 2005, his son took over, which led to widespread riots. Eyadema Junior stood down and called elections, which he won, amid controversy in April 2005. At that time, Togo was off-limits to us as tourists.

Lome
Passing from Ghana into Togo took us right into Lome, Togo's capital of 650,000 people. There was little to evoke the emotions, although the increase in motorbike traffic was noted. This was the 1st of several countries where motorbikes are the way most people choose to travel. The locals were not particularly amazed by us or our truck, unlike in every other place so far. I guess the people remember the times of the booming tourist industry and so seeing a white face is nothing spectacular.

We stayed in a German-run place, which unfortunately had 2 monkeys tied up under a tree in the courtyard. They seemed bored (jumped up and down on the spot for extended periods) and the strap on their back didn't exactly seem comfortable. This was shocking to us at the time, although it was merely the first of very much animal abuse we saw in Africa. These monkeys were some of the best kept. We were disappointed that some educated Germans could keep monkeys in this way though. When I asked why they kept them, I was told it is because they "like monkeys". If they really like them, perhaps they'd like to not purchase monkeys and keep them that way?
Further down the coast though, a hotel our company had previously used, had a monkey in a cage, an owl in a cage and a crocodile in a pond-sized pool. Thankfully, the "zoo" section of that hotel is now closed.

The one day I spent in the centre of Lome was not the best of days.
Thoby and I walked around the crazy central market. Perhaps one of the most bustling on the trip. You may have noticed by now that markets are a characteristic aspect of African life.

I then visited the fetish/voodoo market with 5 others. The market is run by Beninese people. Togo and Benin have a mixture of Muslims, Christians and animists. Animism is the largest group in each country. Animists believe in the eternal life of the spirits, which originate in people and exist in objects [can probably find a better definition than that]. The fetish market contained among other things:
monkey skulls - if you buy and use these somehow, you will get better memory
dead owls - for protection from dark spirits
dead bats - for a good erection
chameleons - are an aphrodisiac
elephant femurs
horses' and cows' tails - for dancing
dead armadillos - for cuts
porcupine spines - also for cuts
Inside one stall, we met the son of the Chief (called Juju, who communicates with the spirits). The son is the chief when the Juju is absent. He showed us 6 items which have a fetish/spirit living inside:
*Small piece of hollow wood with congealed pigeon blood around it and some string with a wooden plug to plug the hole.
-->When the owner travels, they can ask the fetish (via the hole) to protect them on their travels. You put the plug inside and take the "device" with you. I was given one of these by a Togolese man local to where we camped.
*Ebony seed --> put this under your pillow at night to help with memory or hold it during exams for improved performance.
*Necklace with cowrie shells on it and spices inside --> helps with luck in love.
*Stick of a tree/shrub --> grind it up and add tofood or drink to improve libido.
*Small wooden doll-like figure --> protects the house. During the day it's an object but the fetish comes out at night as a person to protect the house and family. Have to give a cigarette or some alcohol to the doll (actually, the fetish inside), every year.
*Pipe/stick --> speak into this saying the name of the woman you want 7 times. Then say your own name 7 times and go to the speak to the woman and she will be yours.
The market wasn't that fasctinating. Visually, it was nothing exciting and the stories about the products can be learnt without going to the market. Given that I paid one pound for a guided tour, I regret that my money has helped to promote the sale of monkey skulls and the like, even if it part of a religion.

Earlier on, there were six of us had jumped in a taxi to go to the fetish market. The driver had no idea where it was so he asked someone on the side of the road, who said we should follow him on his motorbike at no cost to us. That same motorcyclist had waited until we were out of the market when he asked us for 500 West African Francs (CFA), about 50 pence. People trying to get money out of us is common and we nearly always take the principled stance and stubbornly don't give in. However, this guy was aggressive. The fact there were 6 of us didn't matter. He threatened the driver of the taxi we had jumped in so he would not move. We walked to get another taxi, by which time the situation had escalated and other local men, having heard that the rich white men had tried to rip off the poor black man trying to earn a decent wage (ahem) joined in, also shouting to hand over the money. By the time we got into another cab, people were kicking the taxi and all but one of our doors was being held open. It escalated to a level where the alarm bells ring and Martyn quickly handed over 1000 CFA (one pound) to get rid of them. I got a punch in the arm as the taxi pulled away as I had my arm resting on the door. All this was enough to round off Lome for most of us. We all had to chill out for a couple of hours so missed out on much more time in Lome. Smaller bad experiences in the morning gave others a similarly disappointing image of Lome and hence Togo since it's all of Togo we really visited.

There weren't only bad experiences though. My German friend, Andreas, met some nice people with whom he spent the day. He did go to visit the German Culture Centre though, only to find a lovely building with nothing inside but rubbish. The former director of the institute happened to see Andreas there and explained that the German intelligence service believe that it was the Togolese government who firebombed the cultural centre, resulting in Germany suspending all foreign aid to Togo.

