Tales of a Tropical Butterfly .... and Other Stories ....

In the midst of death ... life persists ....

2008-12-16T17:48:00.002+02:00

I've been meaning to write something about the horrors of the mumbai massacre for days .... but find myself constantly bombarded by stories, op-eds and frankly conflicting emotions ...

Day 1 was filled with such overwhelming fury as i'd never known .... even greater oddly enough than after the London 7/7 bombings .... i'm not reading too much into that (big box cearly filled with too much for a quick post) .... Day two - insatiable need to keep up to date with whatever was happening moment by moment .... By Day three - horror and overwhelming grief .... which has slowly abated to sadness, respect, a need to mourn and remember .... an inexplicable pride in the armed services and also the hotel workers and people who sacrificed themselves or showed great courage to help others .... and huge relief that there have been few repercussions within India ..... and that anger rightly has focussed on the fatuous ineffectiveness of Indian politicians and the ticking timebomb that is Pakistan ...

i've been devouring blogs and articles trying to get more of a handle on what really went wrong .... and what ought to be done ....

Old heroes of mine such as Arundhati Roy seem shrill in their "liberalness" .... somehow i can't bring myself to agree with her polemic ... favourite novelists like Amit Choudhuri have provided nostalgia ... and Shashi Tharoor political platitudes ...

I'm going to the Frontline club tonight to hear some British journos including ones who were there ... give their insight .... so more after that ... but I'm attaching is Karsh Kale's tribute to mumbai ... which has most tapped into the emotions that i'm feeling but can't put words to ...

I heart David Remnick .... The Joshua Generation

2008-11-13T12:11:00.003+02:00

Despite a long love for the New Yorker .... i do credit my ex boyfriend for really introducing me to the genius that is David Remnick ....

This piece in the New Yorker on race and the Obama campaign is typical of his gentle lyrical insightful writing .... a brilliant article on the rise of the new "Joshua Generation" ....

I'm not kidding - i think if i could be anybody - i think i'd want to be like him ...

Below is a link to the article being discussed on MSNBC's Morning Joe ...

Hitchens Opines: good solid sense ....

2008-11-04T10:41:00.003+02:00

i LOVE that Christopher Hitchens (a true maverick) keeps getting wheeled out this election ... he's succinct, insightful, untheatrical and unapologetic (for his perpetual state of hungoverness) .... and lets honest - everything just sounds cleverer in a British accent ....

And the walls came tumbling down ....

2008-11-04T01:01:00.002+02:00

I know I know ... its the eve of the biggest election i've known ... and i'm still blogging about Africa? And not even about the crisis in Congo?

But actually - i think this story is also going to be cataclysmic .... after months of rancour - the ANC has finally splintered - and this could mark the dawn of a new political landscape ....

The SADC (South African Democratic Congress) held its first convention in Johannesburg this weekend led by ex ANC defence minister Mosiuoa Lekota .... and has been heralded by the other opposition parties (importantly - none of whom are majority black).

"The once proud liberation movement has lost its way. The values, the visions and the ideals of the struggle have been forgotten ..."

Its a sentiment I've heard echoed increasingly in SA, and especially so since the ANC ignored the quagmire of sleaze and controversy surrounding Jacob Zuma .... and as the political megalith that is the ANC struggles to maneouvre itself from revolutionary movement to middle-of-road party of economic development and engine of the continent.

Scarily however - it seems as though some of this split is along tribal lines. The worst violence at the end of the apartheid era was not white on black .... but instead black-on-black in the notorious "township wars". Zulu against Xhosa. Beautifully but tragically depicted in the great memoir - The Bang Bang club (which btw is one of the most powerful books i've ever read)

It is of course too early for doom and gloom apocalyptic predictions. This may truly herald the dawn of multiparty democracy in South Africa ... and as the great black hope for the continent we can but hope.

But the lessons learned from Rwanda, Congo, Kenya amongst a long list of others serve as a sombre warning. One of the advantages of the ANC was that it had no obvious tribal affiliation (although each appointment is made with exacting racial precision for the correct ethnic recipe) - and the rape trial of Zuma last year showed what tensions simmer close to the surface.

It would be too unfair if after the evil of apartheid .... and then the scourge of HIV/AIDS .... that SA could then riven by political and ethnic strife. The imcomparable Archbishop Tutu once said of Mandela "How God must love South Africa to have given us such a priceless gift".... I pray for more Mandelas and Tutus so that this wonderful country can negotiate its course to a real multi-party democracy and ensure that the struggle hasn't all been in vain ....

STOP! Karmacy ....

2008-11-02T10:53:00.002+02:00

Check the new video from Karmacy .... listen to the lyrics (even the part about the next generation of British colonisation) .... and go buy the album "Wooden Bling" ... its everything that you'd want from your musicians ... intelligent, fun, soulful and totally fresh .... i love these guys ...

Rock the Vote .... Obama '08

It must be even colder for you ....

2008-11-01T18:29:00.002+02:00

.... said my cab driver to me last night on the way home when we were chatting ubiquitously about the weather (i mean really - what else do we do here in england ....)

I wasn't sure what to say in response .... but I decided rather than just laugh politely and take it ... i thought i'd maybe try explaining that brown as i am ... i was actually from here ...

"Well ..." i said brightly .... "I was born and bought up in Birmingham - so I do know cold and misery ...." (trying to keep it non-polemical) ....

"Yeah .... but your blood is still different innit? .... i mean - you can't get away from that love no matter what or where you were born. Its thinner or summink. See - I have a coloured mate ... and he and his misssus have to keep the heating on all the time .... even in the summer .... its your blood darling - its always going to be foreign" ....

I gave up. And talked about wanting to get home to have a nice cup of tea ....

But it reminded me of a line from the sublime classic "How to be an Alien" which someone bought my dad when he first came to this country in 1965 ....

"It is a shame and bad taste to be an alien, and it is no use pretending otherwise. There is no way out of it. A criminal may improve and become a decent member of society. A foreigner cannot improve. Once a foreigner, always a foreigner. There is no way out for him. He may become British; he can never become English."

Super Gordon!

2008-10-13T09:01:00.004+02:00

According to Paul Krugman in the NYT Op Ed section this am .... Gordon Brown did good .... in fact he did exceptionlly good ....

"Has Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, saved the world financial system? ..... the Brown government has shown itself willing to think clearly about the financial crisis, and act quickly on its conclusions. And this combination of clarity and decisiveness hasn’t been matched by any other Western government, least of all our own."

Wow. He does make the point (quite a lot) that the UK is small fry on the economic stage as compared to the colossus that is the US .... but somehow our little nation stood tall and persuaded other world leaders to act not on ideology .... but instead to to look insightfully yet decisively into the abyss ...and actually do the right thing .....

The Guardian is less adulatory .... but flattering nonetheless .... holding its breath for a Labour revival .... and for a Brownian renaissance ....

As my mum would say .... silent waters run deep ....

Addendum: Just read that Krugman (of Princeton and the NYT column cited above was awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics today ... so he must know what he is talking about ....)

Going for an English ....

2008-10-09T21:27:00.003+02:00

No reason for this ... just reminescing after today's earlier post about how sublime GGM was ....

Curry is King .... or The Bhuna Bailout ....

2008-10-09T20:49:00.004+02:00

Such is the craziness of this current end of days situation that all the papers today are carrying the story about how Gordon Brown went to bed early last night safe in the knowledge that the bank bailout would be smooth .... since Alistair Darling ordered a £245 curry takeaway from his favourite curryhouse for the Masters of the Universe that met with him in order to end this descent into chaos ....

As a proud card-carrying brown person ... i'm rather tickled that poppadoms and pickles were the sustenance for our 'saviours' .... no longer is it the beer and sandwiches of old Labour ... the caviar and chapampagne of the Tories .... or even fish and chips of the BNP .... chicken tikka masala - surely britain's greatest export - is the the flavour of the moment .... the stuff that society runs on when the going gets tough ....

I can only think of the classic Goodness Gracious Me sketch when the uncle claims everthing as Indian ....

But sadly ... it all leaves a rather nasty taste in the mouth (i'm loving this terrible punning) .... since the Labour spin machine just makes us wary that we're being purposefully manipulated into thinking
a) they're just normal people like any of us .... or
b) oooh look how multiculturally pc they are - please angry brown people don't hate us for branding you all as terrorists.... or ....
c) the discussions to avert the apocalypse took the form of a rather amiable curry on a kitchen table with Darling being in complete control and not a knife-edge debate on the coming of hell - oh-how-very-quirky-British-stiff-upper-lip-and-not-like-all-that-fuss-the-americans-made we are ... (actually the last one i rather like ... i mean really ... how nice and civilised that our politicians sorted the mess out over dinner and not with some nasty melodrama)

Of course .... it may just be that our Chancellor thinks best with a naan and tarka dal inside him ... and who am i to disagree ....

Naturally the papers are going wild about this tasty little tidbit ..... Hardeep Singh Kohli in the Guardian today is calling it the Bhuna Bailout in a rather saccharine coquettish piece comparing the banks and building societies to the nation's favourite dishes ...

To which one wit has commented ....

King Prawn Rogan Josh : £12.50
Poppadums : £5
Lamb curries : £40
Chicken curries : £30
Tandoori rotis : £20
The knowledge that you can distract the taxpayers with talk of curry while shafting them for £50 billion : Priceless
There are some things which money can't buy. For everything else there is the Guardian.

Amen.

Hitchens: piece in Slate

2008-10-07T21:43:00.002+02:00

http://www.slate.com/id/2201622/

Hence the interview on Morning Joe ....

He argues in essence that we ought to exploit the opium harvest in Afghanistan to make actual opiate-bsed drugs (rather than funding Turkey to do this) ... and so stop the profits being diverted to the Taliban/Al Quaeda ....

At last intelligent practical thoughts about Afghanistan ... and the realisation that the strategies of Iraq cannot be exported there ....

Still .... could the yanks ever go for the War on Terror over the War on Drugs?

Christopher Hitchens kicking ass ....

2008-10-07T20:37:00.003+02:00

Christopher Hitchens ... love him or loathe him (but i frankly adore him ...) .... has to be the only person who can turn up clearly hungover (if not still drunk) and yet still put on an acerbically brilliant performance ... even if you don't agree with him ....

He was masterful yesterday morning talking about the need for new thoughts on Afghanistan/Pakistan and the utter offensiveness of Sarah Palin ....

Maybe its just the effect of the british accent ... but i think he rocks ...

Tony meets Jon ....

2008-09-19T11:56:00.003+02:00

My hero met - well - an ex-hero .... Tony Blair on Jon Stewart facing the "smiling inquisition" of the Daily Show ... much more serious than most Stewart encounters ....

I really wanted Blair to really come out and show himself ... to explain ... to redeem hismelf ....but there were few insights (except that he genuinely like Bush ... and that even he was a little surprised about the carnage after the invasion .... but that he still believes he did right)....he was classy if a little humourless, wary but of course very intelligent ... props to him for actually facing the questioning but I was left feeling even more disappointed in my ex-PM than ever ....

Part 1

Part 2

Who reads the papers? The daddy of political comedy ....

2008-09-14T20:00:00.001+02:00

"Global warming is just God hugging us closer" ..... the genius of SNL ....

2008-09-14T16:48:00.002+02:00

How can a government murder its people?

2008-07-05T06:46:00.005+01:00

The Guardian yesterday ran an incredible video piece filmed and bravely smuggled out of the country by a police officer .... for the first time we see the vote rigging under coercion by a "war veteran", the shocking treatment of MDC politicians .... and the brutality of daily life in Zimbabwe today ...

Shepherd Yuda driven by the violence and despair all around him, risked everything to courageously film undercover ....

"I had never seen that kind of violence before. The impact has left a lot of orphans; it has left a lot of people displaced. You cannot expect that from your government. You expect that from a rebel group. How can a government that claimed to be democratically elected kill its people, murder its people, torture its people?"

Earlier this week Matt Frei, of the BBC, wrote an great op-ed piece warning against the new axis of impunity - Burma, Darfur, Zimbabwe amongst others ....

If we want to regain any moral standing or legitimacy ... we must show our outrage now and not let this become the age of non-intervention .... for example Frei urges us to check whom our banks support (e.g. Barclays) and to flex our protest muscles collectively and individually .... otherwise what Shepherd says about Zimbabwe may become reality for more and more of us ....

"This country has become a boiling pot where only stones can survive ..."

Anarchy Under the UK

2008-06-04T10:40:00.001+01:00

South Africa burns ....

2008-05-19T16:56:00.004+01:00

I've blogged before about the blatant and violent xenophobia that exists in South Africa against other black africans ..... resentment against malawians, mozambiqans and especially zimbabweans (not to mention congolese, nigerians, somalis etc) .... who are economic and political refugees in SA ...... who despite being from countries that sheltered and supported the ANC during the dark days of apartheid enduring bombs, assasinations and often full scale wars for their stance .... and despite the fact that most of South Africa's wealth is built on migrant labour in the mines etc .... are now not similarly welcomed .... resented for allegedly stealing jobs (foreigners do have a rather justified reputation for working harder) and ironically for crime (again see post in July for the ludicrousness of one of the world's most violent countries blaming crime issues on outsiders ....) .....

The images coming out of Jozi this past few days eerily mirror old pictures from the late 80s when the township battles raged and the struggle against apartheid was at its peak .... Panzers storming into the townships .... shacks torched .... policemen engaged in running gun battles with mobs .... and collaborators or members of opposition parties (except now its foreigners) necklaced and burnt to death ..... the only difference this time around is that more of the policemen are black ....

The dream of the Rainbow Nation appears to be in tatters .... in a great Comment is Free piece in the Guardian yesterday - Sean Jacobs lists the hard truths ..... South Africa remains the most unequal country in the world .... for an increasingly youthful population (78% black), only 42 of every 100 South Africans have a job ..... 49% are deemed poor (with monthly household income below R2,400 or £170) ..... approx 15% are HIV positive ..... and despite all the country's wealth and infrastructure - 24% of homes have no electricity, 32 % no tap water, 69% no hot water supply, and R21 (£1.40) of every R100 (£6.80) they earn, they spend on food ..... emanicipation from white rule has not brought with it emancipation from poverty ....

Of course - its no justification for the mindless and terrible violence and for the nasty racism underlying it .... many countries are poorer yet remain peaceful (e.g. Malawi) .... but it is true that in the 14-15 years since the ANC came to power .... only a small black elite has become incredibly rich and powerful ..... and although a black middle class is emerging .... the new regime has mostly failed to deliver for its own people and grassroots ....

Yet it is inconceivable that the south african people (well the blacks at any rate) will vote against the ANC .... Cosatu the labour union has always been critical of Mbeki ... and there are internal ANC rifts especially surrounding Zuma .... but the recent revolt by the Durban port workers aside ..... the poor and the desperate of South Africa won't revolt against its own party of revolution and independence .... and instead the anger is directed against foreigners .... and now we hear reports that Indians (brought to SA as indentured labourers generations ago) - are also being targetted .... a worrying sign and one we've seen with tragic consequences in other parts of Africa in the past ....

There is of course a progressive liberal South Africa - with a constitution based on UN Charter of Human Rights (including enshrining gay rights - the only African nation to do so) ..... but perhaps a society that was built on difference and brutalised for it will remain brutal for a long time yet to come ....

The Age of Terror

2008-05-12T23:02:00.003+01:00

More of the beeb at its best. Incredible series on the evolution of terror ... this episode is particularly poignant on the Nairobi/Dar american embassy bombings ..... somewhat overshadowed at the time by the Lewinsky saga .... but now can clearly be seen as Bin Laden's declaration of war .... a fantastic piece of journalism.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/page/item/b00b6wd4.shtml?q=terror&start=1&scope=iplayersearch&go=Find+Programmes&version_pid=b00bdrst

Win He Will ....

2008-05-04T21:04:00.001+01:00

Britain's got talent ....

2008-05-04T09:00:00.001+01:00

Zambia .... or the crazy world of NGOs

2008-05-02T15:03:00.012+01:00

One of the things C & I really wanted to understand once on the ground in Zambia .... was quite how the seemingly simple intervention for PMTCT (at its most basic just one tablet for the mum at delivery .... to the WHO recommended treatment - which is still less mind you than the extended preventative treatment any of us would get in the west - of one or two anti-retroviral drugs from 28 weeks and then syrup to the baby for anything from 1 day to a week after delivery .... and exclusive breast feeding - meaning absolutely NOTHING but breastmilk not even water - for 6 months if you can't guarantee safe water or continuous supply for formula feed ... which is essentially the whole of sub-saharan africa) needed to be integrated into the whole system of ante-natal care as a whole .... especially in more rural areas ....

An African health minister once warned me of NGOs that often enter countries with promises of quick-fix interventions e.g. a programme of vitamin A supplementation which was feted to cure all children of blindness at a cost of just 7 million dollars ... which in order to be implemented actually put on the overstretched national health system a cost of 77 million ... which clearly the NGO didn't consider in its costs .... i think today - we've all learned our lesseons somewhat but trying to triangulate this whole new approach to addressing the health system's needs ... yet avoiding the temptation to try and fix everything .... and still show results in the short term to please your donors .... is a complicated politricky dance ....

We visited urban and rural clinics packed to the rafters with expectant mothers and children pressed against all the sick and the competing for the attention of the heroic clinical staff .... rudimentary government labs and sleek NGO funded training centres ... pharmacies ..... community groups .... government ministries (its amazing that you can just get appointments with health ministers - imagine doing that at home! see - that is the indignity of being poor and having to welcome every idiot with a cheque book) ..... and swish NGO offices (fully complete with fleets of white 4x4s with tall flagpoles that sweep imperiously over rural roads .... C&I had a tiny starlet which showed us up totally as a pimply teenager in this very grown-up world of NGO multinationals)

I developed a huge respect for poor african health ministeries who have to juggle the demands, (well and not so well intentioned) interventions and directives of local organisations, NGOs, donor agencies, private sector etc etc .... one visit to the central medical stores showed boxes piled up from all over the world - condoms from the US, China, Sweden etc etc .... drugs from India ... bicycles from Germany .... bed nets from Britain ... all heaped up .... and they have to make sure that the they all get out to the right clinics spread across the country (often taking upto a week to travel) and coordinate expiry dates plus the politricks of difference agencies only wanting the clinics they support to receive the drugs they donate (yes i'm outing the Japanese)

This NGO driven agenda was most evident when we visited a rural clinic about 2-3 hours outside Lusaka .... where an amazing young clinical officer (sort of more than a nurse but not quite a Dr) ran a clinic with one other nurse for a catchment area of more than 10,000 people .... he provided a full set of services for his patients .... including the dual-therapy PMTCT that we are struggling to implement even in rich South Africa .... he proudly showed us the computer and printer carefully covered in plastic sheeting on his desk donated by an NGO so that he could use a patient 'smart-card' system and electronic medical record system that's being rolled out through an american PEPFAR initiative as a health system improvement .... however he still draws graphs of his quarterly achievements by hand (displayed behind the desk) and the pharmacy stock room was down to its last bottle of AZT and other ARVs (not to mention non-HIV drugs...) .... because no one has ever really taught him how to use the machine except for the smartcard .... and he still relies on copying everything painstakingly by hand ... because electricity tends to only be on for a couple of hours a day ....

When we were about to leave .... he refused at first to shake my hand .... "i won't say goodbye to you my sister until you promise me a borehole for the clinic" .... i was flabbergasted .... a borehole! but he had a computer!! He emotionally admitted that they had no water at the clinic so one of the two of them had to spend two hours a day fetching water to keep on hand for deliveries at the clinic, plus their own needs ..... a borehole would cost 11,000 kwatcha .... probably the half the cost of the unused printer on his desk ..... this is Development gone Mad.

P.M.T.C.T

2008-04-28T20:33:00.009+01:00

Perhaps i got a little ahead of myself on the whole Malawi post earlier .... and perhaps should explain how it is i'm here in Africa again and not in London as i'm supposed to be ....

Some of you know that since I really didn't know what I wanted to do when I got back to London after/despite almost 4 years away .... I typically tried to keep all my options open (yes - my legendary commitment phobia still looms large) .... and so rather predictably I seem to now run around like a headless ninja .... gadding between the NHS, the London School of Tropical Medicine and attempting to do some consultancy work for NGOs on the side (the busy-ness of all this means that I can be smug about not having time to narrow my options down and make a decision) ....

Through the consultancy work - a friend/colleague and I were asked to look at the issue of mothers transmitting HIV to their babies (i.e. mother to child transmission - MTCT) which can occur during pregnancy, at birth and through breastfeeding .... and then tasked with developing a strategy for the NGO to scale up services in a yet-to-be-determined African country to prevent it (hence PMTCT).

The background tragedy is that there are now hugely effective ways to do stop this transmission happening ... and frankly we barely see kids born with hiv here in the west anymore .... but despite the science and treatment being known, tried and tested .... less than 15% of women who need it most actually have access to this treatment .... leading to hundreds of thousands of babies born unnecessarily exposed and infected ..... so that today over 90% of all children infected with HIV were infected by their mothers ....

And so C and I have travelled to Zambia and Malawi for a couple of weeks to look at how these two countries are addressing the problem given their high rates of HIV infection and to see why a prevention issue that seems to be such a no-brainer on the face of it (much easier than abstinence or condoms .... plus its all about babies .... great pics for development pornographers .... etc etc) has seemingly been languishing as the cinderella programme of the HIV world ....

In with the new

2008-04-27T22:34:00.001+01:00

Apologies for the title change .... but i'm having a moving-on moment. Long story but hopefully you'll stick with me.

In the perfect moment .....

2008-04-20T00:25:00.004+01:00

Occasionally .... you happen upon a moment that is just perfect to be in ....

Tonight under a full Malawian moon .... my friend Colin and I hung out with some of the staff at the farm we're staying at on the outskirts of Lilongwe .... they took us down to the village to hear some young guys who've been trying to get a band together ..... and before you scoff - this wasn't the usual development pornography stuff of men in loin cloths banging drums .... more young guys dressed like bob marley yet dreaming of being the african jay-z .... as chickens scratched around us ....

Sprawled out in the warm balmy night around a log fire ... after several bottles of south african red wine (the joy!) ..... the guys serenaded us with a ludicrous but charming session of Beatles covers (malawians get Ls and Rs mixed up .... so you can imagine "Ret it be .... Ret it be") - clearly what they thought the mzungus (meaning white people .... since yes - despite being brown - here i am apparently white) would like ..... and then some serious afro-hip-hop (i've no idea if it was more talib kweli than snoop - but it sounded amazing - and maybe bitches and hos in chichewa just sounds a lot more poetic) .... and then totally kicked it with a string of amazing local acapella songs .... those uplifting african harmony type songs that make your soul soar skywards .... make you breathless with the feeling that somehow feel that anything is possible .... and that magic could actually be real ....

We're off tomorrow to see a super-rural health centre where over a third of all the young women are infected with HIV and dozens upon dozens of children die from malnutrition every year ...... and where we're hoping we can find a site to set up a programme to stop mums transmitting HIV to their babies ..... and so i'm closing my eyes now and hoping the magic will stretch there too ....

PS Morning After: I'm a little sheepish this morning (and frankly hungover) ... i just found out this morning at breakfast .... that Madonna stayed at this farm when she - er - adopted her baby here .... perhaps not quite the fearless NGO-warrior image i'm striving for .... but still .... Madonna and I share a hotel!

Turning Tides? South Africa finally steps up to the plate ....

2008-04-19T11:21:00.006+01:00

Finally we can be proud in SA that we've done something right by Zimbabwe ....

Yesterday the An Yue Jiang, a Chinese ship carrying weaponry destined for Zimbabwe left Durban harbour with its cargo intact. SATAWU (a local trade union) refused to unload the arms ..... and then the SA courts ruled that the weapons, including mortars, rocket propelled grenades and ammunition for AK-47s, could not be transported across South Africa.

Typically of President Mbeki's smokescreen "soft" diplomacy which has just facilitated the continuation of Mugabe's barbaric regime .... the SA government's response was that since there was no AU or UN embargo on weapons sales to Zimbabwe - SA had no role in interfering in a deal between China and Zim ....