I notice that the leader of the opposition, Olympio, has recently been accused (past week on BBC News Online) of being behind an arson attack on the central police headquarters in Lome. Togo seems a bit messed up! I got the impression from people I spoke to that there was little hope for people in Togo as little changes there and their chance to do well in life is determined by who you know rather than how hard you have studied!]]> Sun, 15 Jan 2006 05:57:00 EST http://chriswilliams.tigblog.org/post/41122 http://chriswilliams.tigblog.org/post/36234
Ghana was the first English speaking country we came to since the UK, 2
months previously, to the delight of most people in our group. The chance
to communicate with locals seemed to enable my fellow travellers to enjoy
the country more. The day we crossed into Ghana, serious heat hit us for
the 1st time. We always drive with the tarpaulings (which act as our
windows rolled up to let the air blow in and hence cool us down) up but for
the 1st time the air was so hot it made things worse. This was in dry
Northern Ghana where bush fires were raging (some deliberate because some
farmers try to bring down electricity pylons in protest of the electricity
company). The cause of the heat: the harmattan winds coming from the
Sahara. "Harmattan" means "evil thing" in Arabic because the winds are so
hot and carry Saharan dust. They blow Saharan sand as far as the French
riviera and in 1989, Saharan insects and sand were found deposited on
Antigua, a Carribean island, as the wind had blown so far. December to
March, the harmattan blows south.

Into Ghana, it was obvious that we were in a country that is more wealthy as
the roads were excellent and electricity seemed to be carried by modern
pylons to even small villages. We stopped in Tamale, a hot northern town
where we became acquainted with Fan Ices, vanilla ice creams costing 14
pence, available everywhere in the country and sold by men on bicycles. The
Fan Ice business is everywhere in Ghana, Togo, Benin and Nigeria and is a
social enterprise, enabling people who find it difficult to find employment
to hire an Fan Ice bike and uniform and sell gorgeous, addictive ice creams.
It operates in a similar way to the Big Issue magazines in the UK.

Tamale is perhaps the only place in Ghana with any trouble these days. At
times, there are curfews because of ethnic tensions. We went to the nearby
Mole national park where we stayed at a hotel with swimming pool (how
exciting is that!), camping outside as usual but having the same facilities
as full fee paying guests. The hotel had an amazing view over the national
park, only a little hazy due to the harmattan. We walked for 2 hours in the
park the following morning for a mere one pound each, getting as close as
15m to groups of elephants. Elephants can only see within a 20m range, i.e.
they have poor eyesight. We were able to get close since the elephants in
question were known to be friendly to humans. According to our guide, they
are the 2nd fastest land mammal, able to run at about 50 km/h! Another
interesting fact: they are right or left tusked as humans are right or left
handed. One tusk is for work, the other is for defence.

As we drove further south in Ghana, the landscape changed from barren Sahel
(Sahel meaning "shore" in Arabic and refers to all the areas around the
Sahara that are semi desert) to beautiful tropical forest . Along with
this, the climate changed from intense dry heat to very humid but less hot
(closer to 30 degrees rather than 40). This meant that we sweated an awful
lot and so from here on, we were sweaty, smelling like things that we had
never known we could smell like. We all became very used to this though.
It's also useful to look dirtier than locals so that we don't look like
ultra rich foreigners. This way, it's easier to relate to locals!

We stopped in Kumasi, Ghana's 2nd city and home to 1.3 million people. It's
also the centre of the famous Ashanti culture. Here, we stayed in the
grounds of a Presbytarian guest house, one of the many "different" places we
have stayed. It was also the 1st time since Morocco we had had any rain.
It rained heavily for a few hours, which scuppered our plans a bit. Plans
up to now had taken the weather for granted. Nevertheless, I visited the
huge market they have, which was made even more colourful with the dark
gloomy skies. Normally, everything in Africa looks bleached to the eye
during the day due to the overhead sun. The market surrounded the railway
line and was crammed full of people as usual. When a train came, everyone
had to somehow cram into even less space so that the line was free for the
train to pass. The market also reminds me to mention a common African way
of going to the toilet. In the market, below a bridge where I stood, ran
the open air sewer, full of people along the side lowering their bum over
the side to do their business. It was all very communal.

I visited the city hospital in Kumasi, built just over 50 years ago. We had
low expectations but were actually fairly surprised and pleased with what we
found. The labs had some modern equipment that I had used myself at
University, there were some brand new machines in the children's intensive
care unit, although the general wards had a lot of people crammed in large
rooms and nowhere was particularly clean. About 7.5 per cent of the country's GNP is spent on healthcare but people still need to pay for treatment. There is a new insurance scheme for people with stable jobs where you can contribute 2.5% of your income and receive free treatment when you need it.

Next stop was Accra, the capital of Ghana and home to about 2 million people. It's a sprawling city that can take up to an hour to drive into depending on which route you take. I loved Accra, not for its beauty and it really had no heart or real centre but had a few central districts that I travelled between in so-called tro-tros which are minibuses that whizz around for 10 to 15 pence per journey. Thoby and I met a nice guy called Edward on our 1st tro-tro who took us around Accra a little. We first went to the main stadium where a football match had just ended. The seats had been ripped up over the years by angry fans, there were no safety bars to stop people falling from stands or stairs and there was a near riot on the pitch because the underdog team won the match, which suggested the referee was corrupt and some fans wanted to beat him. Nice.

Edward was not a football fan. He is a chef in a decent restaurant (had to study really hard to get there) and a chef to the President of the 3rd political party in Ghana but has to keep this secret in case he gets pushed to release secret info he overhears. The party is the CPP, the political party of Kwame Nkrumah, the 1st President of Ghana, which was the 1st independent country in black Africa. Ghana gained independence in 1956. Part of the reason it gained independence first is because the British educated the people of their colonies much more than other colonial powers and as people become educated, they become empowered and start to demand more freedom. This was Ghana's story and Nkrumah was the leader of the movement for independence in Ghana. The rest of Africa noticed newly independent Ghana and wanted to follow suit. Nkrumah dreamed of a united Africa and was leader of the pan-African independence movement, educating independence leaders from across Africa.
Britain was not bitter though once it granted independence to Ghana. In fact, it gave money to allow the country to deal with the transfer of power, to build ministries etc. This contrasts to the French attitude to the departure of their first black African colony, Guinea. The French administrators there cut telephone lines, burned all documents and trashed public buildings as they departed. This was not the pattern of French behaviour but is an interesting contrast of colonial behaviour at the time. But then, no colonial power really deserves much credit!

Nowadays, Ghana is one of few true democracies in Africa, among with Mali, Senegal, Botswana, South Africa and possibly Kenya now. Others are dictatorships or somewhere in between. Signs of democracy were everywhere in Ghana. The country is also on the up. Its economy has been growing for about a decade, I believe. The people here are the most positive about the state of their country since Morocco. People know and feel free, they value peace (they often mention freedom and peace when you talk to them) and they seem to be empowered with good education, freedom to make something of their lives and a positive attitude that they will be successful.

On one day in Accra, we went to the large Independence Square where Muslims were celebrating one of their most celebrated festivals of the year, Tabaski. Muslims gather for prayer in the morning and then go back to their homes to slaughter a sheep and feed the family and those who are unable to afford it. For the 2 months up til now in Muslim Africa, we have seen sheep everywhere being transported and kept for this special day. Ghana is mainly Christian but has a sizeable Muslim population. So many African countries have 2 or more religions that co-exist peacefully.

Another interesting sight in Accra was a running mass of cheering people wearing red, carrying a coffin which was a ship painted in bright colours. We visited a coffin maker too where coffins included agigantic wooden coca cola bottle, a car, a phone, a pineapple etc. The coffins are made to order and reflect the life of the deceased person. In Kumasi, Thoby and I saw a street party, which was actually a funeral.

Out of Accra, we stayed on an idyllic beach for a few days where tourists thankfully don't come. Unfortunately, the village 500m along from us used the beach as their toilet so the beach was littered with unpleasant stuff. Going for a jog at 7am (we generally get up at 6:30 here and 10pm is a standard time to go to bed as we live outdoors and therefore live with natural daylight) means that all the locals who have just got up are doing their morning business in full view of everyone. Africans are very communal and social people in every way.

We visited Cape Coast and Elmina, which are former colonial towns of the British and Portuguese/Dutch respectively. We toured Elmina castle, which was a slave fort built by the Portuguese but then captured by the Dutch. The tour was harrowing. Our guide was shared with some black Americans of whom one muttered under her breath that she cannot believe how they can let whites come on this tour - what a disgrace. A sensitive New Zealand travel companion was more than a bit upset about that. I write this not only to show that racism still exists but to show how strong feelings still are about the slave trade. The visitors book was littered with comments similar to this and many black Americans complaining how they should have to pay the "non-Ghanaian" price to enter as their ancestors came from slave forts like this. Nowadays, Elmina is well invested in by the Dutch government, trying to improve sewage systems etc, no doubt to deal with guilt from past atrocities.

I went to Kakum national park which was my 1st ever rainforest visit. I also got to walk on Africa's only canopy walkway, which provided great views of the rainforest.

Tabloid newspaper's front page:
LOVER PULLS LADY'S CLITORIS AND DESTROYS IT 'PASAAAA'

Landlord tells his female tenants: "Sleep with me or leave my house"

Happy New Year.

This was a shock to my view that Ghana was religious and sensitive. Signs of religion are everywhere in the country. You find cafes called "The Lord is my Shepherd cafe" and hairdressers called "God loves us all hair salon" etc. but the Ghanaian tabloid really was a shock. The paper went on with equally shocking stuff.

Street children
On a more serious note, I visited an NGO called Catholic Action for Street Children in Accra, which has been run by a Dutchman from near Eindhoven called Jos. He is a carpenter by trade but moved to Ghana aged 20, 35 years ago as a missionary and set up a carpentry training school in northern Ghana. He moved to Accra in 1993 to set up the NGO for street children as noone was helping them. There are now 20,000 street children in Accra (population 2 million) aged 5 to 18. They run away from their homes in the country due to violence, neglect etc. and try to survive on the streets, earning 20 to 30 pence a day, helping disabled people to beg (blind people pay the children to take them to people to beg for example), cleaning the sewers in markets at 5am and other menial jobs. Catholic Action for Street Children (CAS) does a sound job in trying to educate children the basics, training some in trades where there is a shortage of trained workers and even sending some to University. It is a mammoth task and they really only touch the surface of the problem. It isn't only for Catholics. The Catholic reference merely demonstrates the fact that Jos was originally a Catholic missionary. No religious education is provided. The Ghanaian government doesn't like people to know about street children. It is a problem but they would prefer to help the poor majority than a small minority of even poorer people. Jos said British MPs visited Ghana and toured some schools. Jos spoke to them and they told him that they believed Ghana had excellent schools and no help was needed. He found out that they went to some of the very best schools in Ghana. The Ghanaian government had selected them especially! Jos had to tell them that he knows of places in the north of Ghana where teachers sit under a tree and talk to the children - there are more resources. They didn't know of the street children issue either! Why on earth does the Ghana government hide their problems? Surely, they would want the MPs to lobby for help for Ghana? If a child would like to be educated by CAS, a staff member has to get the written consent of a family member so they have to go to look for them somewhere in Ghana! Otherwise, CAS is in trouble for kidnapping. When CAS talks to the media, Jos has to ensure that noone writes anything that the government wouldn't like. An advertisement on TV in Germany led to Jos being investigated by the Ghana secret service as he was accused of undermining the country. I could go on for ever writing about CAS so I will cut it here but in summary, CAS does an outstanding job. I admire their work enormously. Trouble is, the situation is getting worse with teenage street kids giving birth to children who live on the streets as well and they grow up knowing nothing but the street. Some kids aged 12 upwards (boys included) are working as prostitutes :-(
Their website: http://www.cas-ghana.com