In contrast Helen Zille (head of the opposition party - the Democratic Alliance) was excoriating in blasting the ANC's apathy on the issue and the potential consequences of allowing the cargo to be transported to a country already on the verge of implosion with a real risk of mass violence over election reruns .... accusing Mbeki of being complicit in state-sponsored terror of genocidal proportions .... and reminding people that it was a consignment of Chinese machetes that prefaced the killing of 800 000 people in Rwanda in 1994 ....

The ship is now on its way to Mozambique and the port of Beira .... one of the 15 poorest countries in the world and recipient of much Chinese "strings-free aid" to Africa (essentially building infrastructure - albeit with only Chinese contractors - in return for the countries signing over great swathes of mineral and natural resource rich land whilst turning a blind eye to graft and to whose pocket the money slips into .... )

Lets hope the next wave of Olympic torch protests are not just about Tibet .... but also about Darfur and Burma and Zimbabwe ..... and the list goes on ....

Support Dileepan

2008-04-09T09:31:00.001+01:00

A friend and truly inspirational guy has been illegally detained in Zimbabwe .... he works for a non-partisan, non-profit NGO the National Democracy Institute .... and has been working in the region for years helping support parties in democratic elections .... please do visit his site to show your support if you can ... http://dileepan.typepad.com/

10 days to war

2008-03-12T01:19:00.002+02:00

To commemorate the 5th anniversary of the Iraq war - the bbc have made a great set of shorts entitled 10 days to war ..... partly thriller partly documentary partly entertainment .... they tell some of the untold stories and mistakes that have only been revealed since .... a sort of visual Imperial Life in the Emerald City .... the little films are moving, intelligent and shocking .... do watch. Its the sort of telly that makes you glad you pay your license fee.

In vino veritas .... but also in Woodford, and Oban and Tanqueray ...

2008-02-17T01:16:00.006+02:00

Those of you who know me well ... will know that part of my love for the countries I've lived in or visited .... is manifest in my enduring love for all the forms of alcohol of the region ... obviously south african wine, aussie wine .... english gin .... american bourbon ... peruvian pisco ... single malt scotch ... brazilian cachaca ... cuban rum ... sake .... etc etc etc .... the fact that my friend Lisa could make enough of a video of me drinking to the entire Bare Naked Ladies song (Alcohol ...) as a birthday present is testament to me ... and a little worrying ...

Anyhow - now I'm back in London and trying to be a grown-up ... i've been seeking advice from mates as to how to cut back a little .... one friend Matt has stopped drinking from Monday to Wednesday - but could be left miserable if something big came up early in the week .... Nicole only drinks before Thursday in the week if she is abroad (which she almost always is ... so frankly she's just cheating) .... my mate Saskia is more flexible - at least three days a week of no drinking, two days of moderate and two days heavy (and she taught me to drink ....) ... but then I know i'd find myself engaging in a complicated log-book scenario of carrying days over and using up days in advance ....

I'm weighing up options of a system that someone actually uses honestly ..... all suggestions gratefully received ....

African Swansongs ...

2008-02-15T12:57:00.006+02:00

What is it with hated global leaders making their final victory laps in Africa?

Tony Blair practically reviled at home and most of the rest of the world by the end of his time in office .... was greeted rapturously in Sierra Leone and ... er... Libya .... in part at least for Britain's part in ending the bloody conflict in West Africa .... and for championing the (largely inconsequential) Commission for Africa ....

And now its the turn of George Bush .... possibly the most disastrous president in recent history ... to many a walking crime against humanity ... whose vast catalogue of terrible programmes and heinous decisions has perhaps just one redeeming highpoint - namely PEPFAR (and to a lesser degree his Malaria initiative) ....

Now I've raged against PEPFAR a few times on this blog ..... and there are many issues on which I vociferously disagree with it and think its been a pernicious influence on the fight against AIDS ... however ... quite aside from the fact that it paid my salary for over 2 years .... there's no denying that (at least the treatment-allocated) money has reached down to the poorest of the poor (very unusual for aid money) .... and amazingly is actually doing what its supposed to be doing - both vertically and horizontally strengthening health systems in the recipient countries ...

A personal hero of mine - South African Dr Francois Venter (head of the HIV Clinicians Society in SA .... and all-round firebrand) sums up what I think most of us feel ......

"I look at all the blood this man has on his hands in Iraq and I can't quite believe myself but I would say it's a bold experiment from the last people in the world I would expect to do it, and it is saving a lot of lives. To intervene on such a scale and make such a difference is huge,"

And it is true that this is a remarkable achievement by a man who inherited the dubious legacy of President Clinton in Africa (the debacle of Somalia, the unforgivable blunders over Rwanda, the embassy bombings in Kenya/Tanzania etc) ... and who was once described by Nelson Mandela as a man "who can't think properly"....

But was it really enough? And was it what Africa needed?

PEPFAR is now widely acknowledged to have stemmed from Colin Powell and arose from a national security fears (also culminating in AfriCOM - the US African Command) ..... and its now its pretty clear that AIDS has not caused widespread political unrest nor failed states nor strengthened terrorism ....

In addition PEPFAR was heavily championed by evangelical movements in the US ... a sort of modern-day missionary-ising of Africa "saving the poor black people from themselves" .... but who are now (thankfully) seeing their leverage slip away and their global purge on sex in tatters ....

PEPFAR hasn't democratised .... it hasn't stabilised .... it was definitely conceived of in US national interests ... but extraordinarily it has genuinely helped some people in need and it has given them a precious few more years of life ... with a hope that more will come ... and it has undeniably set the pitch for the future of HIV treatment having to be made available and rolled out in the developing world as well as the developed ....

So as for what is next on the America-Africa agenda? Well we'll just have to wait for what President Obama thinks ....

No More Mandelas ...

2008-02-13T16:39:00.005+02:00

Fantastic Panorama documentary this week - charting 25 years of South African history .... and ripping to shreds any pretences that this is not a country in deep deep strife and despair ..... Fergal Keane challenges the international community's myopic assumptions about South African post-apartheid stability .... but also doesn't hesitate to point the finger squarely at the corrupt fatness and almost junta-ness of the ANC .....

Friends who have recently returned from SA and those who live there report of a country in black depression .... power cuts (cape town recently spent a full 8 hours without power ... the whole city!), water shortages (even the fancy suburb of sandton in jozi went 2 days without water recently) .... spiralling crime .... only serve to highlight a society losing control ....

Mbeki's plain failures to show any decency on the issues of AIDS or Zimbabwe led even White/Indian/Non-Zulu South Africans to not feel too desolate about Zuma's election as head of the ANC (not too desolate in itself not exactly being a resounding endorsement) .... but further corruption charges against Zuma .... the arrest of the Chief of Police Jackie Selebi on criminal charges and associations with mobsters .... and the revival of the political fortunes of Winnie Mandela (a convicted kidnapper and fraudster behind some of the more abhorrent violence in the township riots of the late 80s including the infamous necklacing) ..... give the impression that the country is on a precipice .... a national breath-holding moment until its safe to exhale ... or scream ....

I love South Africa with a passion that I never thought I'd feel for another nation ..... and i hope with all my heart that the vibrant civil society structures that led to the demonstrations for HIV rights and gay rights in the country .... the journalists that braved to tell the world about apartheid .... and the priceless heroes such as Archbishop Tutu and Mandela will ensure that the current rot does not seep too deep .....

But at the same recent ANC conference that Zuma was elected at in December - the same delegates voted to disband the Scorpions - the elite anti-corruption squad that has been investigating Zuma and Selebi etc ..... and there have been dire warnings of violence if Zuma is found guilty alongside a resurgence of Zulu pride and tribalism (and we know where that got Kenya, Rwanda, Congo etc etc) .....

Do watch the programme if you can online .... and i'll leave you with this from Alan Paton:

Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that is the inheritor of our fear.
Let him not love the earth too deeply.
Let him not laugh too gladly when the water runs through his fingers, nor stand too silent when the setting sun makes red the veld with fire.
Let him not be too moved when the birds of his land are singing, nor give too much of his heart to a mountain or a valley.
For fear will rob him of all if he gives too much.
Cry, The Beloved Country, Chapter 12

The new lion king?!

2008-02-12T11:03:00.000+02:00

Simba Makoni ..... an ex- Zanu PF cabinet minister government has formally announced his intention to stand against Robert Mugabe .... a happy happy day ....

Despite increasing disquiet in the country - it's still been an incredibly brave move to publicly challenge Mugabe from within his own system .... and predictably he has immediately been discommunicated from the Zanu-PF party .... and already threats such as “Traitors know how Zanu-PF deals with sellouts..." from Mugabe's "war veteran" rabble have spewed forth ...

However in reality - the continuing failure of the MDC to actually capture popular imagination or stop its in-fighting and the grimly worsening daily-life situation (a Dr friend from Harare writes of dipping into his final stocks of tinned food and crippling electricity shortages now that Zambia and South Africa won't supply Zim due to unpaid bills running into the millions .... thats US dollars ... am not sure there are words for what the amount would be in Zim dollars) .... mean that Makoni throwing his hat into the ring is the most positive development in Zim politics for a long while .... despite some of his more shadowy backers ....

Makoni claims to have widespread support from political players across the divide: “I know I will not be in this campaign alone. There will be many of us, a great many of us.”

With contrasts like this - lets hope we hear him roar soon ....

Salisbury (Harare) 1981
Harare 2007

Please note ... before i get any cross emails - I'm not in any way advocating that Salisbury 1981 was a better place .... just lamenting that Africa's bread basket with the most diversified economy and educated population has now slipped to a situation where the average life expectancy is 37.

Presidential Idols a.k.a Addicted to America

2008-02-01T14:15:00.002+02:00

This US primary soap-opera has just been Ridiculous .... both in the good way ridiculous (is that ridonculous? christ i'm old) and in the bad way .... I find myself checking the Huffington Post (thanks Peter for the introduction) at least six times a day .... endlessly reading bloggers on the minutiae of every turn, gesture and intonation .... researching details of each of the candidates lives, previous votes etc .... scouring every outlet from the New Yorker (typically great piece by Herdrick Hertzberg today) to the Colbert Report and Jon Stewart's Daily Show (who frankly I declare my undying love for and would throw my knickers at in an instant)

And of course its not just me ... every party I go to in London its the first topic of conversation .... friends in Delhi, Cape Town, Lagos etc are all addicted, all galvanised by the idea that Barack could get elected .... and in truth that seems to be the crux of it for all of us internationally .... I don't think the rest of the world would be nearly so engaged if it was just Hillary against some other white man .... but the thought of America choosing a black president is just electrifying ....

I asked a New Yorker mate of mine who does fancy himself as a bit of a politico if he thought Americans realised what monumental interest had been generated internationally for these elections and what it would say about America to all of us if Obama was elected to office as essentially what is the President of the World .... rather depressingly - he replied that the issue was not whether they knew - but the fact that even Americans did know - they wouldn't care .... that put me and the rest of the world in our place then.

And then I realised that despite the news-whore I am (and my smug euro-superiority over "ignorant" yanks) .... I didn't even know my own Foreign minister's name ....

And yes - for those of you who know me .... I am deeply troubled by this sudden love for things American too .... I find myself now back in London actively seeking out yanks and trying to accrue a collection for myself to hang out with (perhaps foreign yanks are a different breed to those who stay at home?) .... i get all sentimental and yearning whenever I hear the accent .... and I even find myself defending them against (other) smug superior euros ..... perhaps its like a mild version of Stockholm syndrome (as in the James Bond movie - the World is Not Enough) .... where you develop some deep love for your ex-torturer .... now if only we could get the Iraqis to catch the same disease ....

Heart of Darkness indeed ....

2008-01-23T19:15:00.000+02:00

I hear you groan loudly at the cliche ... i know i know ... pretty much as bad as "out of africa" ..... but truly this piece from the Guardian today makes you realise why things haven't changed that much in Congo since Joseph Conrad ....

The IRC apparently have estimated that an extra 45,000 people are continuing to die each month in the country .... repeat - an extra - so that's over and above whatever horrendous death rate would be expected in a central african country .... and that's despite the civil war having supposedly ended in 2002 .... horrifically pretty much half of those deaths are children .... in a country where one in 5 children doesn't make it to their 5th birthday ....

I was in Goma in June (photos from the trip) ... and it was truly the most scary place i'd ever been .... just minutes across the border from Rwanda - and bang - the danger was palpable .... as though anything and everything nasty could happen and no one would ever know about it or find you afterwards ..... and of course - the poverty was devastating and universal ..... resulting in the most pronounced survival instinct i'd ever seen (by which i mean a general MO to fleece anyone and everyone especially if they look a bleeding heart NGO-type liberal ... which the Congolese seem to be able to sniff out in seconds with expertise ... i clearly stood no chance at all) ....

So it's no surprise that most of these additional deaths are entirely preventable .... needless deaths related to pregnancy or early childhood problems, simple infections and wily old foes such as malaria ..... nothing for which there isn't cure or a remedy .... and which according to development people like Jeff Sachs could be reversed for say the cost of a month's war effort in iraq .... call me a a starry-eyed dreamer ... but just imagine if things like this were raised in some of the democratic debates instead of bill clinton's dancing abilities ..... that would be real change ....

Heartbreak in Kenya

2008-01-10T01:19:00.000+02:00

I have just watched the loveliest tv programme this evening that had me in tears .... Elephant Diaries on the beeb follows the stories of the orphaned baby elephants at the David Sheldrick sanctuary in Nairobi .... orphaned baby elephants .... how can anyone even read those words and not well up ....

The programme was an emotional rollercoaster with a tiny wee blind baby being rescued (and then tragically dying ... leaving even the most hardened experienced keepers weeping) .... and most amazingly a game of elephant football for the boisterous group of teen-ellies to help them bond .....

It embodied everything that makes Kenya wonderful and glorious and gorgeous .... and made me cry even more as the news came on after .... with yet more reports from Eldoret and Kisumu amongst others of bodies, violence and more atrocities ....

Having had the pleasure of spending lots of time there - i love Kenya .... the people, the culture, the land .... i even (against all the odds) like Nairobi and Nairobi airport .... and to see this current crisis is truly heartbreaking.

I just hope that somehow the words of Wangari Mathai, 2004 Nobel Peace Laureate from Kenya are heeded ....

Let us stand up for each other, irrespective of our ethnic backgrounds and political persuasions. Injustice to one is injustice to all of us. If we, individually and collectively, are not the conscience of our country, then who is?

Mugabe wins yet again ....

2007-12-09T17:11:00.000+02:00

Once more Robert Mugabe shows what a wily old political fox he is ... and yet again he wins the PR battle against the English .....

Mugabe (shown here with the President Bashir of Sudan .... no saint himself) is the only African leader subject to an EU travel ban (that in itself is interesting .... is Zim that much worse than say Somalia, DRC etc?) ... however the ban was overturned by Portugal in order to invite Zimbabwe to the landmark EU-Africa conference held this week in Lisbon ....

Immediately Gordon Brown declared that if Mugabe was going to attend then he would not (apparently to avoid any meeting between the two overshadowing the conference) .... and urged other European leaders to similarly boycott the summit ..... quoting David Milliband (our Foreign Secretary) "because of our distress at the tragedy unfolding in Zimbabwe, which affects people of all races, which we believe can be traced back directly to Robert Mugabe ..... it would be wrong for the UK Prime Minister - or other senior members of the British government - to stand by his side. This man's misrule has brought starvation to a country that was once the breadbasket of Africa".

No other European nation followed suit.

And instead - there were angry reprisals from several African nations. And of course Mugabe went and participated in the conference .... and Gordan lamely sent a proxy ....

When are our leaders going to work out that patronising stances are not its legitimate colonial right anymore? Yes Gordan is right to highlight that Mugabe is man who has brought his country to his knees .... but is he THAT much worse than say the leaders of Somalia, Sudan, Congo or Sierra Leone or Sudan etc etc .... this from a leader who recently welcome the King of Saudi Arabia to London and Chinese heads of state etc ....

Surely much more respect goes to Merkel ... who went ... and then took the opportunity to directly criticise without disengaging with the rest of Africa .....

With this sort of ex-colonial attitude .... its no wonder the Chinese are taking over Africa ....

Coming Home .....

2007-12-02T11:04:00.000+02:00

Apparently i'm not the only returning back to native lands this month .... this is a really sweet story about 4 gorillas who were illegally gorilla-napped from Cameroon and taken to Malaysia .... somehow amazingly they didn't suffer the fate of most monkeys/apes that are sent out to the far east (very lucky indeed - i once went to a chimp sanctuary in kenya ... and it broke my heart what evilness is done to these poor animals)..... and even more luckily they were kept as a family and made it to Taiping Zoo ....

However three years ago - the endangered apes were semi-returned to Africa first journeying to Johannesburg ..... and now finally they've made it back to their home country .... where they were received by government ministers at the airport!

What really also amazes me is that the gorillas had to go via Nairobi ..... probably in part because South Africa really doesn't see itself as part of the rest of Africa - and so has no direct flights anywhere in the continent (barely) .... but any of you who have ever travelled through Africa will know that there are rules to flying here .... basically never check luggage if you can help it and especially never if you are transitting ..... (i learned my lesson once when i landed in Nairobi but my luggage didn't land with me - and so had to spend the first three days of my trip with no clothes or anything .... and instead had to resort to feeding people vats of whiskey to distract them from my increasingly filthy state) .... so it was very brave for the gorilla-movers to chance a stopover (i know i know - it would have been very hard to misplace 4 great apes .... but this is Africa ... and anything can happen) ....

Anyhow these poor gorillas after gallivanting around southern and eastern africa ..... are now settling in back at home (well - on a sanctuary at least) and getting their bearings back .... which is a lot like how i feel here in england .... especially the sanctuary part given i'm squatting at my friend sonia's .... almost like a rehabilitation camp to prepare my for my release back into the wilds of north london ....

Me and the monkeys .... rediscovering "home" .... and missing South Africa .....

(picture: me and chimp friend taking a sanctuary stroll)

Out of Africa ....

2007-11-13T00:10:00.000+02:00

Life is a very odd thing.

I came to South Africa over two years ago really because i was chasing a romantic dream. Otherwise - i hadn't a clue what i was looking for .... i had no idea what i actually wanted to do ..... and i was desperate enough to accept the first decent job that came along from the week or so that i gave myself in Boston to find work in a hope to make some sort of career for myself .... and i didn't have the most auspicious start .... mugged at knifepoint on my first day .... it was just the fear of going home and admitting that i'd chickened out that made me stay .....

And so its funny that i'm finding leaving africa with far far scarier and unsettling and more of a step into the unknown than arriving here ..... it goes without saying that its been the most special incredible unbelievable experience .... horrific and disturbing in parts but mostly wonderful and without exception heartstopping .....and whilst the initial underlying reason i moved here hasn't sadly worked out .... i couldn't be more grateful that it inspired me to take the plunge, introduced me to a whole new world and way of thinking and spurred me to adventure ....

So naturally leaving has been difficult .... obviously - london can't ever really compare to one of the world's most beautiful cities with a mountain plop in the middle, beaches to go to after work .... and a different vineyard to visit every weekend and gourmet food at developing world prices .... safari and surf .... heaven and earth ..... and it was just the start of summer .... as i moved to england at the start of winter .... wristslitting ....

But of course - the real heartbreakers have been leaving a job that tangibly made a difference ..... work that really made me feel that i might just be fighting the good fight with purpose and that has definitely made me finally wake up to what i want to achieve in life .... and also leaving some of the bestest friends i will ever have to fortune to meet and that i thank my lucky stars i did (the best mugging ever!) .... that i can't even type about without getting all teary ... who saw me through some terrible lows and without question contributed to all of my highs .... and that i know i'll love forever and ever with all my heart .....

So now the leaving parties are over (thank you my gorgeous pedro and prawn for enduring a seemingly month-long continuous farewell) .... all my afro-trash bits and bobs have been packed and shipped .... and i'm sitting here in london ruefully shaking my umbrella and already missing South Africa truly madly deeply ..... so it seems the right time to start getting settled in ... and to change the name of the blog .....

Part 3: Eurgh posting gets tedious .... Nambia: the final chapter

2007-10-30T23:56:00.000+02:00

I'm determined to finish this on principle ... even though the actual trip seems several millennia ago .... and heaps of important stuff has happened since that i really do want to write about as well .... and even i am sick of writing about this now .... and so in short ...

After the small-town scariness of Swakopmund and separating from peter at walvis bay .... C and I headed up the west coast ... through to Cape Cross .... allegedly the site where the portuguese explorers first landed on that part of the continent in 1485 .... but now home only to several thousand very smelly seals (and the ensuing seal-slaughtering industry) ..... a useful stop if just for petrol ....which (as an aside) is something that can't be emphasised enough for the long drives in namibia ..... petrol stations are few and far between .... and often (especially damning if you've driven miles out of your way to get there .... as we did) don't work when you do get there (as we were continually told by white namibians .... this had become increasingly common after the "change" ...... all rather nasty)

And then onwards to the swashbucklingly named Skeleton Coast ..... which welcomed us with gates adorned with a skull and crossbones and very large sunbleached bones ..... veritable gates of hell....

The local San Bushman call this area "The place God Made in Anger" ..... its an otherworldly sinister stretch of surf meets sand littered with the ossified remnants of ships beached onto th shore ..... and now made even more sinister by the shadowy presence of Namdeb mining for diamonds (or De Beers Namibia) .... the evil empire has its reaches even in the most untouched places ....

We left the coast and headed inland into Damaraland ... a sort of mixture of desert and huge great boulders ..... the road to which is spotted with the (unique to namibia) dinosaur of the plant world - Welwitschia mirabilis .... some of which are over 1500 years old .... and actually have only two leaves which get shredded with time .... and even more bizaarely have entirely separate male and female plants who somehow have to find each other through each other in the wilds ..... its no wonder they have to live so long ..... i feel their pain .....

The other event of the long long road trip to Damaraland .... was a spectacular ripped-to-shreds puncture in the midst of abosolutely nowhere .... with no one to help .... luckily the lovely Corey (whose one contribution on our pre-trip prep was supposed to be to learn car mechanics and puncture repair .... but who instead chose to do his NYC bar exams) ... showed unbeknownst alpha male skills ..... and demonstrated that a Y chromosome may well have some innate value .... by whipping out the jack and fixing his first flat in about 10 minutes .... i stood by and made ooh-aaah noises appropriately .....

We limped into our gorgeous lodge (Mowani for any of you that might venture that way one day) ... and were instantly appeased after a long hot dusty day ... built with unique domeshaped thatched roofs to disappear into the boulder-strewn landscape .... and home to one of the only two desert elephant populations in africa ... it was the sort of place that made you pinch yourself at how luck you are to see the wonders of africa .....

Sunset didn't disappoint either .... its was glorious in the way that only African sunsets can be .... lurid reds and indecent oranges in an incandescent sky ..... unlimited unending space on fire .... the beauty only slightly interrupted by the arrival of Ami from London (via Nairobi, Joburg and Windhoek) ... who had chartered a private plane to fly him up to the lodge (!!!) .... but who still managed to arrive without his luggage (and yes for those of you wondering .... he did spend the next 4 days in the same clothes .... and undies ..... THAT is how he rolls)

Once Ami arrived ... the alcohol consumption rocketed .... chat and banter flowed .... and all adult sightseeing stopped .... we giggled like school children at the 4000 year old rock paintings (think stick paintings by a 3 year old) .... and generally took the piss out of everything and anything .....

And so onto the final leg .... to the great Etosha national park .... a very unique park where instead of you chasing and tracking the animals .... the idea is to just sit by one of the many watering holes with your six pack and food .... and wait for the animals to come to you and drink (from the hole .... not the six pack) ..... all very circle-of-life-natural-rhythm ..... except we were tyically wholly unsuccessful at picking the good watering holes ..... and so whilst we did see loads of incredible plains game .... everyone else in the park saw big cats, hunts and gore galore .... and when we did a night drive - the only animal we saw - was a domestic cat ..... and our biggest piece of action was running out of the canteen without paying for dinner (and then ami getting caught for it the next day!!) ..... i rest my case about Ami's effect on the holiday ....