MINI LIBERIA
Another highlight was a visit to the Liberia refugee camp about an hour from Accra. Thoby and I visited ourselves. It no longer resembles a refugee camp as it is fairly self-sustained and looks like any other Ghanaian small town from the outside. It houses 40,000 people and has been there since the start of the Liberian civil war in 1991(?). At the time, it had emergency accommodation (tents) and was run by the UNHCR but with time, it became more permanent and is now run by managers with funding from the UN. The education etc is paid for by the UN but managed independently. Unfortunately, due to corruption, parents are forced to pay a little for education, health care etc. We were shown around by a shy guy called Romeo, aged 20 and fled Liberia when he was aged 5. His village was bombed and everyone ran from their homes. His neighbour pulled him over and ran away to the refugee camp with him. He has no idea what has happened to his parents so is alone, educated and has no job. He earns a little money by helping friends with odd jobs. His family consists of other people in the same situation as him. He can barely remember Liberia. Now the war is over, refugees will return when the new government has been in power for a while and the country is deemed safe.
The camp is as modern/not modern as any Ghanaian small town but has a Liberian feel and everyone speaks a weird African/American English. I got to eat Liberian food and really felt I was in the country for half a day.

We were privileged to be there the day the new Liberian President, Ellen Sirelaf-Johnson was inaugurated as Liberian President. Many were watching on TV but I was surprised to see how people were not very happy about it all - indifferent really. Apparently this is because there have been so many broken hopes of peace before that they are waiting for peace to last and for progress to take place. Ellen is Africa's 1st ever female President. Liberia has no running water or electricity, has not a single functioning hospital and no government building was in a safe enough state to hold the inauguration ceremony so it was held outside in a marquee where all the guests sat on plastic chairs, including Condoleeza Rice and many African Presidents.

Cinema
I also went to the Ghana Film Institue in Accra where I saw a Nigerian film. Nigeria has a strong film industry in Africa. I have to say that it was probably the poorest quality film I have ever seen. The 1st thing that came on was 1 and a half hours into a another film. That ended after 10 minutes and everything went fuzzy. Tom and Jerry cartoon came on briefly until the actual movie came on, apparently a sequel to what we had just seen. The acting was dreadful, the plot simple, there was one song that kept repeating for much of the movie, it appeared to be filmed with a video camera and the sound quality was equally bad! Made for a fun evening. We had to stop ourselves from laughing at the film as we didn't want to offend the locals who think like the film for what it is (maybe).

WHERE WE SLEEP
Outside in a tent or under a mosquito net. Places have included a school, a school playing field, quarries, church grounds and once inside on the seats of a restaurant in Morocco! No mattress since the UK. Really helps for my kudos with Africans! ]]> Sat, 14 Jan 2006 09:49:00 EST http://chriswilliams.tigblog.org/post/36234 http://chriswilliams.tigblog.org/post/41121 After passing the Malian immigration post, we stayed the night in Mali but between the immigration posts of Mali and Burkina Faso. Some call it no man's land and get overexcited about being in a "stateless" place. A number of years ago, a Spanish traveller on the same trip as me but with another company, Af Trails, died of dehydration. He apparently sat on "the beach" (open air place to sit/lie down on the truck) all day, every day drinking alcohol but drunk no water and refused to listen to people advising him otherwise despite being sick so often as "the sun couldn't harm him as he's from Spain". Getting his body back past Malian immigration was not possible. Burkina Faso also didn't want a dead body being brought to their country so the trip organiser had to arrange for a local passing car to carry the man in his boot across the border. A sinister warning to us!

At the Burkina Faso immigration office, the first thing that struck me was a local boy selling peanuts, wearing a baseball cap with a picture of the President, Blaise Compoare. Compoare is a corrupt President who rigs elections and suppresses opposition in what is one of the poorest countries in the world. He used to be a minister in the cabinet of an excellent leader, Thomas Sankara. During the 1980s, Sankara seriously clamped down on corruption, embarked on a massive school building program, improved the economy and vaccinated hundreds of thousands of children against preventable diseases. He was hugely popular among the masses as he increased the quality of life so much but his lack of willingness to work with traditional tribal leaders to ensure they creamed off money for the upper class meant that Sankara was toppled in a coup d'etat, which included Blaise Compaore who is the leader to this day. Compaore t-shirts and caps were very visible across Burkina Faso as the election was in November 2005, just a month before we arrived. I wonder if the people wearing them actually wanted to wear them? I swapped a t-shirt for a can of fizzy tropical juice.

The first town we stopped in was Ouahigouya and then was Ouagadougou, the interestingly named capital city. The city of 1.3 million was fairly Western in a way. There were well-paved pavements, litter bins, the sewers were closed ( i.e. not open air) and there were even some cycle lanes on some streets (plenty of cyclists in Burkina Faso). Didn't need to look far to tell we were in Africa though.

The people in Ouaga as the locals call it were friendly and fairly modest. They were unfortunately bad for asking for contact details of white people though based on a 10 second conversation. In that situation I explain I have moved out of my house and have no phone number because I am travelling but they can have my email address, which they are happy with but never contact.

The city also had a great atmosphere with music playing all over the place, most notably on the forecourts of petrol stations where the music blasted far around. The people there seemed to live life to a rythm. It's an artistic country with a famous film industry (in Africa).

I spent New Year's eve in Ouaga but having had ice cream, yoghurt and milk in one day while still having Timbuktu diarrhoea, I was sick in the evening because it's common to become lactose intolerant when one has diarrhoea and given we eat few dairy products in Africa, the body has to work harder than normal to digest anyway! At 5 minutes to midnight I was still trying to vomit, probably like millions of others in the world but without having had alcohol!

Also in Ouaga, I went to an open air cinema with wooden benches, costing about 40 pence to see a film that was a few years old. Popcorn outside was a massive 10 pence. We also visited an orphanage and donated 280 pounds from the pockets of just a few people as groups got together to bid to have the right to do whatever they wanted to Thoby's hair that he put up for auction. He ended up having half of his long hair being shaved off and the other half staying on, hence looking stupid. The orphanage houses 54 children aged up to 18 who live in 3 dormitories. The place included a classroom, basic pharmacy and sick bay and a vegetable garden to help with self sufficiency. The children sang songs and danced for us when we were there and we were asked to do the same in reverse (!) - a brilliant way to spend time with them as people connect quickly in such situations.
Three people in our group are going to sponsor a child each at the orphanage so that they can go to school - costs about 100 pounds a year for secondary education. This is a lot of money where the GNP per capita is just one dollar per day.

Before leaving Ouaga, we were interviewed by the BBC Burkina Faso correspondant who was fascinated by our truck and what we were doing. The interview of me and 3 others, which was not news worthy to us, was played on the BBC World Service the following morning. To listen to it was funny (in a laughing at it sense). I have a copy of the interview on CD and will aim to send a file with it in a future email - definitely worth a listen.

On the way to Ghana, we bush camped but were visited at about 10pm (i.e. when most people have gone to bed normally) by 6 men with AK47s. My job to speak to them as ever in Francophone countries, it turned out they were the police and were looking out for us.

Verdict of Burkina Faso: a sweet country with friendly, yet modest and fun-loving people despite their poverty. We all wanted to stay a wee bit longer but such is life.

MAKE-UP OF PEOPLE ON TRUCK
Forgot to say last time:
19 men, 7 women
13 British, 5 Australian, 3 New Zealanders, 2 Canadians, 1 American, 1 German, 1 Irish]]> Fri, 06 Jan 2006 05:55:00 EST http://chriswilliams.tigblog.org/post/41121 http://chriswilliams.tigblog.org/post/35599 Our arrival into Mali was not the best. Getting our passports stamped felt reminiscent of leaving Mauritania as an angry Malian police officer wanted 1000 CFA (one pound) for stamping each of our passports. Andreas, my German travel companion, was insistent that we must pay immediately. Not doing what a policeman said was out of the question for him. Canadian Thoby and I were very insistent that we would not pay as "the Malian embassy said we pay nothing at the border" (that was our story anyway). The conversation went on for a half hour or so while we refused to pay and spoke politely while the policeman lost his rag, throwing his rattle out of the pram, because we were being awkward. Eventually, he went outside for a cigarette and got laughed at by all of his colleagues. He let us go on return, throwing the passports across the table. Keeping your sense of humour, being patient, calm and outwitting people seems to be the best way in Africa.

We were sure not to let us feel that this "welcome message" was typical of Mali but actually, it sadly came to demonstrate Mali reasonably well to a certain extent.

Having argued too much, we were now too late to get a shared 7-seater taxi to Kayes. All taxis and minibuses stop moving after 7pm as bandits operate in the area. We didn't want to stay in the rather uninteresting border town due to our time pressures. We found a lorry that was going to Kayes that night and so we paid them to take us on the 2 hour journey. Again, we were "excited" to travel by another means, a lorry carrying cement, squashed up in the cab, in the middle of a police convoy of trucks (I'd never seen quite so many trucks!) to protect them from bandits.

Kayes is believed to be the hottest town on earth so that was nothing for us to look forward to. An Australian in the town told us that the record there is 71 degrees celsius! Locals told me that 50 or 60 degrees is the hottest it will get in a normal year but then the official records (google search) claims 58 is the hottest recorded temperature on earth, recorded in Libya. When we were there, it was just 35 or something normal for tropical Africa. We bumped into 4 others from our truck who wanted to take the same train as us to Bamako, Mali's capital. Departures was scheduled for 12:15. The police were clever enough to pull us all into the police station at 12:00 to make us fill in unnecessary forms and get our passports stamped. Again, 1000 CFA was demanded for the work - cost of ink etc. We refused and sat on the floor, playing games while we each had a turn at debating with the policeman. He could see we weren't going to pay and we found out in the meantime that the train was delayed til 3 or 4pm so he let us go without paying. Police corruption on 2 days running!