In short 8 days .... mountains, desert and coast .... three hub caps and two punctures .... game viewing, dune hiking and quad bikes .... Erdinger Weissbier and Jamison 12 years .... and dust in every crack, crevice and piece of clothing .... bloody brilliant .... Pedro, C-dub and Ami - thank you

Namibia Part 2 - Germans .... are Germans even when they're African

2007-09-21T01:44:00.000+02:00

After our amazing balloon ride ... which on landing led seamlessly into gourmet breakfast amongst the vast spaces of the desert - we were feeling that life was pretty bloody good.... buoyed by champagne (opened in the pic by machete), fresh croissants and some very tasty zebra carpaccio (welcome to being bourgeois african style) .... we set off on the next 6 hour drive from Sossousvlei up to Swakopmund ... a town that sounds like something you might bring up after a long coughing fit .... and frankly as we were soon to find out - is pretty much as appealing .....

Several long hours later .... and minus one hub cap thanks to peter's speed stunts .... we limped into Swakop .... a small greasy and rather grey town on the coast of namibia ..... according to the hype - apparently THE summer activity resort and a town that has resolutely stuck to its German origins (founded back when Germany had an African colonial presence) ..... a bit like a small slice of Bavaria transplanted into the wilds ....

First stop - our B&B on the beach .... which was shaped like a boat .... clearly the German sense of humour hasn't been a trait that was selected out over the years .... not wanting to spend too much time on board - we then ventured out into the town to find the craic in this holiday town ....and were met instead by raher doleful streets .... and restaurants that if i walked in first would have no tables ... and yet if peter or corey walked in - suddenly vacancies would arise .... we all agreed - the place was cold and vile .... and even the very yummy wheat beer (Erdinger Wiessbier - wholehertedly recommend) that we used all night to lift our spirits didn't redeem the nastiness .....

The next day - we raced out of there as soon as we could ... and headed to nearby Walvis Bay ... made famous by the fact that Brangelina sat out their pregnancy and delivered here .... small coastal town surrounded by gossamer pillowy sand dunes and flocks of rather smelly flamingoes .... but apparently according to the guidebooks - a hub for all activity sports aiming to become the Victoria Falls of Namibia ... just without the waterfall ..... hmmmm ......

We soon found what we were looking forward .... three dune bikes .... one guy to lead us .... and a sequence of private dunes all to ourselves unadulterated by any other tourists ..... perfect for our ever-sociable corey ....

Now i'll admit ... at first it took some time to figure out how to change the gears on the damn bike .... and i'll admit that i got stuck multiple times in the sand whilst the chaps zoomed around and over dunes like ninjas .... but once i got the hang of it .... we were speeding around like giddy schoolgirls .... and then .... we came to the Big Dunes with the Vertical Drops .... and i started remembering all the promises i'd made to my mum to not do anything dangerous when in africa (!) .... and all the patients i'd seen with broken limbs .... but there was nowhere to go but down and with eyes half closed and too scared even to scream ..... i followed the guys down (who later admitted they'd also been scared witless and had assumed i'd never make it .... clearly my fearless reputation is only in my head) .....

It was an awesome experience - and we put Peter on a plane back to CT at Walvis Bay - all our boy-racer fantasies happily realised ..... we only needed to speed away as fast as possible from the Afro-Germans ... and onwards .....

Namibia Part 1 - The Big Empty ....

2007-09-17T19:20:00.000+02:00

When my mate Corey first made tentative enquiries about travelling around Africa this summer ... i sent him a 6 week plan that would have rivalled Livingstone's adventures .... but rather selfishly made sure I included all the bits that I wanted to travel to as well ..... and rather fortuitously - on the basis of his law firm advance - he decided to take my word for it ... and embarked upon his own re-colonisation of africa journey ....

I decided to join him for the middle bit .... and in typical fashion managed to convince a few others that it would be in their very best interests to come along with us .... Peter from cape town for the first four days (all part of my very cunning plan btw ... on which more later .... but lets just say i'm the new cupid) ... and then Ami all the way from london for the second four days .... frankly anything and anyone so that corey didn't tire of my company and fling me out into the desert ....

Our schedule was hectic (see blue line on the map) .... 8 days to traverse huge distances that most people do over at least two weeks .... on a tight-ish budget ... and in a two-wheel drive against all advice to only use a proper 4-wheel drive (our budget and my abhorrence of SUVs precluding us getting anything more substantial than a small VW polo) .... speaking of the two wheel care hire - amazingly when we arrived in windhoek to pick up our car that we'd booked with the super-dooper all inclusive uber coverage .... they then asked us if we wanted to purchase the additional wheel, window and hub-cap insurance ... apparently in namibia - these bits aren't recognised as actually part of the car ... and so need to be covered separately (what a scam! we thought) .... however - for any of you thinking of doing this trip - after our two punctures, four hub-cap losses, countless window chips and under-carriage GBH (caused by Corey - not me!) .... buying the extra insurance was probably the best decision of the whole trip .... so just a bit of advice ....

So firstly the common bits ... namibia is HUGE ... and very dusty (natch - being one big lump of desert) .... and the roads are a pile of pants - being either sand, gravel or the worst - made up of small and very sharp rocks that embed in your tire and then rip it to shreds .... the boys taught me that driving when your car is out of control is FUN .... but that when faced with a daily drive of 6 hours for 8 days - you need more than one ipod ....

Our adventures started in Soussousvlei - the classic Namibian landscape .... gorgeous flame-coloured dunes .... smoky Namib-Naukluft mountains in the hazy background ... but instead of the desolation and loneliness we were seeking - we found queues to climb the dunes (prompting Corey "I want my own private dune ... I'm not sharing") .... and foreign tourists galore ....

However nothing could take away from the magic of the desert and especially the incredible "other-ness" Dead Vlei - or Dead Lake .... apparently the site of a lake many hundreds of years ago where the trees although also dead are preserved because of the total lack of moisture in the air (not helped however by the water bottles we found stuffed in one of the tree trunks by some idiot git tourist ... ) ..... making it almost a place of total Un-Life .... surrounding by monster towering dunes protecting it from any chance of growing things invading and restoring nature ....

That evening - we took some ATV quad bikes though the more mountainous bits .... which contrary to what the boys will say - i was fast at .... but just not as carelessly speedy as them ... and watched one of many great African sunsets (I'm not sure what it is - but nowhere does the sun set as spectacularly as in Africa) .....

But the other highlight of being in Sossousvlei was an amazing hot-air balloon ride at dawn .... watching the sun rise over the dunes - just indescribably breathtakingly joyously beautiful .... deserving of some lyricism that i'm certainly not capable of - the sort of scenes you just gasp at .... and want to hold in your mind forever .....

Freshly Grown ....

2007-09-15T09:45:00.001+02:00

About 4 months ago - I posted about an amazing a group of women who supported HIV infected neighbours in their squatter camp .... and to whom i had given the last few rand in my pocket to in order to help them with their small garden .....

To be honest .... of late - my idealism about giving money away has been beaten down by some hard-gained hard-nosed scepticism .... after two years in this country - i assumed that the cash would have probably been used to buy more than a few rounds of drinks down at the local shebeen ... and if not several bags of tik to smoke ... frankly anything to make the poverty and misery less overwhelming ....

And so when Pauline, one of the women involved in the project, gave me a call last weekend muttering that something was a problem and that i needed to come to the camp urgently ... my heart sank .... by chance i was in the area .... and so reluctantly i agreed ..... i hid most of my cash away, backed up my computer, left my valuables at home (this is after all south africa) .... and journeyed nervously out into the informal settlement .... expecting the very worst ....

Instead .... I was met with much giggling from the assembled women - pleased that they'd set me up .... and after the prerequisite singing - they proudly led me to their neat happy rows of green .... nicely fenced off .... interspersed with watering bins and garden tools ....

The women's group had taken their little garden and turned it into a mini-vegetable farm .... and more importantly they were turning in quite the profit for their support group members ..... they had just wanted to show just how well and how much they'd done on the paltry 500 rand ....

I was ecstatic for them ... and rather ashamed for me ..... clearly you can spend too long in a place and start to become far too cynical ....

They wouldn't take any more money (more to salve my conscience really) .... and they wouldn't take no for an answer - and so I left with my arms piled high with cabbages, sugar beet and spinach .... and with my loot - i made the best veggie curry ever .... there's clearly nothing like the taste of goodness ....

Having my bones thrown ...

2007-08-31T14:34:00.000+01:00

Its been a tough few months for me recently with lots of upheaval ... and the last few weeks have been especially rather hectic - planning my departure from SA, almost getting chucked out of my house by an evil landlady (and then leaving anyway), killing my liver with the Harvard/KSG boys in Namibia ... and the list goes on ...

If i'd been in London or in Boston ... i'd have booked myself into a spa, had a massage ... perhaps drunk a few bottles of wine ... well .. i've done a lot of that here too ... but i figured ... since i didn't have a normal doctor here in Cape Town (and yes - i know that i am one ... but i knew i didn't have an infectious disease ....) .... i would go to an African doctor - a Sangoma ....

Now Sangomas have a bad rep in the HIV NGO community ... most of our patients consult traditional healers before they seek a medical opinion ... and often mix muti (essentially plant and animal bits) with their ARVs ... which makes an awful mess as you can imagine .... and we "normal" doctors have been guilty of demonising their efforts and role in the fight against AIDS ...

Added to that several have been convicted recently of kidnapping and killing children for various essential components of witches brew ..... and so .... i chickened out a bit of the whole authentic experience ... and found myself a white sangoma instead .... i claimed so that language wouldn't be a problem and a white healer would explain any cultural differences to me .... but really it was so that i didn't have to sacrifice a goat or drink ground up baby bits ....

Julia the Sangoma - couldn't have been nicer .... true she did have her special healing hut (or Ndumba) and she did wear the traditional gall bladder of the goat that was sacrificed at her initiation ceremony .... but she explained everything fabulously .... and was suitably understanding about my being an allopathic doctor ....

So we sat on an animal hide (? goat) mat .... sent out smoke to honour our ancestors .... and she threw my bones .... interpreted my dreams (even though to be fair i didn't remember any) ... and told me about my life ..... i can't tell you what she actually said - thats between me and my ancestors apparently - but she gave me some very sound advice as well as lots of very african perspectives on very western woes .... and then she grated, sieved, chopped and chanted over some muti to help me .... just to reassure any squeamish ones amongst you - all in the form of baths .... with no blood no sacrifice no animals (at least none that i could see moving) and certainly no human bits ....

I tried the first treatment today .... it looked a bit like a science experiment ... and smelt - well - like a biology experiment .... so am keeping my fingers crossed that nothing too untoward happens .... the second treatment to be taken at the full moon is a protective spell ... i may be a crass sceptical western doctor .... but i kind of like the idea that i have African spirits watching over me too ....

Unjustifiable Firing ...

2007-08-28T17:32:00.000+01:00

Apologies .... this is old news really (my excuse - I've been away in Namibia - which was quite the news/internet black hole) ... but the ripples from the very shameful sacking of our deputy minister for health Nozizwe Madlala Routledge continue to reverberate strongly throughout South Africa ...

About a year ago - I was at a debate at the University of Cape Town - when Ms Madlala-Routledge was finally able to step out of the shadows and gagging orders placed on her for years by Mad Mantu (our Health Minister .. aka Dr Beetroot/Garlic/Anything but ARVs) .... she spoke on a platform with Zackie Achmat (of TAC) openly criticising the misguided stance and policy of denialism of the SA National government on the issue of HIV ... it was the first time any government minister had broken ranks with President Mbeki on this subject .... the entire audience gave her a rapturous reception acknowledging the momentous speech she had bravely given .... Zackie openly praised her saying that individuals like Nozizwe were the reason that he (against all criticism) remained a member of the ANC ... warning that further attempts to stifle her would seriously destabilise south african democracy ....

In the months that followed - she took advantage of the fact that Mad Mantu was having a liver transplant (scandal! for alcohol-induced liver failure).... and she became the main driving force behind the first sensible South African 5-year plan to roll out antiretroviral therapy across the country .... all of us in the HIV-NGO community rejoiced .... finally the country seemed to be coming to its senses ....

Sadly ... perhaps even typically ... in response to her passion and courage ... Mbeki chose to fire Nozizwe a couple of weeks ago (on Women's Day no less) ... allegedly for attending a conference in Madrid without permission (even though just a year ago the Deputy President flew to Dubai on a junket using a presidential jet ... for which she wasn't even reprimanded) .... but there's no doubt she's been binned for not toeing the party line and going head to head with Mbeki/Mantu (whose shadowy husband is perhaps one of the most powerful men in SA - and allegedly rules the country from behind the scenes) and the rest of the ANC inner circle cabal ....

There are many injustices about the firing of Madlala-Routledge .... however the most concerning is that in a country where over 1000 people die every day from HIV/AIDS - President Mbeki has yet again put a question mark over his government's commitment to fighting HIV and the AIDS treatment plan that Madlala-Routledge championed ... thus potentially denying the right to life for a large proportion of our population ....

The following petition was put together by Zackie and the TAC ...

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/3/support-for-nozizwe-madlala-routledge

Battle at Kruger

2007-08-23T16:27:00.000+01:00

Some of you may have seen this already .... but its just reached us here ...... incredible!

Its all about sex baby ....

2007-08-04T14:06:00.000+01:00

Excuse my geekishness .... but it was fascinating week for AIDS in the news this week ... with two stories in the two of the biggest media players in the world ... telling almost opposite stories ....

The New York Times published a piece dramatically entitled Plague of Nations reviewing a recently published book (The Invisible Cure by Helen Epstein) ... which highlights the work of an American researcher - Maxine Ankrah - who had investigated in the sexual behaviour of Ugandans in the late 80s and 90s ... and found the cause for the precipitous drop in HIV rates in Uganda ... namely that Ugandans had stopped having affairs and remained faithful to their partners .... President Museveni had called for a "zero-grazing" approach to sex ... and hey presto .... Uganda became the HIV prevention world's poster-child country .... and PEPFAR's main stick to beat countries into abstinence submission ..... and of course the donor funds pored in ....

Epstein then makes the point that some (dopey) UN AIDS researcher ... apparently misunderstood Ankrah's work ... and wrongfully attributed the Ugandan miracle to increased condom use (just imagine!!) .... and then used this misguided conclusion to set global policy of promoting condoms (and thereby more sex!) around the world ....(inevitably as with all US media sources - the bungling UN gets relatively short shrift ....)

Now - the NYT/author of the Invisible cure don't want to sound racist here .... and acknowledge that it is not that Africans are shagging voraciously around the continent (there has to be something to do after the sun goes down right? ... when there's no telly) .... and the article quotes recent studies that have shown that Africans do not have more sex or even more sex partners than people in other parts of the world .... yessiree ... those blacks are apparently NOT out there shagging everything that moves (whatever those hip hop videos or white supremacist pamphlets tell us) .... in fact (according to my mate Tim who studies this ... a phd in sex ... ) the average number of sexual partners over a lifetime is pretty much equivalent across the world .... at 6 .... (high? low?!!)

But instead - the crux of all this is that - Africans are more likely to have concurrent relationships (ie have sex with more than one person at the same time .... naughty naughty ) .... which tend to be associated with less condom use and more risky sex ..... whereas in America apparently - these lifetime 6 partners are more likely to occur one after another sequentially ... and serial monogamy is associated with lower risks of HIV transmission .... even if they don't use condoms ....

The Take Home Message - Abstinence and Being Faithful are the key to preventing HIV (and hence the invisible cure ... geddit?) ... which sounds scarily anthemic of PEPFAR ....

In sharp contrast .... the BBC ran a piece essentially declaring abstinence programmes ineffective in stopping "risky sexual behaviours", following the publication of a study from Oxford in the British Medical Journal. Hmmmm .......

This study's message was that if promotion of abstinence in developed countries did not stop sexually transmitted infections or pregnancies - then it follows that such programmes have even less chance of working in developing countries where people have even less choice or control over sexual decision making ... and hence are pretty rubbish at preventing the spread of HIV.

The Brit media did not hold back in making a few pointed jibes at the US and the PEPFAR ideology of abstinence (condoms, needle exchanges, safe practices for prostitutes etc are all subjects non grata in the wonderful world of PEPFAR) ....

The accompanying editorial in BMJ went further .... and highlighted that whereas abstinence only programmes had largely failed - interventions promoting condoms had been hugely successful when targeted appropriately .... suggesting sarcastically that the US prioritises such interventions for its own specific populations where HIV transmission is amongst the highest in the world (blacks, hispanics, prisons, druggies, Men-who-have-sex-with-men etc) ....

Ouch ... is this the end of the US-UK special relationship? Has the Beeb become anti-american? Since when has the NYT been a government ideology mouth piece?

What it does highlight however is quite how politicised this pandemic was, is and will continue to be. Interestingly - Human Rights Watch - an organisation with a pretty good reputation (and - predictably - not the Bush regime's favourite NGO) published a report in 2005 urging Uganda to resist the US-driven anti-condom agenda condemning the false morality of its basis and requesting that future interventions be based on real science. The articles published this week show yet again how hard it is to find science or reporting that is unadulterated or unbiased .... and how little we have progressed ....

Getting rid of Mugabe ....

2007-08-01T15:21:00.000+01:00

On my monthly jaunt to Edendale hospital this week .... I met some rather lovely Zimbabwean doctors .... and as one story led to another ... I mentioned my tale of trying to seduce Mugabe's personal physician to bump him off quietly ... and we spent the rest of the evening wondering about the various ways that Zim might be able to rid itself of its national-saviour-gone bad .....

On the eve of Zim's last election (2005) - the very brave Bishop of Bulawayo (Pius Ncube) admitted he'd prayed hard for the death of Mugabe in order to end the suffering of Zimbabweans .... not what you'd expect from a man of the cloth (just imagine the Archbishop of Canterbury wishing ill-fate on Tony Blair) .... but clearly God wasn't in the mood to listen then or now ..... since sadly the 83 year old looks in truly rude health (unlike the rest of his countrymen who can only expect to live to ripe age of 38) .... and capable certainly of fighting the next "election" .....

Succession seems unlikely since he hasn't actually even chosen a successor within the Zanu PF party - but in all likelihood - anyone else who heads Zim with his blessing won't be anymore than a grotesque puppet (he was apparently thinking of installing an ex-girlfriend as the next leader - a woman with the rather charming nom de guerre of Spill Blood) ....

People power sadly is also unlikely to dislodge him .... only a few of these African "Big Men" leaders have ever gone willing or peacefully .... true democratic handovers of power remain rare here ..... and military coups are seemingly the traditional african method of succession .... associated with the prerequisite bloodletting and ensuing civil wars, tribalism and rebel conflicts ..... which also (thankfully) is probably not going to be the case for for Zim (the security system is too tightly controlled by Zanu PF .... and Mugabe has definitely been adept at greasing the right palms within the country) ....

All our opinions that night agreed on one point - that we were all keeping our fingers (nay all appendages) crossed .... that South Africa would finally abandon its position of quiet diplomacy and general lap-dog-ness to leverage its influence on Mugabe ....... and that this would only be possible if the tide of public opinion here started to turn ....

Only three months before the last Zim election - the New African magazine ran a poll of the 100 greatest Africans of all time .... rather predictably - Nelson Mandela came top and Kwame Nkrumah came second .... but horrifically Robert Mugabe romped home in third place .... ahead lets be clear of Desmond Tutu, Sam Nujoma (Namibia), Wole Soyinka, Joaquim Chissano or Samora Machel (Mozambique), King Shaka and so on ... it would be laughable if it wasn't so tragic ....

Thankfully - two years or so on .... the veil of Mugabe as the Pan-African Hero has been dropped .... perhaps his abuses of human rights regardless of skin-colour have started to destroy his image as anti-imperialist warrior against the anglo-american conspiracy to keep the black man down .... or perhaps Zimbabweans have learnt that they mustn't die silently like the Darfurians and instead leaders like Tsvingirai have started to use media better ..... for somehow the stance of Mbeki is now being openly derided .... and other African leaders such as Ghana's John Kufour or Zambia's Patrick Mwanawasa have started to question the continent's silence ....

As Zimbabweans flood into South Africa .... and as the crisis in Zim starts to damage South Africa socially, politically and economically .... the general man on the south african street is finally starting to question both his own national leadership and the leadership of the seeming paradigm revolution against the white man ....

Everyone here is talking about Zim .... and for once - open criticism is being voiced without a fear of being labelled a traitor to the black cause .... it is quite a monumental change ..... it could be the legacy that Mbeki is so desperately seeking before the end of his term in office .... and the incomparable Desmond Tutu perhaps said it best .....

We Africans should hang our heads in shame ..... How can what is happening in Zimbabwe elicit hardly a word of concern, let alone condemnation from us leaders of Africa?

A Pale Native ....

2007-07-31T17:52:00.000+01:00

When all of us foreigners arrive in South Africa ... the one thing we are all intensely fascinated by is essentially - What It was like - you know - Before the Change ...

When you see black people - you want to hear about how hard it was under apartheid, how they struggled, what made them want to fight ....

When you see white people - you want to know how they could have lived through apartheid committing/watching the injustices, whether they did anything to rage against the machine .... and importantly what it feels like now ....

What you find eventually is that few people are honest, few people satisfy what you want to know and frankly few people really want to talk about it ....

And so ... we all have to turn to reading everything we can get our hands on to understand a bit better .... the books that everyone knows about - Rian Malan's My Traitors Heart, The Bang Bang Club (about a group of young photojournalists during the township wars), classics such as Alan Paton's Cry My Beloved Country or anything by Nadime Gordimer .... and of course - everyone's favourite door stop - Nelson's Mandela's autobiography .... and the list for anyone thinking of visiting could go on and on ....Steve Biko, Ahmed Kathrada Antjie Krog, Desmond Tutu etc etc ...

But for me the most honest, riveting and my favourite of all so far has been the memoirs of the "rogue" journalist Max du Preez's - Pale Native .... someone who was openly admired and thanked by Mandela yet who also managed to be avowed adversary of both the old apartheid government and the new Mbeki regime .... his writing is delicious and completely honest ....

Max du Preez is particularly special because he set up the first Afrikaans anti-apartheid newspaper Vrye Weekblad (his aim apparently to wrest the language of Afrikaans away from clutches of apartheid) .... for which he was rewarded with a bombing, two assassination attempts and permanent residence on the hitlists of right-wing groups ....

He and his merry band of reporters (including interestingly Jacques du Pauw whose memoir Dances with Devils is also a cracking read ... and Helen Zille - ex Black Sash, ex MP for Khayelitsha township, and current Mayor of Cape Town and head of the Democratic Alliance - the only real opposition party in SA) more than any other journalists brought the real guts and nastiness stories of apartheid South Africa to the homes of white south africans (at least those who were open to reading about it) .... yet he's also honest about dealing with flip-side of what they fought to overthrow - and he writes openly about what its like now for white afrikaaner males in the process of "transformation" - essentially being bottom of every desirability totem pole ....

But what i really love about this book .... is whilst almost everything else i've read on Africa and the many global meddling hands in its many conflicts - has made me want to slit my wrists whilst fitting a car exhaust pipe to my mouth .... reading Max du Preez makes me almost joyful .... because you're left knowing that however many George Bushes or FW de Klerks or Tony Blairs there are in this world doing their best to manipulate and obfuscate .... he and other investigative journalists like him are out there remaining difficult, ornery and uncompromising .... doing everything they can to dig out the truth and convince us to read it ....

Good ... Bad ... or Ugly .... Development Games ....

2007-07-26T22:02:00.000+01:00

I met with an old prof of mine from HSPH a couple of nights ago ... who was telling me about a dinner he'd had the night before with a colleague in Rwanda .... somewhat lubricated they embarked on the sort of game that you could never have in more politically correct company .... a sort of development rock- paper - scissors ... only this was "fucked - hopeful - either way" for the countries of the continent ....

Some of course were easy .... Somalia, Sudan, Ethiopia, DRC, Congo, Chad .... i'm betting no soothsayers or forecasters are putting any money on them ....

Others were deemed hopeful but only with a string of ifs and buts .... eg Botswana (if it can start to control its HIV crisis), Zambia (if the ghost of Kaunda's benevolent socialism policies can be exorcised), Tanzania .... interestingly - they included Zimbabwe on this list ... if of course anyone can ever get rid of Mugabe ...