The train eventually turned up from the garage and left at 6pm. I found my seat, which had fallen as it was not bolted to the floor. It was also facing away from the other guys of our group of 7 so Andreas and I turned it around. I like this flexibility on trains :-) The train had no glass covering the top half of the windows anywhere in our carriage. The lights in our half of the carriage didn't work at all, allowing for a dark night. We had about 30 policeman and army officials on the train in case of bandits. The train was slow, painstakingly slow. It took 16 hours to cover about 500km. It felt like the train stopped in every settlement that was more than a hamlet, while noone actuallly seemed to get on or leave the train at those destinations. Each and every stop turned into a desperately hard sell of food etc. by locals - fried dough balls, apples (!), bananas and so on being passed through the windows in exchange for small change. At some of the longer stops, we could get off to go and eat at street stalls. Everywhere was under candlelight. All this made for a classic and quite memorable journey.

In Bamako, we met up with our truck again. Bamako is a city of 1 million people that is bisected by the river Niger. I really liked the place but that may have been because I got shown around by Djibo, a worker for a non-governmental organisation whom I contacted to chat to him about his work before I left on the trip. I got to meet his friends, family and chat about Mali in general. One incident stands out in my mind though: being stopped by police while riding with Djibo on his motorbike. The policeman asked him in Bambara "this white man...does he have any money?" Djibo said "no, he is a student and has only come to visit me so has almost no money with him". We were then allowed to go. Day 3 in Mali - 3rd attempted theft against me - all 3 times by police!

Mali is a country of 10 million people, yet is the largest country in West Africa. It's one of the many countries in Africa that has straight lines for borders, stretching hundreds of kilometres. The European powers split up Africa by drawing lines on a map, totally lacking any intelligence on whether that would split communities, tribes or put people together who regulargly fought. The existence of many colonial boundaries is the cause of many conflicts in Africa today - Sudan being a classic example.

Mali is one of the world's poorest countries and apparently receives the 2nd largest amount of aid money in Africa (after Ethiopia). It had socialist leaders for pretty much all the time since it became independent from France in 1960, although has had a new President since 2002, who has taken steps to put Mali on the road of development. He is not a member of a political party so is considered very independent. The press in Mali is the most free in Africa (along with Benin), described a having "good freedom" by "Reporters without borders", the same as most of Europe. Mali qualified for 100% debt relief at the G8 in Scotland, 2005, but I wonder at what cost? They were probably forced to change policies that favour Western countries' trading. Mali, like other countries in the region, suffered a drought in 2005 and so malnutrition was obvious for us in Mali. The West did not give the amount of money or food that the UN asked for.

Of our 2 weeks in Mali, we did and saw a lot. Highlights...
*Dogon country trek.
This was the biggest highlight of all. A 3 day trek through villages of the "Dogon country" in southern Mali. The Dogons are a small tribe that has maintainted its culture for several hundred years. They were people who fled other parts of Mali to escape the spread of the Muslim religion. They forced out the Telem people who lived in mud huts built on ledges of the 120km long cliff along which the Dogons live. The cliff provided too much of a challenge for those spreading Islam, so the Dogons were protected. They built up a strong animist culture, although nowadays, many Dogons are Muslims, while few are Christians.

Dogons believe that God, called Amma, created the world as we know it by mating with earth. The termite mounds, representing the female sex organs had to be destroyed first because they prevented Amma from mating. Dogons believe that termite mounds represent the female sex organ, while ant mounds represent the male sex organ. To this day, girls undergo female genital mutilation at the age of 4 or 5 where there clitoris is simply cut. Boys undergo circumcision at the age of 10 or so. A group of boys undergo the operation at once - each one is held down by the hands and legs on a flat surface and someone (non-medical) cuts off the foreskin. The boy who is bravest is allowed to pick the prettiest girl in the village to be his wife as he is clearly the most manly of all the boys of his age. Female genital mutilation happens all over West Africa and predates Islam, the major religion of the region. It's very common in rural areas but less so in urban areas. The highest rate is in Sierra Leone where 90% undergo the rather unhygienic operation, which leads to complications far too often.
When Dogon women bleed as part of their menstrual cycle, they all go to a building and bleed together until it stops! They then return to the family.

There are many interesting tales about the tribe but the most impressive thing really is that they have managed to maintain their culture through 4 centuries of change, especially in the last century. Everything in the villages is made from the resources in the local area. They don't have imports beyond the drinks they serve to tourists and footballs and clothes sold in the rotating markets. This means almost everything in their villages is biodegradable.

*Niger river pinasse
Most of us took a 3 day trip up the river Niger, on a pinasse (long wooden boat with a motor and "drop toilet" at the back) to reach Timbuktu. This was relaxing and enabled us to see how people live on the river. The river is the lifeline of Mali and other countries it passes through. The river runs from Sierra Leone through the Sahara in Mali and Niger to the Gulf of Guinea in Nigeria.

*Timbuktu for Christmas!
What a totally random place to be for Christmas! Timbuktu is is where the Mr Men come from apparently and is of course, synonymous with the middle of nowhere. Many people believe it's a non-existent but really, it's there. Explorers such as Mungo Park had tried to reach Timbuktu and also map the river Niger for decades in the late 1700s and half of the 19th century. The town is not quite on the Niger so we had to take a standard Land Rover with 20 people inside to get to the centre - also fun! The town is very important for the salt trade. To this day, people of the Tuareg tribe go out on caravans ( i.e. convoys of camels/dromadaries) of sometimes 100 camels on a 50 day round trip to collect salt slabs weighing 60kg each. The people who work in the salt mines work for 3 month periods and are paid 30 pounds per month. They are allowed to keep 1 in 4 slabs that they mine (worth 5 pounds per 60kg slab) but they have to use almost all the slabs to buy water from the chief. Water is collected from an oasis, which is 1.5 days away on a camel.

In ancient times, the town was very important and very wealthy as salt was a valuable commodity. Nowadays, it's not quite so attractive and life is hard here. It's in the Sahel region (Sahel meaning the shore in Arabic, i.e. the shore of the desert) but the soil has become sand like the desert, as the Sahara has expanded. It's a hot, desperate place. Really poor. I remember draining the water from tins of tuna and the children fighting to get their hands into the water flow so that they could have some flakes of tuna that fell from the can. When Paul, a travel companion, took 2 black bags worth of rubbish out to some bins at a bar opposite, the kids ripped the bags out of his hands and ran off with them, only to rip open the bags around the corner to take out all of the glass jars and anything that could possibly be reused for something. There wasn't exactly much left! The market was fly-infested and had desperately poor quality food and little variety. In the traditional Tuareg parts of Timbuktu, I saw the abbatoir on one day. A cow would be killed by cutting its throat. It would die in a couple of minutes or so as it was left to wriggle in the sand. Then it would be chopped up on the sand or dangling from a stick as the customer ordered. The place was smelly and fly-infested. The cow horns were left in a gigantic pile.
One of the most disturbing things was the presence of cat skins draping over the electricity cables in the town. Bambara and Songhai people eat cats and then throw the skins and head over cables.
We all became ill in the days just after Timbuktu. We had spent Christmas in a dream of a place that is actually desperate and non really a place attractive to travellers despite the fact many go on long journeys to get there. Package tourists even fly into Timbuktu these days!
Mali in general has a lot of tourists compared to neighbouring countries.

*Djenne
Djenne is home to the world's largest mud building - a huge mud mosque.
Picture: http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/Africa/Mali/photo310559.htm
It has to be repaired after every rainy season using 4000 volunteers from the town. Close up, the mosque didn't really excite us as we had seen so many smaller versions of mud mosques around Malian villages with perhaps more character and charm. More exciting were the journeys in and out of Djenne: in by a car containing 16 people inside (3 rows) and on the roof! Out of Djenne by horse and cart. These are just some of the normal experiences of an traveller in Africa. We have to pinch ourselves when doing such things that at home are so out of the ordinary (random ;-) ).

What I haven't mentioned about Mali is the poverty and given so many tourists go to Mali, the children and some adults ask for cadeaux (presents) persistently. It is annoying but it's understandable why they do it and pulls our heartstrings. This, plus the hassle of the sellers and money-making scams directed towards members of our group eventually gives you a bad feeling about the place, justified or not as it becomes so hard to relate to the people. Mali is a great place (has good and bad people as everywhere) but the hassle takes the edge off it and we were glad to leave for Burkina Faso after 2 weeks in Mali so that we could walk the streets without being hassled persistently.
I will write about poverty in a future email where there is space.
]]> Tue, 03 Jan 2006 06:58:00 EST http://chriswilliams.tigblog.org/post/35599 http://chriswilliams.tigblog.org/post/41120 At The Gambia border we had to change money on the black market (as we
had done as a group in Mauritania) as we had no money and the bureaux
de change were closed as it was dark. The rates were fine although
the money changers or whatever they are called were crafty their
calculators. I only changed 35 euros for Gambian dalasi but they
tried to make more money in 2 ways: firstly by keeping the wrong
figure in the calculator memory so that they appear to calculate the
right amount in front of you but they quickly flick the memory button
so you don't get the right total. Secondly and more obviously, you
don't get the right amount when you count it out but there are so many
notes of low value that it takes so long to count. I guess they hope
some people are stupid enough to not bother counting. Regardless, the
people were so docile I don't think they'd be able to rob anyone.

While it sounds like a negative start to The Gambia, it couldn't be
more misrepresentative. The whole exchange thing was funny more than
anything else! The border policeman asked us if we had brought him a
present but "no" was enough to deal with that. We walked past 2
prisoners behind floor to ceiling bars that you see on movies and met
up with our fellow passenger from the Dakar taxi, Modou, who lives not far from
the border in The Gambia. I chatted to him for about 3 hours in the
taxi and was such a nice guy we kind of invited ourselves to stay at
his house. Modou was trustworthy (you really can tell after 3 hours
of intense conversation) as he had made no attempt to ask for anything
from us (the small minority of people in Africa are not subtle in the
way they go about this) and he had received a Schengen visa from the
French embassy to holiday in Europe, which few people would be able to
do. He was apologetic for not inviting us already as we had
previously been asking about the hotel.

We ended up staying 2 nights. We were in our element. He lived in a
3-roomed house (2 bedrooms and a living room) with his wife and 4
children who were equally friendly. The children were well brought up
and Modou was relentless in askig if they had been working hard at
school during his stay in Dakar.

We were in our element staying at his place. Much of the reason for
my travel is to try to understand the psyche of African people from
different countries and to do so, it helps enormously to live like a
local and be treated like a local, which is really very hard in every
place in Africa so far - Morocco being the easiest place to live like
a local.

Waking up in a Gambian village was rewardng. We hadn't seen any of
the country the previous night as there are no street lights, not even
in the Gambian capital, Banjul. Walking out of a Gambian house to
explore friendly people in a pretty village was nice. We visited the
small local clinic/hospital which wasn't so well equipped as you can
imagine but the staff were incredibly dedicated to their jobs. We
were in The Gambia in the middle of a national polio mass vaccination
program. Health workers go door to door to give oral vaccinations to
anyone who has not yet received the vaccine. Polio is the disease the
UN's World Health Organisation is working to eradicate, just as they
did with smallpox in 1984. Once it's eradicated, the world can
concentrate on another disease and not worry at all about polio.