The either way countries were also interesting .... South Africa (if the ANC can realise they are no longer a protest party ... and if they realise they belong to the test of africa) .... Kenya (if electoral corruption and tribalism can be controlled), Uganda,

My mates and I been geekily entranced by this game ever since .... with hot and heavy arguments with much wine over the fate of the continent .... but according to the NYT (see below) .... rather worryingly many Africans don't share our concerns ....

Africa satisfied?

2007-07-26T09:03:00.000+01:00

There was an interesting piece in the NYT yesterday on the opinions of Africans polled in 10 different Sub Saharan countries .... according to Lynda Polgreen .... Despite a thicket of troubles, from deadly illnesses like AIDS and malaria to corrupt politicians and deep-seated poverty, a plurality of Africans say they are better off today than they were five years ago and are optimistic about their future and that of the next generation ....

Now whilst i hate it when foreigners prophesise doom and gloom for the continent .... and i find stereotypes of Africa as a backward, war-ravaged continent of famines and disaster deeply offensive .... i have to admit that Africa is indeed quite a lot like that in many many places .... and so i am totally flabbergasted that apparently the majority of those surveyed were apparently satisfied with their national governments and their economic situation .....

A continent which answers for the majority of the world's poorest nations .... where foreign aid props up many a government .... and where images of starvation, water shortages and disease are an everyday reality .....

Satisfied with their governments??!! What about the strikes here recently in SA? Or the fact that several African countries have seen their GDPs slide ever downwards since independence (Zambia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Swaziland to name but a a few ....) .... Or the fact that aside from a few countries such as Botswana - elections can barely be held without violence, allegations of vote rigging and panoramic corruption ....

And that's not even starting to mention the crippling burdens of HIV, TB, Malaria and the list goes on and on .... The fact that even if the cure for AIDS was as simple as half a glass of clean water - we still wouldn't be able to supply it to all of Africa - is simply criminal on behalf of all African governments .....

Perhaps people are unwilling to admit to the failings or their loss of hope in their own governments .... and need to believe that things will somehow get better ..... perhaps there is still some remaining trust that post-independence - governments made of their own people need to be given more time to fulfill all the promises made at independence .... I however am just gobsmacked ....

All these "Africans" coming here ....

2007-07-25T15:11:00.000+01:00

I was chatting to some black south african friends in Durban as we cruised the beach strip at night .... passing some guys dealing drugs and pimping girls ....

Ag those Nigerians .... said Themba ...
Always causing crime here .... agreed Zanele .... they're just a huge nuisance and we should send them all back ....

I protested .... the Nigerians at home in England are often the most educated Africans I meet .... wonderful people .... the crime here can't be all due to Nigerians ....

Themba nodded .... They are educated .... its why they do all the white collar crimes like email frauds, counterfeiting, drugs etc ..... they don't bother with petty things ....

Now given that SA seems to be setting world records for crime stats .... I pushed on ...... So who commits all the other crimes - the rapes, the muggings, the aggravated burglaries, the murders? .... trying to get them to admit that black SA has a real problem here ....

Quick as a flash Zanele replied ..... Yebo sis - that's not due to the Nigerians - that's all the fault of those bloody Mozambiquans and Zimbabweans .....

One of things I still fail to get my head around is the fact that despite being physically present at the tip of this great land mass .... South Africa is having to be led kicking and screaming to the table of the African continent (although i see that the table probably isn't piled high with tasty goodies and just sure-fire disasters) ..... President Mbeki has tried hard through agencies such as NEPAD and sending troops to conflict areas like Darfur .... and has been a strong advocate of the AU/OAU etc etc (probably angling for his next job) ..... but its often made him more unpopular at home .... and the bottom line remains that most black south africans aren't very interested in their neighbours to the north ...... and actually prefer to have nothing to do with them at all ....

The whites interestingly maintain a much more enterprising relationship with the rest of the continent ... with white-owned south african malls, cinemas, shops etc sprouting up all over africa .... yet still many look first to Europe - esp Holland or the UK - as their closest relatives .... the Indians here ... despite being several generations removed from the motherland ... still keep that identity strong (and many other global-indian foibles ... for instance all the indians here also concrete over their gardens and fail to remove the plastic from the remote control and worry about marrying a tamil girl marrying a telegu girl .... even though none of them can speak even a smidgeon of either language) and are now gingerly venturing back to sub-continental villages long-forgotten and relatives long-lost as part tourists part culture seekers (although none thankfully do that african-american thing of kissing the ground as soon as they arrive in the land of their ancestors ....) ... more on this another post ....

You'd think that after apartheid - the blacks in SA would be overjoyed to welcome other Africans into their country .... many of these nations stood in protest against the apartheid regime ... boycotting the Olympics when white countries that had toured the pariah state were participating .... penning protest songs .... and harbouring ANC exiles and training cells .... but in fact .... its been quite the opposite - the resentment at the influx of Africans from other countries into SA is quite extreme ....

One of my Nigerian friends here told me that he thought under apartheid the whites had told blacks that they were lucky to be allowed to live in houses and have education because the rest of Africa was still out hunting in the bush and sleeping in trees .... and so when they found out that actually the rest of black Africa had been governing itself (albeit in the loosest possible sense) - they felt in some way hard done by and resentful of the other blacks for having a sort of head start on them .... now bear in mind ... this is a Nigerian speaking .... not known for being the best loved africans anyhow anywhere in the continent (Peter the GBF was in Burkina Faso on a project .... and was discussing perhaps doing some work in Nigeria .... when the Burkinabe crinkled his face in disgust ..... "You could never pay me enough to work in that place" he stated emphatically ..... a pretty big statement given that Burkina Faso is one of the world's poorest and mosr under developed nations ....)

But papers in SA are filled with stories of hate crimes against refugee Somalis (again admittedly not everyone's favourite africans) who come to the townships, set up shop, make their family members work all hours god sends and do so remarkably well (for which they get stoned, burned or harrassed out) ..... in Cape Town - Congolese (once more - perhaps not the best national reputation for honesty) refugees stay 10 to a room in nicer parts of town rather than stay in the black townships for safety reasons and also because the residents have a nasty habit of torching their homes and businesses ..... the refugees think its because black south africans feel only they deserve the all the breaks associated with being black .... and that other black people doing well just highlights the fact that south africans are lazy, content to work little and blame apartheid for their woes and foster a culture of entitlement .... not much love lost between any of them .... African xenophobia is alive and kicking bewilderingly hard ....

Happy Birthday Madiba ....

2007-07-18T23:56:00.000+01:00

Everyone's favourite South African turned 89 today ... and the whole nation celebrated for him ... its things like this that make me adore living in South Africa ... can you ever imagine a British PM inducing national and global festivities?

How God must love South Africa to have given us such a priceless gift! joked Archbishop Tutu at the party - himself a close contender for the same national title ....

Madiba (or Nelson Mandela to most of us) - whose face was a banned image in SA during his 27 years in prison - so much so that Asimbonanga (Mandela) ("we have not seen him") became one of Johnny Clegg 's (the White Zulu) most famous protest songs (as an aside - interestingly - i just read that it was the CIA that ratted out Mandela and the others who stood at the Rivonia trial ... clearly the fight against communism did not preclude the US from getting into bed with apartheid fascists) .... Mandela became then, now remains and will hopefully continue to be for years to come - an living icon for peace (despite his leading the MK or the armed wing of the ANC during the struggle), of hope for Black Africa, and a symbol of freedom and equality ....

And whilst he can be criticised for not addressing the issue of AIDS early or robustly enough in South Africa ... and also for not bringing Mugabe into line .... there is no doubt that since relinquishing power in 1999 after his one term in office (remarkably guiding south africa through a peaceful transition into multicoloured democracy) ... Madiba has continued to use his considerable influence and his icon status to combat illiteracy, HIV and poverty in Africa .... as his closing statement at the 1964 Rivonia trial laid out ....

During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to the struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.

This year however ... perhaps aware of his increasing fraility .... he chose to forego the annual festivities and football match staged in his honour in Cape Town (Africa vs Rest of the World - with many retired superstars playing to show their respects ... natch ending in a draw) ... and instead inaugurated possibly the most exclusive and special club in the world .... "The Elders" ....

Aimed somewhere between a "Council of Wisemen for the World" and a collective "Global Moral Conscience" ... and very cleverly striking a universal cultural chord .... the Elders aim to be untrammelled by economic, political or geographic pettiness ... their opinions having weight purely by their own histories and achievements .... their ability to meddle supported by their collective wisdom ...

Other members of the elite group include Mandela's wife Graca Machel (herself an avid campaigner for children's rights and ex wife of the ex leader of Mozambique) ..... Archbishop Desmond Tutu ....... Jimmy Carter .... Kofi Annan ...... Ella Bhatt (founder of SEWA International) ..... Gro Harlem Brundtland (former Norwegian Prime Minister and ex head of WHO) ........ Mary Robinson (former Irish President and ex UN High Commissioner for Human Rights) ...... and Muhammad Yunus (head of the Grameen Bank - the pioneer for microcredit) ...... a seat was also kept symbolically empty for Aung San Siu Kyi (still under house arrest in Myanmar/Burma) ........ amongst them i counted at least 6 Nobel Peace prizes ....

According to Mandela - The Elders will support courage where there is fear, foster agreement where there is conflict and inspire hope where there is despair .....

It sounds like the best birthday present he could have ever given us ....

In the Bleak Mid-Winter

2007-07-13T18:23:00.000+01:00

A couple of my doctor colleagues here and I have been asked to go to Zimbabwe next week to teach on an HIV course (interestingly one of the few countries in Africa that seem to be making some headway against the pandemic) ... I'm gutted that I can't make it (even if I'd been allowed into the country)... but the other two who can go - have been beset with requests for bread, loo roll, washing up liquid, frankly anything .... all from Drs attending the teaching who despite having decent jobs and a good education ... are totally unable to make ends meet or get their hands on basic commodities ....

I'm amazed that Zimbabwean Drs even have the time to be taught about HIV ... I'd assumed they had the daily horrors of just getting by to focus on .... current scenes from Harare to Bulawayo show people camping out at the few shops that have folded to Mugabe's request to freeze prices (before which my Zim friends told me - prices would go up at least twice a day ...) .... news reports show empty shelves and people hoarding - terrified of when the next price increase will be ....

The country is truly in total free-fall ... inflation has surpassed the incredible and is now merely an organic monster-number that keeps growing zeroes on its tail by the day .... life expectancy continues to plummet (average life expectancy now is below 40) ... children starve .... and the human (rights) catastrophe continues .... disgracefully without any decent censure from the one country that could actually make a difference .... It's a very bleak winter in Zim .....

Whilst I was in Kigali ... I found myself at dinner sitting next to one of the delegation from Zimbabwe ..... a very well-padded gentleman with wandering hands which once slapped down revealed a healthy sense of humour and cynicism .... of course he found himself the focus of all conversation .... we all wanted to know - how bad it really was (well - you know ... life has always been hard in africa) .... how people were managing (our people survived the whites .... at least now we rule ourselves - how can we not survive when we rule ourselves) .... and how widespread the terror or tortures and beatings and imprisonments were (well ... you know Mr Tsvangirai must just stop making trouble - what else could we do with him? Is your Mr Blair any different? Is Bush not doing the same thing) .... and so on ....

Despite his apologist answers - you could tell that this doctor clearly didn't believe a word he was saying .... and so emboldened by a few local brews - I pressed on with what I believed had to be the answer to everything:

So is it true Mr Mugabe is so crazy because he has tertiary syphilis? ....

He almost fell off his chair laughing .... and reassured me that as a member of his team of personal physicians - Mr Mugabe was in fighting fit health .....

Damn .... I said .... have you never been tempted just to slip him something ... perhaps a little injection .... and just save the whole country from its misery?

He stopped short .... and very clearly thought about it .... and then grinned ... Maybe one day .... he said and his eyes glinted suggestively .... what would you give me for it?

Another year ... another birthday ...

2007-07-11T20:26:00.000+01:00

Maybe its the only child in me that feels the need to celebrate birthdays ... but given that i'm now at an age where most people would rather forget they've become a year older - i've compromised on having just a b-day week rather than insisting on celebrating all month ... so it was all rather fortuitous that my friends jay and bindee chose to share their honeymoon with us in south africa ... legitimising all the fun i wanted to have ...

On the actual day ... i had a relatively muted event ... dinner with a few mates at a rather lovely restaurant overlooking crashing waves ... the waiter informed us that less than an hour before - James Bond had been sitting at our table filming his latest movie .... he was apparently now safely ensconced in the penthouse suite of the attached boutique hotel .... sadly his security guards were unmoved by my pleas that birthday kiss from the delicious Mr Craig would make my day - perhaps even year - complete ....

But then under the pretext of needing somewhere to drink the large bottle of Oban that Peter had given me as a pressie (needless to say - i didn't receive a single non-alcohol related present ... birds of a feather ...) - we all decided to go away for the weekend ...

Kersefontein has been singled out as one of the world's 5 top luxury farm stays .... promising that "This is one of the most authentic, unusual experiences to be had in the country -- to be hosted by what is effectively a South African aristocrat in his beautiful Cape Dutch farmstead, a national monument." We were excited .... not least because the dinners there are so famous in CT that people drive up from the city allegedly just for the company .....

We arrived after several stops at the wine farms en route .... to this gorgeous old rambling farm .... on the banks of a river seemingly trapped in a glorious and rather romantic time warp - i felt like a heroine on a film set .... just waiting for the waggon trail to come in ....

We watched the sunset ... played with pigs ... chased cows and peter tried to smuggle some cats ... we ogled the farmhands heaving bales of hay .... and drank more ..... before heading through to the main event of the whole weekend .... the much vaunted dinner .....

We walked in a little awed by the whole place (for instance on the way to the grand dining room you pass the skull of the last Berg River hippo - shot by the first owner in 1876 after it bit his servant) .... the current owner fancies himself as a bit of a Renaissance man - his business card reads ‘Farmer, Pig-killer, Aviator and Advocate of the High Court of S.A.’ He was a rather eccentric host .... in order to aid intermingling - he seated us all at dinner .... and then plied us heavily with wines from his cellar ... before producing a huge roasted wild boar ... shot just hours before in the wilds of the west coast .... nothing like a bit of hunt and chase to make meat delicious ...

I wish I could say the dinner was a huge success .... but really its just made me learn that i shouldn't take my friends out in public AND let them drink at the same time .... Shaun managed to pick a fight with some idiot sitting opposite him .... Peter was fending off advances from some woman who seemed to have forgotten to put her bra on that evening .... and poor Jay whilst sitting next to his new wife .... found himself between a couple who clearly thought we'd all put our car keys in a bowl at the end of the night and swop beds ... and spent the evening controlling both his admirers and placating the fuming Bindee ....

The dinner rounded off by the very camp Julian trying in vain to lead a sing-song around his piano .... but the darkies were having none of it .... and Jay was living in terror at what fate might befall him if he stayed too long .... and so we crept off to our own fireplace and had our own late night whiskey-fun .... and rather shamefully - thats where my memory ends .... the bottles the next day pointed to a great night .... its clearly the one thing good about getting older - you know whose company you prefer ....

Don't want to sound racist ....

2007-07-10T08:11:00.000+01:00

I went in yesterday to report my car crash to the ghetto car rental that i get my hapless car from ... its run by a 70 year old cartoon character called John Day ... an old school wheeler-dealer - who guarantees some of the lowest prices in town provided you don't ask too persistently about where the cars came from ... or where the hub caps went ... or what some of the dodgy stains are ... i think you get the picture ....

However - Mr Day loves me since I throw in a free medical consult whenever I go to see him .... checking his blood pressure, his hearing aid, his pills etc .... and was very sympathetic and paternal at my horrid story .... he started writing the claim form for me .... and asked for a description of the crazy suicidal running man ....

"Well - I didn't get a good look at him - he was a young black male .... tattered clothes ... unkempt ... came out of the trees ..."

"Er - my dear .... how can we write this so we don't sound so racist? How about saying a native ran out of the bush?" ...... !!!

PS Thank you so much to all of you nice people that have phoned, commented, emailed etc after my very plaintive post .... am feeling much more chipper .... and very loved!

Someone was smiling on me ....

2007-07-05T23:48:00.000+01:00

Being far from home gallivanting around the world sounds very glamorous ... and is certainly fun and games for a while .... but sometimes things happen to put it all into perspective .....

I was in a car accident today ... a rather scary one at that .... and i'm still thanking any and every lucky star in the universe that I'm not another one of Africa's horrible RTA statistics (second only to HIV as a killer of young adults) ...

There was I happily cruising down the 3 lane highway that hugs the mountainside driving into town (yes - cape town is that gorgeous with big mountain plopped in the middle of a city surrounded by sea ... the view from my back garden!) .... when some guy ran out from the bushes on the mountain straight into my lane .... now i've been in SA long enough to be stupidly reactive (read paranoid) to potential car jacking situations ... so i swerved madly to my left (ie away from his trajectory) to avoid him .... whereupon he turned and ran towards my swerve (!!) .... now convinced he was trying to get my car (which is truly such a ghetto-mobile that my response should have been to stop and hand him the keys ... ) .... but i swerved away again to my right .... and then spun out of control across the motorway in the middle of rush hour ... in a city where drivers are not noted for driving slowly or soberly (weekend drinking here starts at breakfast on Friday .....) or for being forgiving of obstacles in their way ..... and given the driver's side was on the side of the oncoming traffic - the obstacle was pretty much me ....

What they tell you about your life flashing in front of you or having the presence of mind to pray or anything is all bollocks .... i just knew when i finally came to a stop that i was done for and that that seemed to be rather a pity .... when Thud ... amazingly most of the oncoming traffic managed to miss me personally .... the nearest car hit my bonnet .... the woman behind slammed into him .... and all of a sudden everyone was hooting as our mini-pile up was stopping them get to the pub after work ...

Its amazing what having been a junior doctor (however many long years ago it was) does for your calmness in a crisis .... I leapt out of my car (too much Hollywood i think where cars always explode on impact ... does that really happen ever?) .... and checked the suicidal running man was ok (he was - he'd sped across the entire highway apparently undamaged and cars on the other side reported he'd scampered off into the bushes) .... checked that everyone else was alive .... checked that i was fully intact .... and then breathed a huge sigh of relief ....

Amazingly a traffic cop was only 2 cars behind (in SA - the normal police don't bother themselves with any offenses on the road - so you can speed merrily past them but need to slow in front of the metro traffic cops) ...... as was the tow company that my car rental firm uses ... so everything was done and dusted very quickly .... and far from being blamed - the traffic cop praised my andretti-esque skills (!) ....

But its just starting to hit me now .... i thank every guardian angel possible that i wasn't talking on my phone or speeding at the time .... that i somehow managed to avoid hitting the crazy man ... and that everyone in the collision cars were unscathed .... i'm not sure how i could live with myself if (even if it wasn't my fault) i had killed or hurt someone ....

The policeman called me this evening to tell me how many people have died at that very spot ... and how very lucky i was to escape without a scratch .... i guess somehow it wasn't my time ..... and yes i admit - i am a little tempted just to gush a bit and tell everyone how much i love them and ooze about how wonderful and precious life is despite any recent minor ups-and-downs ..... but in the end i feel someone must have been smiling on me today ... and i'm just determined to get out there and not stop smiling either .....

The New 7 Wonders of the World

2007-07-04T14:37:00.000+01:00

http://www.new7wonders.com/index.php

I had no idea that this was up for a public vote .... apparently the Taj Mahal is doing the worst of the lots ....

You have two and a bit days left!

The NHS - the New Al Quaeda Cell?

2007-07-03T21:42:00.000+01:00

Hospitals breed Hate? Who would have thought those NHS corridors could precipitate such violence? Is North Stafford Hospital a secret terrorist training camp?

Unsurprisingly there's much rabid vitriol from conservative yanks about Drs and their potential links to terrorism .... but whats clear is that being a medic is a brilliant cover if you want to set up a sleeper cell ... but - also scarily that even clever, capable and importantly well-paid (well at least averagely paid) individuals can become so radicalised .... and some perfunctory googling shows that Al Quaeda is apparently no stranger to killer-Drs .... which (and it pains me to admit this) is a slap in the face for those of us champagne socialists who protested against the "war" claiming that aid not bombs were what we needed .... the logic that no one who could read shakespeare (much less grays anatomy) or had access to immunisations would want to blow themselves up seems perhaps a little naive now ....

All of the above is obviously now a painful kick to the groin of foreign doctors either already in the country or knocking on the door of Fortress Britain/struggling with PLAB etc .... and its played right into the hands of all the fascist-anti-immigration-klan-BNP offshoots who want to be rid of us darkies all together (i can just hear the refusals to be seen by a muslim doctor starting already ...) .... the next question will be could the UK cope without all its foreign Drs? Although I suppose MakingMedicineCrap might be easier next year .... now that's a thought .... maybe that was their motivation - has anyone pursued links with MTAS? Medical Terrorists At your Service?

But really - doctors? I'm now thinking back to my class at medical school .... and just wondering - perhaps that one did look a bit dodgy ...

In the shadow of the 6th bush on the right ....

2007-07-02T15:39:00.000+01:00

Bloody South Africans and their sense of direction ....

Now I know I'm from London - where talking to strangers and especially foreigners is something to be sneered at as the sort of thing only Americans do .... and where avoiding requests for directions is an art form and sending tourists the wrong way is a respected sport .... but I've always been dead pleased and relieved that in Africa being a foreigner elicits delight and sincere hopes that you like their country ....

In Kenya and other parts of East Africa .... if you were to ask directions ... more often than not nice locals will accompany all the way to your destination .... and won't hear of being taken back to where they started .... (although sadly this is probably because they have little else to actually do ...)

In South Africa ... people aren't quite as nice as to get in your car with you (here in SA - that's called car-jacking) .... and bless their hearts they really do try to give directions .... here in Cape Town - rather than a road name - directions generally start by saying either this or that side of the mountain (Table) .... but nine times out of ten - they're wrong or just ridiculous .... and frankly - however well intentioned - they must just learn to say they don't know ....

So there am I trying to get to one of the swankier hotels at the V&A waterfront to pick up honeymooning Jay and Bindee .... of course - me being me with my highly evolved sense of always taking the wrong turn ... I end up at one of the many other hotels at the water front ... and have to ask the concierge for directions .....

He beams at me .... eager to help the poor foreigner ....

"See sissy .... you know you must turn .... yah right ... turn around ... and then you know the hump .... with the big tree .... it's just there sissy ...."

I was speechless .... This is the centre of Cape Town - does he bloody think we're still in the bush? Why not just say i don't know ... or draw a map ... or give me street names? Instead of "past the waterhole on the left in the shade of the cooliebah tree" ....

Now my South African mates hotly contest this observation - which is held by the way by all foreigners who ever come here .... Priya (a particularly vociferous patriot) sees it as a matter of national pride .... until even she had the following interaction when she got a bit lost ....

"Ag man .... shame you're lost .... you must turn back - and you know that big road with a lot of traffic .... its just by there ...."

Farewell ....

2007-07-01T11:04:00.000+01:00

May Day 1997 - I remember standing on Magdalene Bridge amidst all the revelers .... drunk on the happiness that we had finally finally managed to get rid of the Tories after 18 years of power .... and that the new face of Labour politics was taking the reins - in fact yanking the reins away from the Tories with a massive huge majority ..... and what made it all even better was that this new face was one that I or my mates or any other sane person (for that read even vaguely centre/left/liberal) could identify with ....

Now switch forward 10 years .... to scenes of Tony Blair stepping down to hurled brickbats and 4-part-harmony choruses of relief from his countrymen and most of the Labour party .... after a scarcely believable year of being watched by a PM-in-waiting Gordon Brown ....

It has become so bad - that when marking his departure as PM .... the Downing street spin merchants, faith healers and political weather forecasters deemed it too fraught for Tony to do his victory lap and farewell tour of hand-squeezing amongst the people who had actually elected him ... and instead sent him to Africa .... where they hoped the people might be a bit more grateful for the cameras ... the overall opinion being that even Libyan dictator Colonel Gaddafi liked him better than the voters of Birmingham and Manchester ....