We visited the capital, Banjul (population 50,000), and the largest
city, Serekunda (population 250,000) that day. There's not all so
much to describe - they are not particularly unique cities so I'll
save time and space ;-) I do, however, still want to know why there
was a shop in Banjul selling so many bags of rice with the label "gift
of the US Government". Is that misuse of food aid, reuse of bags or
misuse of bags?

The Gambia is Africa's smallest country (half the size of Wales).
Even smaller than Djibouti, Rwanda, Togo, Swaziland and the like. The
British made the colony of Gambia when the navy sailed up the river
Gambia and fired canons inland. Where the canons landed marked the
British territory. The British subsequently used The Gambia as a base
for slavery.
I find it a country with a progressive attitude, keen to develop and
better itself. The people seem to have a positive attitude and the
government is certainly doing its best to educate the country about
malaria, AIDS, polio and the like given all the billboards around. It
has been a fairly stable country in Africa in recent times except in
1994 when there was political violence. Since then, the country has
been heading in one united direction. Nevertheless, the economy is
still weak: 70% of the foreign export earnings come from the export of
groundnuts (peanuts), which means the country is in big trouble
whenever we eat fewer bags of salted peanuts in our local pubs. Just
15% of their earnings comes from tourism despite the huge tourism
industry in The Gambia. This is because the hotels are foreign-owned,
the holidays are booked abroad, the plane companies are owned by
foreign companies. This leaves The Gambia with little.

On our 2nd full day in The Gambia, we headed east. We took a minibus
to a town called Wassu. Minibuses and shared taxis where people are
crammed in like cattle are the main forms of "public" transport in
much of Africa. Minibuses contain somewhere in the region of 30
people and are somewhere around the size of a standard 16 seater
British minibus. Luggage gets stacked up on the roof rack, making for
sagging roofs and abnormally high minibuses. Goats stand on the roof
with no support and chickens get held upside down inside the minibus
and when the windows are open, you get the feathers blowing in your
face. There is always one driver and one young boy/man at the back
who collects the money and opens and closes the door where applicabe.
Sometimes, the door is kept open all the time as it cannot be closed
(broken) or there is no space for the boy to sit so he hangs on the
back, often no handed as he deals with the money! On on day
travelling through The Gambia, we were going along very dusty roads so
orange dust covered everything we owned, including eyes for those
without sunglasses (i.e. black people) and airways for those without
masks (most). By the end of the day, I had an orange face and white
patches around my eyes (where my glasses shaded them). The roads are
obviously bumpy too but the drivers tend not to take any notice of
that - I think they either have no care for their vehicles or they
just try to fly fast enough to ride the peaks of the corrugated roads
and miss out the drops. If all this wasn't enough while sweating
plenty as usual, 2 wheels fell off our minibus, which made for an
almighty bump. Wheel nuts had fallen off, letting the wheels loose
and bending the rear left wing (couldn't really tell among the rest of
the well panel-beated shell of the minibus). They were put back on
again but there were nuts missing and the wheels nearly came off yet
again, once again in the middle of nowhere. The minibus was stopped
and we were lucky to transfer to another minibus that was returning on
the road empty.

We arrived in Wassu and took a look at the stone circles they have
there that the Gambians are proud of. Nothing too spectacular but
worth a pound nevertheless. You have to understand that the worse
things are in Africa (except when it comes to poverty), the more fun
things are because it makes everything so funny. Wassu was pretty
much vehicle-less except a couple of minibuses offering to take us to
Georgetown (Jan jan bureh) if we pay for all the seats as no other
passengers wanted to travel any further. An African wouldn't do this
so neither did we. We often get offered this kind of thing - white
people can afford any price they think. They are surprised we don't
have our own air conditioned 4x4 as all other white people do. But we
are budget travellers wanting a cultural experience! We don't just
want to see Africa through a window. The fact we dare share a minibus
with some Africans is already a mystery to locals but we like it!
As a solution to our woes, I chatted to the police at the police
checkpoint in town and we sat chatting to them while we waited for
private vehicles to come past. The police asked the 1st one that came
along if we could hitch with them. The driver said yes and we jumped
in the back of his open back van, even happier with this than
minibuses that have wheels falling off.
We passed through Georgetown, which is an island, by 2 ferries - a
motorised one and another where all the passengers had to pull a metal
rope to which the ferry was attached in order to get the ferry across
the Gambia river. The driver took us all the way to Basse Santa Su,
the eastern Gambian border town with Senegal, where another policeman
showed us to a guest house....

The guest house cost a mere 2 pounds between 3 people for the night
but we got what we paid for! One dirty room with a mattress and sheet
that hadn't seen any cleaning agents since their manufacture; bars
over the small window, which had little glass left inside and electric
wires hanging out of the walls since the days the electricity was
pulled out of the place. Again, fun! We loved The Gambia for all
these random experiences!

Going through the Gambia during the day was all we got to see of the
country outside the built up west of the country. Nevertheless, it is
small and so we got a good view of rural Gambia - green and lush as
it's set around a river - no surprise there. There's also lots of
birdlife to which we were treated a little. Some nickname the country
"Africa for beginners". I could see why as the people are so easy
going, the country is beautiful and easy to travel around.]]> Mon, 12 Dec 2005 05:53:00 EST http://chriswilliams.tigblog.org/post/41120