When Tony won power a decade ago - we all thought it was a new political dawn - promising social justice, ethical foreign policies and a Brave New World .... within months - the fairytale seemed to be coming true ... he was the nation's hero after Diana's death ... he sorted the Irish out ... he sorted Sierra Leone out ... he even sorted the House of Lords and the fox hunters out .... he spoke about Africa, Third World debt and the poor - his lip quivered - he cared .... there seemed little that Tony could not do ... London was centre of the universe and Cool Britannia ruled the waves once again ....

And then - came 9/11 and Iraq. From the moment that those twin towers collapsed .... Blair placed Britain firmly and squarely alongside the United States (well - ok - maybe behind it ... crouching .... eagerly waiting for scraps ...) and placed himself and his credibility alongside President Bush .... Tony gambled catastrophically on his ability to influence the Americans .... and to his credit he did advocate for much that is now finally coming to pass (UN/multilateral involvement, prioritising development, inclusion of other Arab leaders) ... but in the end - he just didn't do it well enough to actually make the difference ....

And so after 10 years of economic growth, financial security, dropping unemployment, spreading social ease, broadly rising aspiration, cultural exuberance and pride over the 2012 Olympics, manageable taxes and truly record spending on education and health - somehow Tony Blair has apparently managed to get himself roundly, fundamentally, comprehensively hated at home. Hated and mocked.

When this debacle started - Blair still had enough support at home - that when he told the British people that war was necessary to destroy Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction .... that we believed him even if it wasn't clear to us how - we assumed he must just know something .... surely he wouldn't lead us into hell without reason .... later he stood accused of manipulating the intelligence to justify a war to which George Bush was already committed ....

Perhaps its an indictment of our political system that Tony Blair was able to remain in office despite Iraq. Even (suspending all cynicism) if he was not guilty of gross deception, as he insists he was not .... even if he only ever did what he thought was right .... Tony was still guilty of the grossest misjudgment - misjudgment that has led to the deaths of at least 655,000 Iraqis, over a hundred British soldiers and thousands of American troops. For this mistake alone, even if it was an honest one, Tony should probably have paid with his job ....

But maybe Tony can take solace in the fact that few British PMs have left with the love of the British nation .... Maggie Thatcher like Tony - was as viscerally hated at home as she was feted and respected abroad ... Churchill - consistently voted Greatest Englishman Ever in popularity polls (and scarily political icon to one aforementioned George Bush) .... was precipitously voted out of office - even before the Second World War had actually finished ....... His replacement Clement Atlee (voted in 2004 - the Greatest British PM ever) suffered exactly the same fate despite creating the welfare state, the NHS and many other loved-national institutions ..... probably for granting independence to India ....

There's clearly no pleasing we Brits - its our nature to hate politicians actually doing politics .... there just seems something rather tawdry about it all and even more so about actually appreciating them for it .... no British telly production company could ever make a series like ''The West Wing'' about British politics .... we'd all end up giggling .... or we'd have to make it a black comedy or some ironic, vicious satire ..... apparently the Duke of Wellington (the vanquisher of Napoleon) .... foolishly allowed himself to be made prime minister and became instantly reviled ..... and was once even assaulted by a mob on Waterloo Day .... oh the irony ....

I'm sure with the retrospectoscope of history .... Tony Blair will be remembered for making Labour and left wing politics electable ... winning three elections with large majorities (winning big being previously semi-unheard of for Labour) ... we will remember him for dragging our country kicking and screaming in the 21st century .....

He may not have been the best PM ever (even though he probably had the potential and the mandate at one time to have been up there in the running) .... but i'm pretty sure we will do worse in the future (and certainly have done so in the past!) ....and i think that although we now squirm at all the spin, toothiness and fake-charm .... i suspect (and perhaps i'm speaking a bit for myself now) that many of us still rather like him ..... and hope he does us proud in his new job .... go get 'em Tone ....

Aunties all over the world ....

2007-06-29T15:15:00.000+01:00

Now that I'm back safely ensconced in Cape Town ... I have to admit I have this wee tiny sense of achievement ... I had never ever thought I could or would go gaily gallivanting across the centre of africa .... much less almost getting down and dirty with gorillas, UN peacekeepers etc etc ... its a long long way from growing in Brummie-land ....

But as much as I loved my trip - I have to say journeying solo wasn't all happy days .... and I now have a new-found respect for all my foreign-correspondent/journalist friends, NGO workers etc etc who travel a lot by themselves ..... even little things are hasslesome - like having to take all your stuff into small airport toilet cubicles because no one will look after them for you .... and I found I had to resort to eating all meals with a book in my hand avoiding eye contact ... partly to amuse myself (my own company not being the most thrilling) .... and partly to dissuade anyone from talking to me (other people's company being even less desirable) .... and partly to avoid looking as though i'm touting for business (being mistaken even once as a prostitute was enough for me ....) ....

Which brings me to the odd thing about being female and travelling alone in Rwanda .... I had geuinely thought that I would need to be constantly on my guard against marauding males looking to besmirch my virtue ...... I even chose my driver Amin - partly because I knew that the Muslims hadn't participated in the genocide too much (and i didn't fancy being in the wilds with someone with a recent history of raping and pillaging) .... but really because I knew that he was newly married .... and hence hoped he was less likely to get funny ideas in his head .... it turned out that I clearly had thought Too Much of myself ....

Aside from his frequent references to the fact that his religion allowed him a second wife and how much he liked intelligent women .... Amin was a doll .... and a complete gentleman (i think) .... although to be honest even if he had made any improper suggestions - i would never have known since whereas I had meticulously researched his marital and criminal-tendency history - I had totally forgotten to check his English fluency .... and later found out he only spoke Kinyarwanda and some rather limited French ....

But in reality rather than my being propositioned or pursued - once anyone found out that I could speak French ... it was much more common for me to be asked firstly why Indians don't marry black people (what does one say to that ... best just to shrug blankly and change the subject ....) .... and secondly to be roundly and blatantly scolded - and no one seemed shy in doing that ....

"You're here by yourself?" they asked me - women, men, kids, grannies, colleagues and so on ...
"Yes - for the AIDS conference and then I decided I wanted to see your beautiful country" - thinking foolishly that this would endear me to them ...
"And you live in South Africa by yourself too? No family?"
"Well I have lots of good friends there .... "

By this stage - having had a lifetime around Indian aunties ... I knew exactly where this conversation was heading .... and I was starting to look around desperately for an exit ... and yet they still pressed on ...

"So - no husband? Hmmmm - and you travel all around? Also by yourself?"
"Yes - well its my work you see .... I work with health and development ...."
"This work of yours - it does you no good ...."
"Oh? I'm really trying to do some good ...."
"Yes but you are a woman .... and a women should have a husband and children. A woman should not do such work. Why are you wasting your time?"
"Well - you know - people are dying ... and no one else will help them .... there's so much I need to do in the world .... and I don't want to be tied down yet ...." .... I tailed off .... all the while wondering why I sounded so pathetic ....
"You don't want to get married? Are you ok? You like men? No problems?" ... they groped for a way to make sense of me ...
"No no - I'm fine .... I just want to do other things first ....... so much to do you know ..." Men and women alike shook their heads reprovingly ...
"Aren't people dying in your own country too? We are very grateful for people like you coming to help us of course ... but what are you solving?"
"Well - you know ... AIDS is killing millions .... I want to help people ... blah blah blah ..." - I knew it was a losing battle ....
"If you really want to help people .... better you make your mother happy and settle down ...."
"Er - have you been speaking to my mother?" .... Peals of laughter all around and lots of nodding ...

Bloody hell - my mum has her spies in Rwanda too? Perhaps I should just get her to come here so I can stay ....

Travels in the Danger Zone ....

2007-06-26T12:49:00.000+01:00

After the whole gorilla experience .... I was pretty much giddy as a school girl and ready for any adventure that came my way ..... so my driver Amin and I decided to set off westwards to Gisenyi on the banks of Lake Kivu .... one of the "exploding" lakes ... (ie gassy and volcanic) ... but apparently quite the resort town of Rwanda

The journey across the Rwandan countryside was stunning .... green forest-covered hills giving way to lush heavy more tropical and exotic surroundings .... and i really started to feel i was travelling into real and proper deepest darkest (at least Central) Africa ....

We drove through village after village ... all amazingly with electricity lines ... but apparently no water ... and so sadly an all too common sight along the way were little kids (anything from 3 years old) ferrying bright yellow jerrycans of precious water .... even more worryingly - I saw them dipping their containers into muddy puddles and holes after the rains ... trying to cut down on the hassles of water-portering .... however my driver was phlegmatic - That's the life of an African child he said .... but i couldn't help gasping every time we saw some child struggling with bundles on their heads and insisted on shouting out of the window - Go to school! .... Amin stolidly refused to give any of them a lift .... and made several comments in terse french to the effect of bloody bleeding heart limousine liberals...

We finally got to Lake Kivu later that afternoon .... and it was stunning ... a beautiful beach with warm blue water .... and after 7 days of extreme grubbiness - I'd decided to splash out and stay at a very smart hotel (I'd been dreaming about a hot shower all week) .... I gulped down the welcome cocktail as the list of things to do was read out to me ... A massage? Perhaps some shopping? Jacuzzi? Swimming Pool? What was a girl to do?

No no I said brightly .... I want to cross the border into Congo and see Goma .... Amin looked incredulous ....

All along the route to Gisenyi - I had been remembering the Gourevitch book and its account of how both genuine Hutu refugees and genocidaires alike fled in 1994 along the same roads that we had taken all the way into Goma ... and the ensuing appalling chaos and mess of the refugee camps which had essentially sheltered and protected some of the worst criminals of the genocide .... I'd noticed that had been much more of an army presence in the area - known to still harbour some Hutu Power ideology .... and we'd passed a few remnants of the refugee camps - which looked still pretty miserable (although now it wasn't clear whether the residents were fleeing the wars in Congo or leftovers from the genocide) ....

Plus there was the small matter of the active volcano in Goma ... that had iced the post-genocide disaster cake by erupting in 2002 destroying much of the city ... not to mention the years of civil wars and conflict post-Mobutu ..... it seemed to me like a perfect day trip .....

Amin was reluctant to take the car over the border and so we walked through the barriers .... but nothing prepared me for the difference 5 minutes can make .... Almost immediately as we crossed into Congo - it just felt more dangerous .... my sense of unease was not made much better by the fact that there were no taxis by the border .... just dodgy looking men on motorbikes lavisciously offering me a lift - to nowhere very nice ....

I dispatched Amin on one of the bikes to fetch a taxi from the town centre whilst i waited for him at the border post ... there were people around so it seemed reasonable ... and I relaxed when I saw a couple of UN armoured cars trundling up (perhaps that should have been a cue to worry?!) ...... so I sidled along next to the UN troops .... to find out they were from the Punjab!

As I stood there - several of the Punjabi troops were being propositioned by a few Congolese ladies of the night/day .... just picture an African Full Metal Jacket with Sardarji soldiers ... (Meesta, meesta - me love you long time ...... Arre yaar - vaat we get for 10 rupees ... and so on ...).

However it became evident that the soldiers were actually more bewildered by or interested in what an solo Indian female was doing randomly at the border .... the jiggling Congolese girls were getting nowhere with them despite their best efforts .... and so their pimp started to get huffy and strode over to me - his gun very prominently displayed in his belt .... "This is my patch bitch - who you working for and how much?" he demanded .... I decided the only way to deal with this was to go on the offensive ... and so drew myself up, fixed him with an icy stare and delivered in my poshest BBC accent the line I've always wanted to say - "No sex please - I'm British" .... but predictably it was sadly lost on the pimp and the punjabis ....

Thankfully before I got myself into any more trouble - Amin arrived with the taxi ... and we set off to the volcano .... driving through Goma town - packed with throngs of people on the streets hawking anything and everything from umbrellas to squawking chickens with barely an inch of roadside to spare .... but perpetually shrouded in volcanic dust with half of it drowned in solidified lava ..... the darkness just added to the feeling that, despite the continual presence of UN troops, Goma is a city where danger lurks just around the corner .... markedly different from the safety and relative calm of Rwanda ....

We got to the Nyarigongo volcano (background in the pic above) and started climbing .... but quite frankly - the black dried lava looked pretty much the same after half an hour as it did after one hour - and it didn't look as though it would be any different until quite a long way up .... the dust was thickening and the sun was starting to set .... which made me even more nervous .... Goma at night wasn't where i wanted to stay and party ....

We scurried back to the border - where predictably the taxi driver tried to fleece us for some exorbitant price ..... but I was prepared for this - I'd just finished reading the memoirs of a South African journalist Jacques Pauw and the memoirs of Blaine Harden - ex Washington Post and one of the first uber-Africa correspondents .... both of which were littered with stories of the lack of Congolese scruples, the constant bribery and endemic cheating ... and I was ready for the challenge .... I bargained like a demon and thinking I'd done myself and my mum proud - I flounced back across the border... only to find that i'd massively overpaid for both my passport stamp/visa and for the taxi .... I guess I'm not that much of an old Africa hand yet ...

Gorillas in the Mist ..... Or Close Encounters of an Ape Kind

2007-06-23T07:50:00.000+01:00

So clearly I've been harping on about Rwandan culture and history for far too long ... since all I seem to be getting at the moment are emails saying "Yeah - but what about the gorillas?"

Amin (my driver-guide .... on whom more later) and I set off in our ancient Land Cruiser (top speed 40km/h) to the north-western region of Rwanda - the Virunga volcanic highlands on the border with Uganda and the DRC, and home to one of the last remaining populations of mountain gorillas.

Few factoids: The mountain gorilla (Gorilla beringei beringei) was "discovered" in 1902 - but is now found only in two areas of Africa - the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest of Uganda (where in fact my mate Paul is working with the Batwa pygmies) and the Virunga Highlands. As of the 2002 - there were only approximately 700 gorillas left between the two regions .... their numbers depleted due to disease, poaching, habitat loss and war(some rebels in Congo killing them and even eating them) .... making them one of the most endangered species in the world. Apparently 98% genetically identical to humans - they are unable to survive in captivity and attempts to release rescued gorillas back into the wild haven't been very successful. Just for the Yanks .... male silverbacks (they get all silvery when they reach full adulthood) can weigh 50-100lbs more than the average american football player - but are 10 times stronger.

I've dreamt forever and ever of seeing gorillas .... and have been making fantasy plans for a trip ever since I arrived in SA .... so when I heard about the PEPFAR conference in Kigali - I shamelessly abandoned all friendships/fantasy travel companions and knew I had to get something accepted just so I could come here (apologies Peter) .... luckily I managed to get a gorilla permit at short notice .... and everything seemed to be going swimmingly .....

However when I arrived at the volcanoes (the ones in Rwanda are dormant ... unlike the ones in Congo - of which more later) .... i realised that fantasy planning doesn't actually prepare you for any reality.... ....Having spent the night in a very musty cold mountain lodge (i am assuming to toughen wannabe trekkers up) .... i met with my trekking group at the Parc de Volcans headquarters .... and my heart sank ... they were all blokes - experienced climbers, fit and looked very prepared .... my only prep had been to buy some Merrell sneakers and I'd already eaten the one power bar I'd brought when hungry in Kigali .... and then - I was handed a machete bigger than my arm .... i was clearly In Over My Head ....

And so we entered the forest - it was dense, dark and like something out of the Lost World ... you almost expected dinosaurs to come crashing out .... and it was definitely filled with beasties, creepy-crawlies and nasties ..... we thrashed out with machetes at the overgrowth and scrambled up for what seemed like hours .... I was starting to think that perhaps armchair adventure was more my style ....

Finally - the tracker stopped and made us leave our gear in a pile ... and gave us the ground rules .... don't ever point at the gorillas (they think you're going to throw something at them and attack in anticipation), don't sneeze at them (v prone to human disease) ... and if one charges (ie beats its chest a la King Kong) - then sit down in submission and never ever run ..... S.H.I.T.

We edged up further and heard some grunting .... and then all of a sudden there they were .... a family of about 10 gorillas - two blackbacks (immature males), three females and a bunch of babies .... just messing around, hanging off trees, goofing about ... we were all speechless .... these things are HUGE .... massive massive hairy beasts with human-like hands and feet with expressions to match .... it was breathtaking .....

And then to our total delight - one of the blackback males naughtily pulled one of the females to the ground and treated us to some gorilla-porn .... (especially naughty because only the boss-silverback is supposed to mate with the females of the group ... so this trollop-female was living very dangerously ...) .... although she didn't seem to enjoy the whole experience - he just hauled her around from side to side whilst she lay back and thought of the jungle ...

After the deed was done - Mr Seducer sat back seemingly content munching leaves and chewing bamboo in post-coital bliss .... when suddenly in a flash he made a grab for the only female of our group - ME! He managed to get hold of my shoulder grunting away as I flailed helplessly (my own King Kong moment!) ... but thankfully the nice ranger jumped in between and wrestled him away .... snarling the cheeky gorilla turned away ... but then flipped around and landed a HUGE wallop on the bloke standing next to me .... flooring him ... before scampering away laughing ....

I won't deny that I was petrified and looking around for the escape cord .... i was especially terrified of what the poor ranger would have to tell my mum .... So sorry Mrs Rao - but Bhargavi became a Gorilla concubine .... I can imagine my mum would just be glad I had settled down finally ....

Anyhow heart pounding and hands all trembly .... we continued onwards and upwards to see the Big Boss himself .... The Silverback .... and we found him sitting Buddha-like .... watching over his extended family .... if i'd thought the others were huge ... this one was Gargantuan with big furry muscles - and all herbivore too .... if he been the one grabbing me - i'd have probably been smashed to bits ..... my mum was right - you do grow tall if you eat your veggies .... and hairy apparently ...

He just sat meditating for while - not bothered at all by all our camera clicking or gawping .... before clearly hunger got the better of him and he set off at great pace through the forest ..... howling for his crew to join him ....

We tracked him for over an hour .... clumsily thrashing through the trees as he delicately picked his way - amazingly graceful for something so massive .....

And then we came upon Wife Number 1 - replete with baby-gorilla on her back .... together they all foraged for the best leaves and shoots .... with the Big Man grunting paternally - the Alpha Male ....

It all seemed to come to an end far far too soon .... we'd been trekking for almost four hours yet it felt like seconds ... None of us couldn't bear to leave them .... and at the end it was almost as though he knew .... he turned let out a yelp and beat his chest goodbye ..... We couldn't have been more than ecstatic .....

So my machete and i were reluctantly parted .... i'll admit to being a little emotional by the end (i mean - to be touched by a gorilla ... of course i'm still a little paranoid i've caught some ape-disease ... wasn't man-ape contact how HIV started?!) .... and i still can't quite believe how magical it was ... i do feel as though i've had a glimpse into some sort of primaeval world - one that is slipping away fast ......and i'll make no excuses for being horribly schmaltzy - i've fulfilled a dream ....

Genocide ....Jamais Encore

2007-06-20T21:01:00.000+01:00

Its the only reason most of us have ever heard of Rwanda - The genocide. So much so that the pre-conference blurb that we all received had to make it clear to us "It is considered impolite to ask Rwandans whether they are Hutu or Tutsi, and how they participated in the Genocide. We are trying to build a society of Rwandans."

But it is impossible not to wonder when you are here ... thanks to Hotel Rwanda we all know what Hutus and Tutsis are supposed to look like .... and so we all peer at people .... is that nose thin or flatter? She's tall and thin - must be Tutsi ... I wonder if she has any family left? I wonder how she survived .... Hmmm he looks rather squat and definitely darker .... I wonder how many he killed or raped .... and how he deals with that today?

I visited the Genocide memorial in Kigali - a beautifully presented history of pre-genocide Rwanda chronicling how the seeds of tribalism and hatred were sown through colonialism (divide-and-rule wasn't just a British tool) ... and supported by the Belgians, French and the Catholic church ... and how "Hutu Power" came to be. It then unfolds the horror of the Genocide itself in detail, and exposes the egregious inaction of the international community, UN General Dallaire's difficult situation, Kofi Annan's incalculably arrogant and costly mistake in ignoring Dallaire's pleas, the reticence of the US government to engage and especially the complicity of the French through Operation Turquoise aiding Hutu Power. Inexorably - the exhibition moves on to the situation that ensued in the refugee camps on the then-Zairean border, the rush of aid agencies who naively prolonged the conflict and the effect on creating Congo. Finally the memorial ends with a painful reminder of the lives of children lost and the potential wasted .... I had tears streaming down my face .... By the time I got to the new additional exhibition on genocides past and present around the world - despite the international cry of "Never Again" after the Holocaust .... I was pretty much inconsolable.

What is so hard for we foreigners to understand is how the Rwandans all still continue to live together especially in such seeming peace .... how do Tutsis cope when they see Hutus that they know committed heinous atrocities and how are Hutus able to forget the catastrophe that they generated and carry on with normal life .... It is incredible that just 13 years on - President Paul Kagame has somehow managed to create a society which functions (albeit with a heavy police presence) and that people appear (at least to an outsider) to genuinely seem to believe that they must put all differences and history behind them, abandon old tribalism and work together ....

One of the more shameful aspects of the aftermath of the conflict (if you believe Gourevitch) is that the international community refused to let the leaders of the Genocide be tried under Rwandan law .... giving the excuse that Rwanda practised the death penalty and so the countries where the Hutu Power instigators had fled to (UK, France, Canada, US, etc etc) could not in conscience extradite them back to Rwanda ..... and so the UN set up the International Criminal Court in Arusha. Gourevitch claims that in large part this was to bury the mistakes made by the UN and other nations and even their complicities in the conflict, and unfortunatelt the ICC has only managed to prosecute a fraction of those implicated and errors made in arresting and bringing such leaders to justice (especially from France) have been more than embarrassing ... even more embarrassing is the way in which this is still being sadly ignored ....

Rwanda responded to such a snub by altering its own rules on the death penalty and setting up its own system of trials based on local tradition - the Gaccaca courts. These have taken place across the country and have allowed normal people to confront their tormentors and give explanations .... a bit like the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa but even more focussed on the average village person - these courts have allowed those who committed serious crimes and genocide planning to be imprisoned yet also "pardons" those who were swept up in the madnesss of those 100 days .... its somehow worked (at least superficially) .... and its allowed the rebuilding of an entire nation and society to start ....

In some spirit of self-flagellation - the next day ... I decided to visit the genocide memorial at Nyamata about 25km outside Kigali. This was a Catholic church where thousands of Tutsi's sought refuge from the Hutu killers - who were their neighbours and friends in the same village .... the priest locked them inside, brought in the Hutu Interhamwe and then fled to Europe. Over 2500 people were murdered inside the church over the course of a couple of days ... the women were gang-raped and people who weren't killed first had their achilles tendons cut to stop them running away .... some were killed with machetes or clubs ... others with grenades and guns ....

Its a simple and small church .... brick built with a dozen roughly hewn pews .... and then you notice the church roof is spattered with bullet holes and blood .....

(The purple ribbons show that the 100 days of remembrance are being observed (from April to July) to mark the period of the actual genocide)

A side room is piled high with clothes and belongings of the victims .... you notice hairbands and torn Nike T-shirts .... spiderman pants .... and lovely batik prints ....

The front pulpit is covered with the same cloth that adorned it during the massacre ... its covered in blood .... and on top rests a pile of rosaries recovered from the carnage ....

Outside lies a neat row of mass graves .... twenty to a coffin ... those are for the lucky that have been identified or were found at least semi-whole .....

And then you walk on to perhaps the most horrific sight that I have ever seen .... underground lie the bony remnants of hundreds, thousands of others that were systematically chopped to bits and dismembered .... there are neverending racks and racks of bones ... almost immediately my Doctor-response kicked in and i started to identify the bones - femur, femur, tibia, radius - rather than take in the sight before me .... but then i reached to the skulls ... and I couldn't medicalise any more .... there are some that are smashed .... some whole ... and worst of all the tiny ones of the children massacred ....

It was to me the most powerful reminder yet of our failings as a international community and that we really must never ever allow ourselves to stand by and let such inhumanity take hold ever again .... jamais encore ....

A Slight Change to Plans

2007-06-19T15:47:00.002+01:00

Hmmmm .... it seems that Kenya Airways is a little rattled by the recent plane crash ... one of their planes isn't feeling so well and so they've had to cancel flights out of Kigali .... you can imagine the chaos this has caused here .... all the Yanks are stamping feet and yelling about how important they are and how they have to get back (whilst muttering about third world etc etc) .... the various African women are all anxious as they've left kids at home and their fathers being good African men have barely coped with the four days let alone any more .... and there are few rooms in Kigali to put people up in ....

So for once my general habit of conflict avoidance has proved positive .... I agreed to leave on Saturday instead of Thursday .... and waived an offer of some grotty room in Kigali .... I'm going to take my chances and travel round the country a bit as well as doing the long-planned gorilla trekking .... i've found a driver (a young married muslim guy - so should be safe i hope) .... and am now doing some frantic reading about places to see ....

Worst Cultural Offenders of the past 60 years ...

2007-06-19T10:31:00.001+01:00

A complete aside here ... but I'm just surfing the web as I wait for my gorilla trekking guide to come and pick me up (african time clearly ... already two hours late) and I came across this piece in the Guardian ... The Worst Cultural Offenders of the past 60 Years ....

With typical guardianista snobbery - the author has listed amongst others:-
Andy Warhol
Bono
The Jerry Springer show
and Sex in the City ....

Have to say - my top 10 would include at least:-

Big Brother
Las Vegas
Boy bands
Fox TV
E! TV
Dolly Parton/Celine Deon and all those other terrible female singers of the gay pantheon
The Telly Tubbies
Techno ....

Hmmm .... in fact I'm now hard pushed to think of positive cultural influences .... perhaps Oscar Wilde was right ....

The PEPFAR Conference

2007-06-18T12:05:00.000+01:00

Where to start when describing this conference?

Firstly its been a ground breaking meeting since for the very first time the US-funded PEPFAR conference has invited in other agencies such as the WHO, UNAIDS, GFATM etc ....... given USAID's terrible reputation for engaging only in bilateral programmes and never contributing to basket-funded projects - this has represented a huge step forward ... its also meant that we've been graced by experts from all these different groups moving the emphasis away from toeing the PEPFAR line (abstinence good/condoms bad etc) .... and so the conference has been reinvigorated from mere forum where the various PEPFAR organisations show off their results and are suspicious of sharing"secrets of success" .... into a meeting where issues are being properly debated, difficulties and challenges openly aired and strategies that work highlighted ....

Secondly its also been amazing to be at such a diverse gathering - although it is a little ridiculous to be a British Indian representing Africa interacting with a Ugandan representing the US government and a Yank speaking for India .... but its great to see such a mix .... and i have revelled in meeting people from Cote d'Ivoire or Nepal or Djiboutie ..... it does however make me feel a little pity for poor white people with no decent national costume to bring colour to such an event ....

Thirdly its also been a conference where Africans have been given their place and time alongside american or european "experts" to present their experiences .... all too often we hear western academics lecture to us - setting standards and dispensing lofty advice ..... so its seems this forum has finally spawned true "south-south" cooperation as we share thoughts on the problems we face .... and debate how we should implement guidelines as best for own own contexts .... and i have been humbled by the courage, motivation and innovation shown by colleagues battling the epidemic with limited funds in areas bereft of all infrastructure .....

Fourthly - the conference was opened by Paul Kagame, the Rwandan head of state (and ex-RPF leader whose military tactical brilliance is credited with having ended the genocide) and was attended by the whole of the Rwandan parliament emphasising the political will behind efforts to control HIV in country where it was spread primarily as a result of the rape and torture carried our during the genocide. Last summer in Toronto - the Canadian Prime Minister refused to attend the International AIDS Conference (the gays aren't in line with his christian beliefs) ... and in South Africa - not only does our President not believe HIV causes AIDS and our Health Minister the laughing stock of the world but she also snubs all HIV conferences in the country and bans her staff from attending .... So it was really heartening to see that there are leaders on this continent who are prepared to confront this challenge ... the prevalence rate here in Rwanda is around 3% - just imagine if the South African government had shown this leadership when we had such low rates ....

Finally the main issues discussed have also been different to previous conferences i've attended .... the activists shouting for access to treatment and rights for health workers/prostitutes/one-armed lesbians etc are thankfully absent .... western buzzwords such as pre-exposure prophylaxis (essentially the morning-before weekend wonder pill for people that want to go out and have unprotected sex) and hot-of-the-press new drugs have rightly been disregarded as irrelevant to us .... instead the topics have ranged from how to responsibly implement male circumcision across our countries and cultures and how to improve our prevention of mother to child transmission (a real tragedy: a simple method exists yet is somehow shockingly poorly implemented) .... to the value of opt out (ie mandatory) HIV testing and how to integrate malaria and TB into HIV programmes or how to reach orphans and vulnerable children ....

I won't bore you with a litany of facts and figures ...... it suffices to say that we seem to be losing the battle with the current lip service that is being paid to properly funding and supporting the efforts so desperately needed .... over 25 million people have died from HIV since the early 80s and conservatively over 20 million currently live with HIV today .... that means that at present over 45 million people have died or have been condemned to die (and thats not counting the 3 million infected each year) .... 45 million people ...... that's more than 7 times the number of people that died in the Holocaust .... the majority of whom live in Africa ...

And so its appropriate that this conference has taken place in Rwanda - where 13 years ago - whilst it burned like hell on earth - the world turned its back and navel gazed in embarrassment ... after which Bill Clinton and Tony Blair amongst others pledged that we would never let it happen again .... Today however we see the same apathy and disinterest and i'm-sorry-but-what-can-i-do face making - and its not just AIDS .... tragedies have unfolded in Iraq, Afghanistan and Darfur ....

Kevin de Cock from the WHO gave a rousing plenary address yesterday urging western donor nations to honestly commit funds and honour promises made ... but also impressed upon us the importance of all of our roles and contributions to these efforts .... and he floored the whole audience by ending with a quote Martin Luther King:

History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people .....

The Land of 1000 Smiles

2007-06-18T11:45:00.000+01:00

Now i know i'm prone to fall in love with places (oddly - the direct opposite to the way i usually feel about people) and i know that i am somewhat prone to hyperbole (!!) .... and that the places i've ever not been effusive about are probably countable on just one hand (really just Portugal and Botswana .... and i guess also the US for which love-hate doesn't begin to describe my conflicting emotions about) ..... however i am happy to admit that i've fallen deeply in love with Rwanda ....

Flying from Nairobi (which included the ubiquitous unscheduled stop - this time in Bujumbura) ...
[An aside: Bujumbura! Those of you who i went to school with - do you remember doing all those cake sales and school fetes to raise money for Burundi - well congrats girls - i think it worked .... the place looks pretty good]
........ you pass over endless dry plains and beigey-grey landscape ... and then all of a sudden you're met by this deep green jewel-like land all misty and romantic. My school-girl imagination immediately kicked in - this was a Place for High Adventure .....

But right from landing in Kigali - the smiles started ...... the immigration officer was positively ebullient (in SA this is a role whose job description it seems to stipulate extreme grumpiness and sheer refusal to be helpful in any way) ....... the baggage handlers couldn't have been more efficient or eager to assist ..... in short the hospitality and grace of the Rwandan people has been incredible .... obviously some of this will have been enforced through the knowledge that this is the first major conference in the country and there is certainly a high level of state "control" here .... but truly the courtesy and care shown to me by every person i've met here has been unlike anywhere else i've ever been .....

Now the initial glow did subside somewhat when i was told on arrival that my nice cushy hotel room for the conference had mysteriously been double-booked (i'm blaming the yankee organisers and not the lovely Rwandese) ... and so i was allocated to stay at a private home about 15-20 mins drive away .... gulp i thought - .... as we drove out of the city ..... past a mosque (who knew there were rwandan muslims?!) and further into the suburbs .... what am i going to tell my mum if anything happens to me?

But its worked out fine .... in fact its been really good to escape the constant networking of the conference in the evenings and come back to a place where i'm forced to practice my GCSE (high school) french ... eat real rwandese food (grilled goat is so good!) and hang out drinking local beer in the neighbourhood .... and even far away from the tourist hotels and police presence - i am amazed at how warmly i've been welcomed and how safe i feel here .... the people are so thoughtful and nice that in fact i find myself smiling more too and even being friendly to complete strangers ..... what on earth will i do when i get back to SA?!

In praise of .... Nairobi Airport

2007-06-16T12:37:00.000+01:00

So first stop on my Big Adventure seems tame enough ... Nairobi airport ... a place that i've rushed in and out of many times but never really stayed in for any amount of time .... and any airport at 530 in the morning is likely to be pretty rubbish - right?

Wrong - Nairobi airport rocks ....

The shops are hilarious ... there are about 75 of them ... all selling exactly the same thing namely afro-trash beads, kikoys (shawls) and carvings interspersed with bad wine and decent liquor ... eveything despite being the same has different prices but similar baleful sales assistants (which makes for comedy in itself) .... the internet cafes are snail-slow .... and the food options are limited to grease and lard ....

But its all redeemed (also in part by Java House - possibly the best coffee place in the whole of Africa) .... by the colour and the pageant ... you arrive in Nairobi airport and realise that the whole of Africa is passing through here ....

Johannesburg airport is a model of German efficiency and French design - all marble, glass and chic shops .... and you could easily mistake it for any airport in Europe ... the only black people there are of two extremes - either suited and booted/stockinged and stilletoed young black execs .... or the cleaners, security guards and general minions .... there's no in between ...

In Nairobi - the world is awash with bright colours, national dress and LOUD gabbling (no one in Africa seems to speak quietly) .... and even more so today because most of Africa seemed to be transiting through on their way to the conference in Kigali ...... it's chaotic, infuriating and totally utterly African ... and I love it ... ....

I wish i could have taken a picture of the lady in front of me in the rush for the plane (obviously no one queues here and seat numbers are deemed mere suggestions) .... she had on a parrot green Nigerian outfit .... an huge matching turban on her head ... and top of the turban she balanced a Louis Vuitton tote bag .... if that isn't modern Africa - I don't know what is ....

The Land of 1000 Hills ....

2007-06-14T15:57:00.000+01:00

I am off tonight for yet another HIV conference .... but this time its in Rwanda .... the land of 1000 Hills .... and i am so nervous but dead excited ....

Now i grant you the background reading i've done hasn't been exactly inspiring .... genocide, rape and civil war (We wish to inform you ....)

But also there are some high points .... the country has dealt astonishingly well with the aftermath of its terrible recent history .... Rwanda is embracing new technologies and its applications to health and poverty reduction .... and is so committed to protecting its environment that all plastic bags are confiscated on entry ....

And of course there are the Gorillas .... silverback mountain gorillas .... can't survive in captivity .... highly endangered ... oddly don't drink water just somehow inhale it from the atmosphere .... huge great hairy beasts .... and i have rather bravely booked myself on a hike (!!!) up the volcanoes to try to see some .... so fingers crossed for me and them ....

"My take-home won't take me home"

2007-06-11T09:55:00.000+01:00

We're in the midst of a crisis here in SA.

Nurses, teachers and other public sector workers are on strike across the country demanding a 12% payrise instead of the 6% they've been offered ....

And it is shocking - these workers are pitiably paid .... they make barely enough to cover basic needs ... and despite inflation now running at 6.5% - these public sector workers haven't had a decent rise in years ... which is especially galling when we're constantly being told how well the country is doing .... and when President Mbeki scores a 57% increase ....

However the reality is that for the past week - no children have been able to go to public school .... books, desks and facilities have been burned and kids have been threatened if they venture anywhere near a classroom .... exams have been postponed indefinitely and troops keep guard on school playgrounds ...

Even worse - although doctors have not participated in the strike .... our nurses sadly don't seem to be quite so sensitive to their essential staff status .... and have deserted hospitals and clinics in their droves .... even more horribly - they have barricaded hospitals, prevented patients entering and the army has had to be deployed for emergency medical assistance ....

I was doing my monthly stint at Edendale hospital last week ... and the junior doctors were being told to discharge all the patients they could because the hospital was planning on shutting down the next day (anyone left would have to be transferred to a private hospital) ....

As I left the hospital .... picketing nurses occupied the 5th and 7th floors of the building toi-toi-ing (a sort of scary demonstration singing/dancing effort - think old anti-apartheid riots) .... and when i finally battled the crowds and got outside ... cars were being smashed, tires burned and the police were firing rubber bullets .... it was my first proper strike - and I was terrified ....

This is the scene that now greets patients when they try to seek medical attention .....

The papers report that hospital authorities admit patients are dying due to lack of access to healthcare .... dying outside hospitals of heart attacks or asthma attacks because they can't physically get inside ....

The worst story of today was a woman who lost her baby because there was no one to assist the obstetrician with an emergency a caesarian section .... or a report yesterday of eight schoolgirls who were arrested after they got into a fight with striking teachers .... the girls were protesting against the strike: they wanted to be taught.

Now I am all in favour of workers rights ..... but I had always believed that the whole point of a strike is that it's a peaceful way to show strength and hence win demands. For me - it's the ultimate weapon that workers can wield in a collective bargaining situation ....

However here - there seems no end in sight to the violence as more unions are threatening to join the strike in sympathy. This from a teacher's union head: "We are at war now and in war there are no strict rules. You shoot to kill."

Birthday Presents for me ....

2007-06-07T14:34:00.001+01:00

Just as the blog was getting a little afro-serious ... a brief social aside ...

I had a birthday last week ... and will post more on the festivities soon .... but i got this as one of my presents from my lovely new yorker mate Lisa .... rather worryingly my other presents were yummy delicious wine and a truly beautiful bottle of oban ...

We wish to inform you ....

2007-06-06T16:03:00.000+01:00

Seeing as how Yat is now doing book reviews and spreading his literary wealth .... I thought it would probably be acceptable to give a quick mention to a truly astonishing book that i have just finished ...

On April 6, 1994, Rwanda's then Hutu dictator, Juvénal Habyarimana, was assassinated whilst returning to Kigali.

It has still never been actually proved who killed him - but what is clear is that a clique of military men were readily on hand to put into action a plan they had been hatching of "Hutu Power" .... an extremist ideology called as its ultimate goal for the extermination of every Tutsi in Rwanda.

For those of you who haven't yet seen Hotel Rwanda .... within hours of Habyarimana's death, many Hutus (including militias such as the infamous Interhamwe, policemen, ordinary citizens, even clergy) began indiscriminately murdering their Tutsi neighbors.

Over the next 100 days, between 800,000 and 1 million Tutsis and Hutu oppositionists were killed, most by machete, rape and unspeakable torture ..... while the international community stood idly by .... and, in some cases, acted in a manner that allowed the Hutu génocidaires to conduct their bloody work with even more ferocity and expediency. Once that had finished (not by international forces but by Tutsi forces fighting back) .... the ugly saga then continued through refugee camps, trials and more western obfucscating .... culminating in the creation of the new Democratic Republic of Congo and yet more bloody conflicts that still simmer on ...

What were we doing in 1994? What was the top story over that period? The collapse of apartheid perhaps .... or the end of the Balkans war maybe? No .... we and the world's media were all glued to the trial of OJ Simpson ....

The author Philip Gourevitch (who writes for the New Yorker) investigates the events before, during and after the genocide .... and is scathing in his debunking of myths and pathetic excuses .... the book leaves you inconsolable as every institution you want to believe in today is shown to have participated in the mess or purposefully turned a blind eye .....

However he saves his harshest criticisms for the UN (especially the then head for the Rwandan mission - a certain Kofi Annan) .... for the French - who quite shamelessly supported Hutu Power with arms and diplomatic clout throughout the genocide (apparently Mitterand's son was an arms dealer who certainly did very well out of the whole episode) ..... and the Clinton administration (particularly Madeleine Albright, then the U.S. ambassador to the U.N.) who adopted a catastrophic post-Somalia hands-off policy toward Africa ..... and seemed to engage in a bizarre semantic ducking-and-diving around the word "genocide." (remind you of any current event?!)

If any of you have ever been to the Holocaust memorial in Washington DC or anywhere around the world ... there is one stock phrase .... "Never again" ....

What tripe.

Again and again is perhaps more like it. In Darfur, we are witnessing a genocide again .... and again we are witnessing ourselves witnessing it whilst doing little to stop it. Just as Rwanda made a bleak mockery of the lessons of Bosnia and the Balkans - Darfur is making a bleak mockery of the lessons of Rwanda.

I'm quite ashamed to admit that I have read this book so late ... it should be essential reading for anyone working in Africa ... and frankly for anyone at all interested in our world today .... it is the sort of book that makes you despair for better things and makes you contemplate your wrists with your razor .... but it also perhaps one of the most powerful and truthful books that i have ever read ... and I urge you all to do the same ....

'Tis the season of the AIDS conference .... and meeting heroes ....

2007-06-05T20:59:00.000+01:00

AIDS conferences are as much theatre as they are anything to do with real science or furthering the cause of people living with HIV .... my first experience was last year at the International AIDS conference in Toronto - a veritable circus for activist organisations, fringe groups and people who frankly just like to protest .... as well as a media love-fest for celebs, politicians and philanthropists. For every serious NGO, pharma company and scientist - there were groups such as grandmothers against AIDS, transvestites, transexuals, multisexuals and a whole bed-zone for sex workers of every shape, hue and flavour ....

The big conference this year is in Sydney in July, but there is also the PEPFAR shebang in Kigali in mid-June (on which more later since I'm actually going to that one) but to kick the season off this week is the South African AIDS conference in Durban - probably the most important national level conference in Africa ....

And with good reason .... South Africa has the largest number of HIV cases in the world .... and has both stories to be proud of as well as to wish swept under the carpet .... we've all heard the tales of Thabo Mbeki refusing to believe in HIV and stating that he doesn't even know anyone with AIDS, as well as our mad-as-a-hatter health minister Mantu Tshabalala Msimang who trashes ARVs and promotes garlic, lemons and the african potato ...

However - SA was also the host country for the 2000 International AIDS Conference (Durban) where for the first time the idea of ARV treatment for all was truly advocated for .... demanding decreases in the cost of treatment ... arguing on the basis of human rights that the developing world could not be ignored or used merely as a lab for drug testing without experiencing the benefits of such advances .....

SA is also the country which hosted the PEPFAR conference last year(Durban again) where the impact of this US funding body was properly debated and where we argued that rather than the US government being able to claim that the American people had out 1 million patients on treatment ... instead such funds should be used to actually strengthen health services and enable countries to put their own people on ARVs in a way that would be sustainable beyond George Bush ....

And its the home country for the TAC (Treatment Action Campaign) arguably the organisation who have done the most globally to spearhead the campaign to bring treatment to the developing world, to bring down the cost of drugs, to advocate for the rights of people living with HIV and to force a blinkered South African government to confront that they were allowing what some compare to a genocide to exist within the country ....

So we are all looking forward to this year's conference knowing that things are slowly beginning to change here (thanks in great part to the TAC amongst others) .... and proud that whatever we debate here will have massive impact on other national conferences in Africa and will form the basis for the big international conferences coming up ...

However when i walked onto my flight to Durban this morning ... i was gobsmacked to see that i was sitting next to THE Zackie Achmat (in economy no less!) - the founder of the TAC, one of Time magazine's Heroes and a Nobel Peace prize nominee .... sadly i was too travel sick to talk lots to him (i know most people grow out of it when they're 12 - but what can i do?!) .... and was frankly too shy to chit-chat with a man who is really one of my living heroes .... all i could do was thank him repeatedly for everything that he's done ... and ask him shamelessly for the cheesy photo below ....

Peace and Love to all Mankind ....

2007-06-01T08:35:00.000+01:00

The Global Peace Index was published this week ... apparently the brainchild of an Aussie entrepreneur/philanthropist and conducted by the Economist's Intelligence Unit ... with the support of the Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the former US president Jimmy Carter.

It ranked countries on 24 different indicators assessing a coutry's level of violence and danger .... but takes into consideration street violence, numbers of prisoners and organised crime as well as general warmongering, military spending and intercontinental meddling ....

Unsurprisingly the Scandinavians did rather well .... Norway comes top of the table with its peace-loving neighbours Denmark, Sweden and Finland all in the top seven (what is it with the scandinavians coming top of eveything?) ..... New Zealand is second (surely too far away from anywhere and too full of sheep to cause anyone any problems?) ... the Irish were fourth (amazingly given recent history) .... one place above Japan (having an elvis-impersonator head of state clearly makes for more love less war) ...

Equally predictable the bottom 5 .....
121 Iraq
120 Sudan
119 Israel (interestingly Palestine isnt on the list)
118 Russia
117 Nigeria (there are some great nigerian blogs ranting against this!)

But the list also throws up some suprises .... the UK is ranked at 49 - way way below most other euro nations including the Baltic states ..... China comes in at 60 just below Libya and Cuba ... whereas the US barely makes the top 100 (96) just one spot better than Iran .... India and Pakistan fare dismally at 109 and 115 respectively .... and Somalia not really being a country doesn't even feature on the list ...

The Dalai Lama is quoted as saying "Compiling and maintaining an index of which countries are the most peaceful and publishing the results will undoubtedly make the factors and qualities that contribute to that status better known and will encourage people to foster them in their own countries,".

We can but hope.

From the American People .....

2007-05-31T14:14:00.001+01:00

There's nothing like posing with a little black baby for a bit of goodwill ... and George's PR machine picked a great one yesterday for the big announcement that PEPFAR (President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) would be extended for another 5 years .... and the amount pledged was doubled to 30 billion dollars ....

Wow.

Apparently Laura Bush is coming to Africa next month to promote this extension of the initiative ... her favourite organisation here is the Mothers to Mothers to Be Programme (predictably - no condom education needed in this one or that would complicate matters).

As President Bush said:
“She and I share a passion .... We believe that to whom much is given, much is required.”

The current PEPFAR (2003-2007) pledged 15 billion dollars over 5 years (now closer to 18 billion) .... and aimed to put 2 million people on treatment ... in all honesty today the number of people supported on ARVs through PEPFAR is probably closer to 1 million ... but most controversially the programme has taught 61.5 million people on abstinence ....

Now don't get me wrong - this renewal of PEPFAR is truly a great and wonderful thing ... especially for an administration whose frugality in terms of development aid has contrasted massively with its spending on defence .... and also it doesn't take a cynical mind to see this is a fabulous distraction from a dismal record on climate change, iraq, human rights etc etc .... and that the whole programme has played very nicely to extend the legacy of the Christian Right ....

However there is no doubt that through this extra funding lives will be saved and that new infections averted .... additionally PEPFAR certainly has bipartisan support ... and it is a relief that George has ensured that the funding will be committed well into the next government ......

Even better - this announcement throws down the gauntlet for the next week's G8 summit ... especially to the Germans and Italians who have been less than generous so far and who might be embarrassed into action .... and it might prompt Tony Blair to make some wild promises (even if just to piss off Gordon) as a final hurrah ....

As President Bush said yesterday:
“Once again, the generosity of the American people is one of the great untold stories of our time .... Our citizens are offering comfort to millions who suffer, and restoring hope to those who feel forsaken.”

.... but if George really does want this to change the way that the world views America .... then lets just hope that somehow PEPFAR and the new son-of-PEPFAR will be run on policies based on real evidence and not ideology ...

Sisters are doing it for themselves ....

2007-05-29T13:08:00.001+01:00

A few days ago I was visiting some of our sites in rural mountainous Mpumulunga in midst of the Deep Freeze that gripped the whole country ... we ourselves didn't have heating ... the electricity was skittish and the water supply was downright pre-menstrual ... one night Zanele, Bongani and I had to sleep in every item of clothing we had brought along it was so so cold .... so I was a little grumpy when I was asked to drive my colleague to meet with a support group at a nearby squatter camp ... sure to be even more cold, dark and miserable ....

I should explain here that in post-apartheid south africa .... most black people still live in the black townships, most indians live in the indian townships etc and the white people still live in nice houses in the suburbs .... but the older townships are fairly established communities now with cultures and infrastructure of their own .... the really poor people here live in squatter camps or "informal settlements" which are essentially wood and corrugated iron shacks clustered with no water, electricity, roads etc and incredibly high rates of crime ....

Realising that I couldn't get out of it ... i duly left my computer and credit cards in the B&B, took off my earrings, watch and anything else shiny .... keeping only some "mugging cash" on me for emergencies (better to have a few notes to hand over than to deny having anything at all) .... but i was pretty nervous as we navigated the dirt track and stopped at the shack of one of the women who leads an HIV support group that we work with ....

.... and then I heard the sound of music from within .... any of you who have ever lived in SA will know why i mention this ... south africans seem to be born with some natural ability to sing perfect four part harmony at the drop of a hat .... and every meeting or gathering starts and ends with music, singing and dancing ... its the sort of singing that seems to lift your soul with it (think the scene with the opera in the shawshank redemption) .... and makes you feel that somehow life can be beautiful after all ...

These women are poor - i mean properly rags-dirt-shack-beggar poor .... and yet they manage to band together each week and walk to visit all the other people in their community who are also HIV-positive to look after them and check they take their medications properly ... they don't ask for payment or glory ... they just do it out of a hope of something better for the whole community .... and when i walked in they greeted me as if i was one of their own .... and offered me hospitality as though i was the queen of england ....

They then proudly showed me their scheme to raise funds for themselves and ensure that they eat healthily .... a small area of green garden amidst the misery of the shacks .... growing sugar beets and sweet potatoes, spinach and tomatoes, papayas and avocados .... they have to dig with their hands and irrigate using precious water they ferry up in jerry cans ... and they don't let men into the group because they just steal the money and get drunk .... (the chap in the picture is my friend Bongani)

I was overwhelmed by what they have managed to do with no training, education or advice .... I reached into my pocket and found my emergency 500 rand (about $75) - and gave it to them for a wheelbarrow, seeds, a spade and some wire to keep out marauding chickens .... the hijackers and muggers would just have to find someone else to demand cash from today ....

Is Al joining the party?

2007-05-24T21:46:00.001+01:00

Possibly the best president-who-never-was published an exerpt from his new book - The Assault on Reason today in the Guardian .... and quite aside from the vitriolic attack on the Bush administration ... it could quite easily also serve as an opening salvo for a presidential campaign ...

"The pursuit of "dominance" in foreign policy led the Bush administration to ignore the UN, to do serious damage to our most important alliances, to violate international law, and to cultivate the hatred and contempt of many in the rest of the world. The seductive appeal of exercising unconstrained unilateral power led this president to interpret his powers under the constitution in a way that brought to life the worst nightmare of the founders."

"We as Americans should have "known then what we know now"- not only about the invasion of Iraq but also about the climate crisis; what would happen if the levees failed to protect New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina; and about many other fateful choices that have been made on the basis of flawed, and even outright false, information. We could and should have known, because the information was readily available. We should have known years ago about the potential for a global HIV/Aids pandemic. But the larger explanation for this crisis in American decision-making is that reason itself is playing a diminished, less respected, role in our national conversation.

So - would he again? Could he again?
Would certainly make a change from the endless Hillary-Obama fundraising stories ...

Shades of blackness

2007-05-23T14:03:00.001+01:00

There's a furore in South Africa at the moment .... involving the country's pet passions - Rugby and Race ...

It all centres around the man pictured - who has been declared by some of SA's top politicians as being Black ......

How you may well ask .... since the man is clearly White. Very White. Lily White even.

And herein lies the nub of the problem.

Luke Watson comes from an old activist family. His (white) father "Cheeky" Watson famously in the 70s relinquished his position in the Springbok team in protest against the apartheid regime - and instead played club township rugby in an impoverished region of the Eastern Cape.

For this he was arrested, beaten, had his factory burnt down, and the whole (white) family were subject to death threats for being a "kaffirboeties" (or kaffir lovers). For the blacks of the Eastern Cape - he was a hero .... and even coined a struggle chorus - "Siyomlandela u Watson!" (We will follow Watson!) for him.

Switch now to his son .... and despite the fact that Luke Watson captained many national junior teams and is now the captain of the local Cape Town rugby club (the Stormers) - he was not picked this season for the Springbok side. Half the country was furious .... and the other half felt the Watson family had it coming ... (to be fair there was also probably a significant fraction who didn't think he was actually good enough to be picked)

Then to make matters worse - the head of the rugby union overruled the coach and selectors - and personally included Watson in the team - on the basis that "forces" in rugby were still harbouring old-apartheid time grudges against the Watson family and so thwarting their progress ....
"Cheeky Watson was one of us, fighting for the liberation of this country. We cannot have a situation where those children get victimised because of their parents' actions."

The final twist was then for Luke Watson to be declared black by virtue of his family history ....
"Given where he comes from, and where his father deliberately chose to play his rugby, on the dusty, potholed fields of the Eastern Cape townships, Luke comes from a historically disadvantaged community. The coach shouldn't be looking at Watson as a white player. If there are white flankers of equal ability, then Luke should get the nod because of his family's history."

It is amazing however that once again we have politicianss here declaring who is black, and who is not .... it was not so long ago here that the following happened and now its the ANC ... Amandla the Rainbow Nation ...

Sidebar: Funny how this sort of mirrors the debate in the US ... would Obama be black enough on the new SA criteria?

Yet more south africa

2007-05-19T09:22:00.000+01:00

The last i promise of "typical" south african stories .... but this one really infuriated me ...

I was at Edendale hospital this week ... yes the one where 80% of the inpatients have HIV .... where TB is second nature .... and where I can't even walk onto the paediatric ward without getting all teary .... and like all hospitals in South Africa - the nurses rule the roost and the doctors wander around looking like shell-shocked bunnies trying to fire-fight emergencies and generally do what the nurses tell them to ...

So despite my trepidation and knowing how it gets to me - I had to see some cases on the kiddies level (natch - i was told to by one of the chief nurses) ... and let me just say here that it is NOTHING like children's wards anywhere that i've ever been used to ... no toy areas or play therapy for these kids ... no bright colours or happy murals .... they just lie three to a bed .... and are so skinny that they actually fit .... and so sick they don't move very much ....

So imagine my outrage when i caught the nurses (all typically "rubenesque" zulu women) on the ward chomping down the hospital meals MEANT FOR THE CHILDREN!! And when i opened my mouth to protest - the ward sister just waggled her finger at me ..... and i meekly knew my place ....

Sometimes africa just bites you in the bum ....

Extreme home makeover ...

2007-05-16T20:23:00.000+01:00

The GBF Peter made the big grown-up move and bought a house in Cape Town last year .... a house with a very typical south african story

Great aunt shirley had lived in the house for decades and decades .... until earlier last year - she was murdered on her own porch by the young black kid who had washed her car forever .... Peter only found out about the story when one of the drunks that seem to inhabit every street corner in the city (to be fair the "bergies" are always rather sweet and almost a relief compared with the other types nastiness that infest our streets) told him about the whole affair ....

But thankfully for peter - other gays have started move in to the area (" here comes the neighbourhood") ... and its now a teeming mass of cafes and boutique furniture shops and the all poor bergies are very bewildered ....

Anyhow 6 months after deciding to gut the place and armed with a gay architect, a lesbian builder and a gay project manager (apparently quite the hot team in town) .... peter finally overcame poor aunt shirley's house neglect and design ignorance ... and unveiled the most gorgeous and perfect little house in Cape Town with a very fabulous house warming party ....

It was all cocktail dresses and champagne ....one of those chattering-clattering beautiful parties .... and basically peter's very lovely friends made the place look so good (see above) that amazingspaces.com want to use the property for the movies and model shoots ... obviously we would all have be written into the contract as fixed adornment furniture .... but i think poor aunt shirley would have been very proud ....

PS - party pics and the house in full glory - all photo credits to the very wonderful Lisa Mastronardi

A very south african story ...

2007-05-15T19:58:00.000+01:00

Crime, drugs and HIV - any country come to mind?

This story is from an area that I work in - its postcard-picture-perfect with rondavels straight out of a No 1 Ladies Detective agency book and has hills covered in romantic mistiness .... but sadly bugger all else to do but drink and have sex .... which would explain the massive rates of HIV ...

And so the local thieves have caught upon a new way to help while away days in tropical heaven .... you steal the ARV drugs from patients with AIDS (cunningly too weak to fight back) as they leave the ARV clinic .... and you smoke them with weed - which apparently give you a better high than anything else on the local market .... and then hope that it protects you from catching the HIV too .... genius ....

A day in the life of Baghdad

2007-03-28T16:24:00.000+02:00

Several of you know that Shashank is currently in Baghdad for a month covering what will probably be the biggest conflict story of our generation .... and so in order to maintain some form of intelligent conversation with him - i've been scouring everything that i can on the situation .... and i am ashamed to realise how immune i have become to reading about what is happening in Iraq .... the newspaper stories feature a body count, a bomb, and a sect .... and then i just switch off .... its just like it was during the wars in Bosnia etc ... or even in general the whole of Africa ... the same story repeated just with different numbers and players ...

Anyhow in an attempt to educate myself - quite aside from Shashank's own blog (what will Playboy make of him now?!) .... I came across the following blog Inside Iraq written by the Iraqi staff of the McClatchy bureau there .... a truly heartfelt account of day to day life in Baghdad - far more poignant and insightful than any newspaper article .... i commend it to you.

Beauty without brains

2007-03-26T11:20:00.000+02:00

wish i was clever enough to post videos (if anyone can tell me how please do) .... but this is funny ....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZScx-NFhTA

Happy TB Day

2007-03-24T17:37:00.000+02:00

Very randomly i recently bumped into a couple of old mates from medical school who are here in SA working at Edendale hospital where by chance i myself work and teach at once a month ... Sanj is there as a paediatrician and Sam as an anaethestist ... obviously as befitted the occasion we shared many memories over many many drinks ... but also - for the first time since arriving in SA - i was able to openly share the experience of whats its actually like being here in the eye of the HIV storm ....

Edendale is a district hospital in Kwa Zulu Natal .... chronically understaffed and under-resourced ... the patients are all poor and black .... and an average medical take brings in over 100 new patients a day ... the casualty department is awash with blood and bullets (sam's first case on her first day here was solo-anaethetising a patient with an axe in his heart) .... and tragically over 80% of the medical in-patients are HIV positive ....

I don't think i can ever really explain the reality of what such figures mean .... percentages just don't convey what you feel when so many people seem to be dying around you .... and you just feel overwhelmed by your inability to do anything at all of any real use .... its as though you are sticking little pink plasters (band-aids in american) of aid, help or arvs on huge stab-wounds on society and watching helplessly as the blood gushes through .... you know that whatever you've done is merely pissing in the wind and you just have to hope that somehow miraculously things are going to get better ... before then having to focus on the next horrific case .... humiliating and utterly apathy-inducing ...

The worst place of all however are the paediatric wards .... i can't even bring myself to go there anymore .... i don't know how the doctors and nurses there face everyday rows of stick thin kids often two to a bed .... most lying listlessly waiting to die (since often they arrive far too late to be able to do anything for them) usually of some complications of their HIV ... its heartbreaking and totally demoralising ....

Edendale truly is at the eye of the HIV storm even in south african terms .... however the tragedy is it is now also at the epicentre of the twin epidemic of TB .... and especially XDR TB ....

Most of you will have seen the articles about XDR TB ... its had lots of very factual media coverage .... but on the coal face - XDR TB means any normal TB drug you have is frankly useless .... and so you put the patient in a side room and usually just watch them die (90% die here) over an agonising few days to weeks .... and then you have the dilemma that you have to isolate them away since so many of the general population are HIV infected that you'd be exposing them to almost-certain death as well ...

And the other kick to our collective balls is that we can't even diagnose XDR TB at the moment essentially until the patient fails treatment for normal TB .... we simply don't have any good testing for it .... so the patient basically has several weeks or months in which to spread the infection around the community before being locked up in the hospital to wait to die ....

Its World TB day today ... and unsuprisingly here at Edendale we're not celebrating ....

TB is one of the oldest diseases known to man (HIV is a merely new kid on the block comparatively .... although a rather uppity ambitious one at that) .... and is the second leading cause of infectious deaths worldwide (about 2 million deaths a year ... second only to HIV inevitably) .... one person is infected every second ..... and about three quarters of all people with HIV here in Africa are co-infected with TB ... its the ultimate double whammy sick joke ....

And although we know how to treat it and treat it well (ie cure it) .... we still don't manage to ... and like HIV it is ravaging through populations both here and in the West ... taking evil advantage of inequitable health systems, poverty and apathy ... and is now totally outwitting our rather feeble attempts to bring it to heel ....

And the scary thing is ... this disease knows how to fly ....

The African Reality Tour - Part Two

2007-02-24T16:01:00.000+02:00

Shashank recently wrote a post about "reality tours" in the slums of Nairobi such as Kibera - now not just a quick n' easy source for a story on african poverty ... but also a tourist destination for pity tours ... guaranteed to make you go home realising how lucky you are .... but all seemingly rather sordid with liberal intelligentsia up in arms at this semi-schadenfreude ....

Its an argument i've often had with myself .... i've worked in slums in Peru, India and townships in SA .... but i've also visited them as a "tourist" - including the favelas of Rio and Soweto near Johannesburg .... and i think it is an important thing to do and acknowledge - the favelas aren't even on city maps of rio - and tourists visiting these areas are the only recognition such cities-within-cities get .... aside from the aforementioned press reports of crime, violence and deprivation ....

Khayelitsha is one of the largest townships associated with Cape Town - over 500,000 people live there .... a remnant of the apartheid government ... its inhabitants are poor, black and typically unemployed. Most homes are corrugated iron shacks without plumbing or electricity .... crime and violence (murder, rape and domestic abuse) are rampant and HIV rates hover around 30% ....

Most white South Africans have neither reason nor inclination to be in Khayelitsha .... but the townships are a vital part of the SA culture and way of life .... and despite the crime and poverty - these communities are very tight knit groups who support and celebrate with each other. There is great passion, pride and spirit in the townships and it is unfortunate that others outside don't get to see that part of them. All they often get to see is the miles of shack-like communities lining the highways to/from the airport. In turn - the township dwellers don't think that the affluent and the white bother about or even acknowledge them or their problems .... they feel alienated, rejected and justified therefore in turning their rage against those who ignore them ....

MSF (Médecins Sans Frontières - Doctors without Borders) provides ARV treatment to HIV patients in Khayelitsha and runs a clinic there called Simelela .... and amongst other things, the clinic also serves as the Rape Crisis center for the community. Two of my colleagues, Eric and Carter (young yankee interns on a programme run by Princeton in Africa) volunteer at the Simelela clinic on their free time. Recently MSF and the TAC (Treatment Action Campaign) held a march in Khayelitsha in protest against the levels of violence against women called "Take Back the Night" .... only because the nights are so dangerous and crime-ridden .... the protest march had to be held in the day ....

NOTE: Another organization in the area is called "One in Nine". Only 1 in 9 rapes are reported and only 1 in 9 rapes get a proper trial. Much of the crime is "black on black" happening in the communities in which the women live and committed by men they know. The longer we all ignore these women, where they live and what they endure ... the longer it goes on ...

How do you solve a problem like Mugabe?

2007-02-21T22:11:00.000+02:00

Robert Mugabe turns 83 today ... and despite recent rumours of ill-health he's promised to party like a 28-year old at his birthday party on saturday ... and even worse to stay on as leader until at least 2010 .... celebrating this news with a lavish extravaganza despite the fact that today the shops in Harare have run out of bread (again), people are out bartering their last possesions for something to eat and the whole nation is seething with discontent at the fact that a bag of maize costs about 4 months worth of average salary ....

Its horrific and flabbergasting that the leader who took over the country from the Brits in 1980 in a wave of hope and goodwill (he's even been decorated by the Queen) has driven the breadbasket of africa and possibly one of the most beautiful countries in the world into complete and utter devastation ...

Inflation rates are 1600% (the highest in the world) and unemployment rests at about 80% .... fuel food and foreign currency are as rare as hen's teeth ... and violent land expropriation to the "war veterans" has left ravaged farmlands incapable of harvest ...

Case in point: a zimbabwean friend of mine took a loan out when he left 10 years ago to study at Harvard medical school and do his PhD there ... essentially 10 years of probably the most expensive education that money can buy ... and he returned this summer to pay off the entire loan with a $100 bill .... and he still got change back ...

The average life expectancy in Zim has fallen to 34 years (some estimates are less than 30 years) - the lowest in the world (the only countries comparable are Lesotho and Botswana due to heinous HIV rates of around 40%) .... hospitals are closing for lack of materials and medical schools closing because students can't afford fees ... doctors are in their 8th week of strike as are teachers with other workers close behind ....

Some estimates put over 3 million people facing starvation in Zimbabwe .... its democracy is in tatters and some of the most draconian press laws and worst civil liberties records in africa (which to be frank is not setting the bar very high ...)

As many of you know - the main opposition party (the Movement for Democratic Change) has been persecuted, hampered and its leaders imprisoned ... the brave bishop of Bulawayo - Pius Ncube - remains one of the few unbowed voices in the country despite horrific harrassment ...

Many are praying that this could be the turning year for them ... as the Zim economy crashes further .... there is no way of avoiding the fact that Mugabe is slowly driving the country deeper into catastrophe with no intention of ever stepping down ... and maybe just maybe - a winter of enough discontent could start the beginning of the end ...

Its unclear if anything anyone does in the west can divert Mugabe from his course ... sanctions, censure and alienation seemed to have had little effect ... and sadly the one african nation that may have had any influence - namely the south african government - remains doggedly silent and by default supportive to this grand-master of african politics (he staunchly helped the ANC through their stuggle against apartheid) .... perhaps all we can hope for is for those 83 years to catch up with him ....

Come on Dover! Move Yer Bloomin' Arse ....

2007-02-20T13:43:00.000+02:00

I had my own Eliza Doolittle moment recently at the annual cape town J&B Met ... our answer to Ascot (or the Kentucky Derby or something if you're a yank) .... apparently its been going for the past 30 years or so and is definitely a "Big Deal" socialite event on today's cape town calender ...

People plan their outfits for months in advance according to the annual theme (this year - Black White and Bling) ... and go completely overboard despite the melting hot summer .... everyone vies for one of the coveted hospitality tent tickets .... the whole day is about people watching, drinking and general flouncing around in finery ... with the horses coming in a poor second ....

This year rather nicely for me - Shashank was in town visiting ... and very serendipitously my mate Priya (a local radio DJ) was not only doing her radio show from the Met .... but was also responsible for judging the best dressed couple competition (for anyone who turned up in theme) .... so you'd think the stage was all set for me to win the first prize of a week in mauritius or several 1000s worth of diamonds as second prize etc etc .... but no ... sadly one of the - let's say idiosyncracies of dating an american .... is that his version of dressing up in black white and bling meant essentially a pair of khaki shorts and t-shirt ... yay me ...

That minor disappointment aside - the day was a cracker .... we had a huge picnic with several of my mates .... potloads of wine .... the weather was typically cape-town-beautiful ... and most importantly i/we won big including over 400 rand from one free bet .... although if we're being honest (and not to be all cockahoop) - we'd have won more if shashank had listened to my other race suggestions ... but we'll say no more about that except to note every time we've been gambling together we've won ... and that doesn't tend to happen when shashank gambles solo ...

Still we spent the winnings on the rest of the weekend generally pretending to ourselves after several hard weeks in the field (me in hiv-ridden township SA and S at the Somalian border etc) that we weren't really in africa at all - organic farmers chi-chi markets, gallery openings, yummy yummy food and wine tasting (and a lot of wine-buying) ... Cape Town - the Paris of Africa indeed .....

A Very Un-Valentines Day

2007-02-15T22:19:00.000+02:00

This country has a horrible way of biting you in the bum .... just at those moments when you start thinking that a corner has been turned and that there is hope for this country after all ....

I spent yesterday schlepping around hospitals, clinics and GP surgeries in rural mpumulanga (province of SA where Kruger national park is) .... following up on patients, training doctors, etc etc ..... and i suddenly realised quite how much had changed here since a year ago.

At my first training session in this area over a year ago - only three patients turned up, they bolted the doors of the hall and were clearly terrified of being seen there and hence "outed" as being HIV positive ... they wouldn't even leave the room at the same time and certainly wouldn't be seen with any of us foreigners - a sure-fire sign of having AIDS (the only outsiders that come to these parts are do-gooders) ...

A year on - we have to barricade ourselves into the room to avoid the huge mass desperate to to get onto ARVs .... having wider access to treatment and witnessing others in their community actually getting better has definitely reduced stigma and given them hope .... the message has trickled through that knowing whether you are postive is no longer an immediate death sentence and so more people get tested ... and the numbers needing ARVs keeps rising ....

And so it was a rewarding moment realising that a year of our programme had made such a difference to a community .... and importantly to see the patients who had been so pitifully ill just a few months before actually job-seeking and looking well ....

I returned home to my B&B feeling as though I was finally doing something worthwhile .... and over dinner with two of my colleagues we earnestly talked about things getting better for this country after the twin scourges of apartheid and HIV .... and so in between courses we got up to get some fresh air and walked onto the front street ... to be greeted by the sight of a gaggle of young girls all dressed up to the nines ....

This sadly was not some asbo-inducing fest of fourteen year olds gathering for valentines day and just hanging out on the street .... instead these girls were flashing at the passing truck drivers (this being a big timber region and transport route with lots of trucks) ... and if any of them stopped at the traffic lights ... they would clamber onto the bonnet shouting to the driver all the things they could offer him and the price ....

Horrified and yet somehow also fascinated - we ran down to the nearest girl to ask her why she was doing this ... and it was just wrist-slittingly depressing to hear that it was the only way any of them could make money and that often they were sent out onto the street by their families ....

We asked her if she'd ever heard of HIV (of course she had ... there's not a a soul here under the age of 50 here who hasn't) .... and if she used condoms (of course she said she did .... note to all doctors about people telling us what we want to believe ...) ..... and sadly like the good HIV doctor I am - I was of course NOT carrying spare condoms to dish out to all and sundry on the street ....

But within a few minutes - she had a client .... who said that for sex without a condom he'd pay her three times the going rate (about 300 rand - less than 30 quid) ... she looked at us and shrugged her shoulders ... it had been a quiet few days and she wasn't going to turn him down - she needed to eat .... we tried to plead with her and even offered to match the money ... but in a flash she'd hoisted herself up and the driver was shouting obscenties at the interfering foreigners about trying to make him eat sweets with the wrapper on ....

I looked up and noticed he didn't have a seat belt on .... and so here's the rub ... how do you get a nation to start using condoms and avoid a fatal threat which will affect them 5-10 years on ... when you can't even get them to wear a seatbelt to protect against an immediate threat? How do you get people to value their lives when they have so little to look forward to at age 14 that they sell their bodies and potentially their long term health for under 50 dollars?

Where for art thou?

2007-02-06T19:36:00.000+02:00

Just so that people don't think from reading either my or Shashank's blogs that Africa is all war, epidemics and car-jackings (although maybe his life is that exciting) .... here's a pic of my weekend having a picnic in the park with mates priya, shaun and lisa before watching open-air shakespeare .... and whilst the acting wasn't quite up to regents park (just imagine Juliet with an Afrikaans accent) ... its still very nice just to pretend that civilisation is just around the corner ....

Another hope bites the dust .....

2007-02-03T23:53:00.000+02:00

I feel a bit sheepish since i've been meaning to write about microbicides ever since the Toronto conference last summer (and yes i DID do more than just accessory shop there). I even had a snappily titled post all set up in my head in honour of Gates and Clinton, the chief celebs that i followed around star struck ... although admittedly rather typically never got around to actually writing the post ...

But to summarise post haste - the overwhelming themes at the conference were:-

1) that the face of HIV globally is now the face of a woman (especially a poor black or asian one)
2) that the funds committed to provide ARV treatment to all that need it are never ever going to suffice (despite the best efforts of Gates, Buffet and dare i say George Bush) .... and
3) that the pendulum needs urgently to swing back to prevention efforts (as opposed to solely treatment advocacy) .... BUT a very different kind of prevention this time ...

Stephen Lewis (possibly the greatest Canadian ever) made an impassioned speech regarding the fact that funds such as PEPFAR, originally the largest fund donated to a single disease are now already woefully inadequate for the current state of the pandemic, much less for the projected numbers in a few years time .... three by five might would need to be fifty by ten at this rate .... an inconceivable burden of disease ....

But the one positive message that shone through was that finally sisters might be able to do it for themselves ....

We all know that condoms don't work (correction: condoms could work if only men could be persuaded or even volunteer to wear them) .... and that vaccines are still the same ubiquitous 20 years away that they were 20 years ago .... but microbicides were presented as the possible salvation of every woman in the developing world wanting to protect herself surreptitiously .... (the other breakthrough touted was that some ARV drugs could be taken on a Friday night to protect someone having unprotected sex until sunday night .... a whole new take on "something for the weekend - sir" and not unsurprisingly top of the agenda for the MSM contingent at the conference .... speaking of which I had never seen such a circus at a conference ... there sections for grannies against aids, prostitutes, transvestites, transsexuals, multisexxuals ... frankly anything went and had a stall or an advocacy group .... ).

So it is with great sadness and disappointment that we learned earlier this week that the trials into microbicides had been universally halted in all research centres across Africa because the provisional results showed that women who had used the gel actually had higher rates of infection than women who used the placebo gel .... bloody typical ....

Now it could be because women with the microbicide took more "risks" with the confidence of the gel whereas the placebo group somehow managed to make their men wear condoms or even that the gel candidates were somehow placed at greater risk through some other means (barrel scraping) ... but it does look like the great white hope of a female-centric method of protection has bitten the dust .... a disaster for women on this continent ....

I've just got home from a day in an antenatal clinic in Kwa-Zulu Natal where 80% of all the expecting mums are HIV positive ... someone pass the Prozac and quick ....

A few of my favourite things ....

2006-12-14T14:52:00.000+02:00

This blog has slipped horribly in terms of its original intent (health and development experiences in africa .... hmmm) and frankly in terms of being a blog with new postings at all ....

however just a quickie to rave about and share my new most favourite thing ... and i know i'm tech-disabled so some of you yanks may already have heard of this ... but my brit compadres will definitely be in the same boat as me .... its a website called Pandora ... which is apparently linked to the Music Genome Project ...

anyhow - you just have to tell Pandora what kind of music you like ... either an artist or a song ... and the clever site will create a "radio-station" for you ... playing like-minded music ... which you then get to trawl through (but don't have to buy) ... perfect for cheapies for me who are scared of buying whole albums and are worried that iTunes is taking over the world ...

i swear its some sort of magic .... but its very lovely ....

Aid in Africa ....

2006-10-31T09:43:00.000+02:00

best line at dinner last night (from a black south african bloke):

Yeah we went to Mozambique last week .... and the women were so so hot ... all slim and sexy .... we need to stop sending food aid .... and just send miniskirts .....

2006-10-14T23:30:00.000+02:00

The African JZ ...

2006-10-14T22:33:00.000+02:00

Jacob Zuma .... the South African JZ .... our home grown black-power superstar ....
A man subject to such headlines as …. "Jacob Zuma's ANC duties suspended on corruption charges" ..... or "Zuma case reveals SA rape problems" .... or even more tragic in a country with the worst HIV burden globally .... "Zuma took shower to prevent HIV"

…… and yet also "Zuma - the next president of South Africa" .....

Now - there's no denying that this man fought for his country .... Zuma was integral to the struggle against apartheid ...... spending hard years in prison and in exile in Mozambique and Zambia .... (unlike the current president Thabo Mbeki who spent much of that time in the UK) .... and he has risen the ranks to become without doubt the most prominent Zulu in the country (very important given tribalism still reigns strong here in SA) ....

NB an aside here ... apparently the Zulus became known as one of the most powerful warrior tribes in Africa ... because they worked out that if you stabbed with a short spear - you got to kill more people than if you launched it at someone no matter how accurate you were .... amazing what makes peoples great ....)

But Zuma like may heroes of the struggle is virtually uneducated (i mean even dubya went to university) …. he proudly touts himself as "100% Zulu Boy" .... and in a country wracked by crime .... his trademark song is “Awuleth' umshini wami” which means "Bring me my machine gun" .....

And then last year .... he was dismissed on charges of corruption … and faced trial for raping an HIV positive woman the same age as his daughter …. famously declaring that he took a shower after sex to protect himself ….. and that a woman was asking for it by crossing their legs or wearing a kang (sarong-skirt) before him .....

His trial had to be delayed because it turned out that he had fathered the judge’s nephew (whilst having 3 wives of his own) …. ..

Just the man to step into shoes once worn by Nelson Mandela ….

And yet incredibly his popularity amongst average South Africans and especially the Zulus remains undimmed ..... and even bolstered by the fact that the SA government couldn’t close a corruption case against him (despite the judge actually admitting that there was certainly corruption afoot) ....

his supporters compare him to Clinton (both apparently are - or would be - the first "real" black president of their nations .... and both accused by a woman) .... records of his theme song are flying off the shelves .... and the trade unions and workers parties have thrown their support firm behind him ..... (For my yankee readers - its as though Foley and Haastert were suddenly being considered the dream-ticket .... for the brits ... i know you get this without the patronising explanation ....)

Archbishop Desmond Tutu has been openly critical about him ... encouraging him to step down "for the good of the country" (Zuma has resonded by suggesting that Tutu may be getting Alzheimers)…. already the inter-tribal street fights have started (Zulus vs Xhosa etc) .... and many whites in this country are scared enough to already be making plans to leave should he be elected next year ….

And now his latest gaffe …. despite the fact that the constitution here is based on the UN Charter for Human Rights …. and hence homosexuality is both legal and respected (one of the only African nations to be so progressive) …. Zuma stated that the Gays were "a disgrace to the nation and to God" and "When I was growing up an ungquingili (a homosexual) would not have stood in front of me. I would knock him out."

Amandla the New Rainbow Nation ....

PS Sorry - couldn't resist this one ...

A week in Nairobi ....

2006-09-23T23:00:00.000+02:00

Aaargh - i know i know ... i havent posted in several millennia .... as many of you have been so kind as to email me and point out .... and to be fair i have not one leg to stand on .... i've been so lazy that even Shashank has scooped me to write about our week together in kenya ... so do bear with me for repeating ....

In an attempt to actually see S for more than just a snatched weekend ... i managed to convince my bosses that skype-able internet connections do exist in Nairobi and that I could work effectively for a week from there .... incredibly they pitied my sob-relationship-story and agreed ....

Perhaps truculent with that success - i disobeyed all my travelling-in-africa-rules about avoiding checking baggage and always carrying my essentials on me ....basically i was determined to take S lots of yummy stuff we get in Cape Town that frankly the rest of africa only dreams about .... but he warned me that Kenyan customs are notoriously persnickety .... and so i obstinately dumped all my necessities in my suitcase .... and instead prioritised secreting into my handluggage the four bottles of wine i'd specially picked out (Kenyan limit is one) .... a mass of gourmet foods .... and a large cake-box filled with a carrot cake for S's upcoming b'day ....

Sods law obviously then had it that when i arrived in Nairobi ... my suitcase didn't ... and to rub further salt into my wounds .... the customs man i'd been warned so much about - only told me i had the face of a "nice girl" and asked if i would consider making Kenya my home ......

My poor luggage remained lost for another 40 hours .... so no clothes, toiletries, contact lenses or make up .... i was smelly, wearing dirty clothes, un-painted and bespectacled .... not ideal when you only get to see your boyfriend every two months .... but luckily i'd brought enough alcohol and cake along to keep his beer goggles on (quick note of thanks to yatin for the saving some of the delicious oban) .... and so we had a grand weekend celebrating having survived a whole year in africa together ..... several gorgeous meals and my first ever time playing gambling properly .... with S trying to teach me to count to 21 after countless (free!!!) drinks and stopping me making the wrong hand gestures .... and yet still walking away with $200 profit (i won more consistently ... and he just won bigger) .... i can't wait to go again ...

I've been to Nairobi for a few weekends before and so this week was essentially just spent working and hanging out .... most girlfriends get taken to bars, clubs and restaurants .... S however took me to press conferences about Ugandan rebels surrendering and Congolese civil wars ..... and an off-the-record-forum on Somalia .... and yes you're right - i geekily LOVED it .... all in all it was a fabulous week ... we both worked bloody hard, ate our faces off, watched lots of Sopranos, cooked (or rather taught S to cook) went to gym and just did normal non-living-in-africa stuff that we both crave ...

However the highlight of the trip (aside from the casino, seeing Jan Egeland, meeting S's boss from Kansas city and even hosting a little drinks party) was our weekend trip to Sweetwaters - a tented safari lodge near Mount Kenya .... our tent faced directly onto a watering hole .... where on arrival we were met by a family of 6 giraffes staring straight at us just a few feet away .... with a snow tipped Mount Kenya as a back drop ..... and one night from our table in the moonlight we saw a mother-elephant with her baby and a teen-elephant coming to drink there ... despite their size - utterly silent and dream-like in the darkness .... one of the most beautiful things i think i have ever seen ...

S and I (now being africa stalwarts) emboldened by a sense of adventure decided to dispense with the normal safari guide drives and head out into the bush ourselves with his beast of a landrover .... and it was incredible .... i don't think i'll ever get tired of turning a corner and running into a huge troop of elephants frolicking in a gorge spraying each other with water .... or watching the immense oddly-other-worldly look of rhinos as they trudge across a plain .... or even herds of zebras, impalas and gazelles bounding around nervously checking for the scent of lions ....

One night (albeit with the help of a guide) we saw a black mamba slither across the road ... and then watched a pack of lionesses and their cubs stalk a Jackson Hartebeest (some deer-type thing) - all crouched low and creeping in the grass ... circling their prey ... terrifyingly coordinated and calculating ...

One of the special features about this reserve is their chimpanzee sanctuary .... all rescued from Central Africa .... they have tragic stories - many of them orphaned by the hunt for bushmeat or rescued from being kept in cages as playthings .... they've all been carefully rehabilitated and introduced into chimp hierarchies .... we had to approach their sanctuary on foot (previously you could go by boat but the chimps cottoned on and began throwing stones at the humans on the boats) .... and since there was just the two of us .... we got to approach a few at very close range .... you can tell that they share almost 99% of our DNA .... the male chimps all hissed at S and were then all flirty with me ... walking alongside me as we went back ....

S nicked all the best pictures - so you will have to visit his site for photos .... but all in all it was the perfect week .... and contrary as to what Yat would have you believe .... Shashank can be quite the host when he's actually there ...

Canadia - The Land of Niceness

2006-08-14T00:43:00.000+01:00

So despite the terrorists trying really really hard to stop me .... i finally managed to arrive in toronto on saturday night ... albeit several hours late .... but despite having been travelling for almost two days without a break .... like the trooper i am ... i still managed to go out for late drinks with my lovely friend Jay's fiancee (the very lovely and beautiful Bindee) .... just to acclimatise of course you understand ...

And so i was introduced to this land of utter niceness .... everyone here is nice to the point where you think something MUST be wrong ... the cabbies don't speed and give way to pedestrians .... no one crosses the road when they shouldn't ... and everyone goes out of their way to help you ... they apologise if they knock into you ... and everyone smiles - all the time .... they are all so nice - it can't be natural .... either that or there's something to that maple syrup ....

Sunday was spent preparing for a week at the AIDS conference .... mimosa brunch .... shopping for shoes and bags (BCBG dahling) ... and then many yummy martinis on sunshine-y patios .... yes - its a hard life this saving the world lark ..... so its obviously vital to have fabulous accessories as one does it ....

Heathrow Hell

2006-08-13T20:39:00.000+01:00

A few months ago - on my way back from the epic Jamaican-Greek-Punjabi-Yankee wedding extravaganza ..... i had my worst-to-date travel experience .... hungover (actually still drunk) ... late to the airport ... invalid ticket .... delayed ... lost luggage .... and shitty seats (next to golhar) ... and it was all made only a little bit better by the fact i was travelling with shashank .... although given he managed to leave his laptop in a security check in heathrow - i don't think he found the whole 40 hours of travel too much fun either .... for two people who globe trot for a living - in general our performance was pretty poor ...

however - that trip now seems almost easy (well - especially since i threw a tantrum for the second part of that aforementioned trip and got myself upgraded from london to jobourg ... it was my first ever business class experience .... and it was just incredible .... there's a reason they draw that curtain across to divide it from cattle class ... they know they'd have a riot of people knew how good it was up there) .... as compared to my latest trip from SA to Canadia this weekend ....

I was travelling to Toronto for the big AIDS conference jamboree here ... and had to travel via London so that i could spend a few hours en famille ... and basically to eat my mum's food .... but unfortunately evil terrorists have no sympathy for a poor child wanting home food after many months away helping to save the world ...

After 4 hours delay in cape town .... a 12 hour flight to london .... and then the ignominy of having all my hand luggage and presents and mobile phone (oh god - separation from my phone) snatched away from me by the airport nazis (sorry i know you're only doing your job) ... i was feeling pretty peeved .... thankfully mum and dad came to the airport to collect my stuff (including all the wine that i'd been ferrying to canadia as presents) .... and brought the mythic-much-dreamed-of food (indian mothers are GODDESSES) which we ate true indian family style as a picnic by the car (only this time in the car park and not motorway-side as per my fond childhood memories .... did anyone else grow up with the M6 as their formative picnic experience?) ....

And then shock horror .... we walked to the next terminal .... and found the queue to enter the departure zone .... which snaked all the way out of the terminal .... to the carpark .... and then around the multistorey for two levels .... un-bloody-believable ....

What was amazing however was the complete calm-ness and chirpiness of the Brits .... i can see how that stiff-upper-lip-thing led to them ruling the world .... there's nothing like a crisis to bring out the best and the stoic in the english .... but truly what was even more incredible and completely to the brits' credit - was that there was no tension whatsoever between the general delayed masses and the many muslim families also standing in line .... it could so easily have been nasty and have got ugly .... and i remember what many muslims (and many other people of colour) went through post-9-11 .... and i'm dead proud of my country-people ....

Although i have to admit .... that i (albeit after a good 24 hours travelling non stop) did lose it when an arab bloke (and his three wives) tried to cut in the line in front of me .... as he held up his hands and tried to protest that he'd also been waiting (in a chair) etc etc .... i fixed him with my iciest most snooty stare and said in the poshest accent i could muster "This is England - and in England - sir -We Queue"

"Whats going on?"

2006-07-29T08:30:00.000+01:00

Now - I don't pretend to understand anything about Middle Eastern politics or its deep roots in a tangled and bloody history .... and so I'm sure that my total bewilderment at how the current crisis has played out over the past fortnight and more .... is pretty common to most of us .... I just don't understand how the world seems to have stumbled into this unfolding hell ...

My particularly keen interest above and beyond my usual news-junkiness (aside from the obvious horror etc etc of course) is because Shashank was posted to the region with about 24 hours notice (on the very eve i might add of my visiting him in kenya .... and our big planned holiday with yatin to zanzibar .... dating a journalist is only for the very unflappable) ..... in his own words - he's been speeddating the airports of the middle east ..... egypt, cyprus, jordan, syria (it is amazing he has pages left in his passport) ... and now he's in beirut .... now i'm not going to scoop him a la yatin ... but save to say that he's bunkering down to be there for an indefinite while (this straight after 3 weeks in darfur) and he will certainly need to travel down to the south where the really scary action is ....

My take on this whole situation is obviously very naive ..... my experiences growing up in Saudi Arabia do not make me the most fervent supporter of arab causes .... but these sentiments at odds somewhat with my good Guardian-reader natural sympathies for palestine and lebanon ....

However irrespective of Israeli understandable fears and insecurities about its neighbours' intentions .... surely any normal average person must see that this full scale war against the people of Lebanon in an attempt to suppress Hizbollah cannot from any perspective or planet be seen as acceptable .... in the words of Fouad Sinoria the Lebanese PM - his country is being "cut to pieces ... and why should an Israeli tear be worth more than a drop of Lebanese blood?"

Poor Lebanon .... only just recovering from a horrendous civil war ... finally trying to extricate itself from the clutches of its own neighbours machinations .... and coming to terms with the assasination of Rafik Harriri - the main architect of its renaissance ..... is now shattered once again .... according to the Economist .... more than 800,000 Lebanese are now internally displaced .... and between 400 - 650 killed (several times as many as Israel with incalcubly more infrastructure damage) ..... in a war that their nation did not start. And lets not even start to get into the first front of this war in Gaza.

Now you could say that some blame lies with the Lebanese - Hizbollah is undoubtedly a threat to Israel ..... and so their politicians ought to severe their links with the Syrian/Iranian backed "Party of God" (18 MPs in Lebanon) and that if Sinoria maintains his friendship with Nasrallah (and certainly refuses to condemn his actions) - then Israel can legitmately view Lebanon as a threat .... and it seems reasonable that Israel had to respond to the provocation of Hezbollah kidnapping its soldiers and lobbing rockets over the border ..... but can this ever really be a justification for such a disproportionate reaction against a nation? I just don't get it ... I can't understand .... and someone clever needs to explain it to me.

However ..... my real vitriol now is reserved for our own governments .... the governments that stopped the Security Council from condemning the Israeli bombing that killed 4 UN Observers .... the governments that between them scuppered calls for an immediate ceasefire at the Rome summit even when it was supported by all other parties present including the UN .... the governments who claim that they want to build a "sustainable ceasefire" (read - give you more time to destroy Hizbollah) ... and are fast losing all credibility amongst not just arab nations to be involved in a any form of peace process (whilst the french - ha! imagine! - seem to be emerging smelling of roses ....)

And really - even if we knew we could expect no better from George Bush ..... I had hoped that Tony Blair at least would show a modicum of the decency for which we initially elected him ..... do any of us even remember the party who gave us hopes of an "ethical foreign policy" when they were first elected? .... and now the ignominy .... we let the yanks stop their weapon-delivery flights in our country en route to israel whilst condi talks of sustainable ceasefires! ..... truly this whole shoulder-to-shoulder performance of Tony Blair's is getting tired ... we're all over it ..... and you have to wonder just what it is that Dubya holds over him .... Sir Stephen Wall wrote a great editorial in the New Statesman and the Guardian this week - warning that we must not let the US set our moral compass .... and I agree .... we need to stop outsourcing our foreign policy to the yanks ... and soon.

PS 1 Interestingly - I just saw a clip on CNN showing how some evangelical groups in America are saying that this conflict was predicted in the Bible (Revelations) - and how this Holy War is the start of the return of Jesus Christ as King .... and thus Israel should be supported at all costs ... I'm speechless .... someone please explain ...

PS 2 Shashank's experiences there so far ... he says have made him realise just how much worse it is here in any African conflict than there in the Middle East .... he said the scenes in Cypus with all the evacuees were really just like any hotel lobby in Nigeria .... and Chad even in peacetime (let alone Darfur) was far more horrific than anything he's seen there so far ..... whereas - whilst he's been away .... here on the dark continent we have historic elections in DRC .... Somalia and Ethiopia appear to be approaching their own Holy War ..... Liberia's capital got water and street lights for the first time in 15 years ..... and millions have died from diseases that could have been prevented, cured or treated with the cash frittered away on bombs, rockets and the like .... and the poor readers of McClatchey/Knight Ridder newspapers won't have the chance to read about it all ....

Happy Birthday to Me ... again and again ....

2006-07-13T15:38:00.000+01:00

I was really lucky this year to have my birthday whilst I was at home in london .... and so i saw and was suitably cherished by my folks .... and got to see and celebrate with all my mates (thank you so much to everyone that came to the Sochu lounge .... i had such a wonderful night!) .... a real luxury for me given my recent global trottings ....

However ... my new friends in south africa wanted to celebrate for me too .... and so my lovely lovely friend peter decided to throw me a champagne brunch .... and yes i know this means that i have now been celebrating my birthday for over a month (although there is NOTHING wrong with having a brithday month .... and no it isn't an only child thing) .... and if he was honest .... it was all really it was to show off his new champagne flutes and candelabra .... (and yes he is - as peter pan on ice skates .... but every girl needs a gbf ....)

And so we met in his predictably fabulous flat at 11am armed with capetown-tastic food, champagne in the all new beautiful flutes and great jugs of bloody mary .... it was 27 degrees out on the deck (welcome to winter in cape town) .... and life seemed perfect ....

As the afternoon wore on - the sun kept blazing .... and the mimosas/champage and bloody marys hit the spot .... idah was teaching us to dance afro-style ..... everyone seemed awfully witty and clever ..... several of us had to pop out for more and more bottles ..... and if we broke a few glasses - well - peter was very understanding .....

however as the hours went on ... and the bottle pile grew .... it became clear it had all hit the spot too well ... and by 5 (we started at 11) .... after 12 bottles of champagne and 3 bottles of vodka between 10 people (not all of whom stayed the distance) ..... me and half the party were revisiting our brunch (including one nameless person who vomited over the balcony onto the white awning and the passers-by below .... yuck!) .....

rather embarrassingly for me i then promptly fell asleep on the settee .... stonkingly boxed .... and woke up an hour later ... in time to see england crash out of the world cup on penalities .... not sure if it was the alcohol ... or my latent patriotism ... but i spent the rest of the night slumped and mourning all english performances of the evening ....

So i know that my african experiences seem rather different to Shashank's (especially his recent flirtation with the darfur diet and men with guns) .... but .... anyhow it just goes to show that just because you turn 31 ... you don't have to be all grown up ....

It all seemed so fabulous at the start ....

And Peter was the perfect host ....

But then things started to get messy ....

And we went from fabulous to flat-out - how the mighty are fallen .... (in fact Idah did fall ... from the bed to the floor .... and still didn't wake up...)

And the party resumes after our "naps" ....

Crime and Punishment ... To Live and Die in SA

2006-07-12T14:17:00.000+01:00

A couple of days ago two of my colleagues here were violently attacked.

One was walking out with a visitor from the US on Durban beach at sunrise .... surrounded by dozens of surfers, holiday makers and even policemen ... when they were beset upon by two youths with knives who kicked, punched and stabbed her .... apparently they looked as though they had been sniffing glue and so didn't listen to her screams that she wasn't carrying anything of value .... and she finally managed to fight them off .... the poor visitor screamed herself hoarse trying to attract attention ... but in this country everyone is too scared to help ....

So because they were getting stitched up and bandaged .... they ended up being late to meet another colleague (a black South African woman) ... who was waiting for them outside a shopping centre in the nicest part of Durban ... a place where even a scaredy-cat like me would walk to ..... but as she waited ... she was held up by two men who held knives to her throat as they took everything she had on her .... phone, keys, jewellery, money etc ....

When the others finally turned up to pick her up .... she wasn't at the meeting place and was uncontactable ... and so a full scale search ensued .... and she was finally found terrified at a police station ..... this on the background of her husband having been carjacked and stabbed just a couple of weeks ago .... he was missing for over 24 hours .... and eventually found unconcious in a hospital .....

Many of you know that I was mugged at knife point with a colleague on my very first day here .... luckily I didn't have anything on me to even give the guy .... and since then I've been accosted in my own driveway by two guys .... and even had my car (rental) stolen from my own drive as well .... (by the way ... please please please don't tell any of this to my mum .... you know she would make me get on the next plane to london) .... I haven't dressed nicely or worn jewellery for months .... and walking home from the pub at night .... in fact walking anywhere has become something i dream about wistfully (ha! who would have thought!)

Now when I first arrived ... I was determined not to become like so many foreigners and white South Africans .... for whom discussion of crime levels is like talking about the weather to the english .... they all live in huge houses behind high walls with wire and armed security .... keeping the "black menace" at bay .... but it is true that everyone here has a story .... they say in Johannesburg everyone knows someone who has been shot ... I've lived all over the world .... in places much poorer and deprived .... and yet I've never felt such an undercurrent of violence and tension as we do here .... now we all understand that the history of this country has deeply influenced income disparity and opportunity ..... but my (perhaps naive) attitude is rob me blind if you have to eat .... just please don't murder or rape me as well ....

But the final straw in a country where 51 murders and 151 rapes are reported DAILY (and those are only the ones that get to be reported) .... was the safety and security minister recently telling Parliament:-

"They can continue to whinge until they're blue in the face, be as negative as they want to, or they can simply leave this country so that all of the peace-loving South Africans, good South African people who want to make this a successful country, can continue with their work."

Can you imagine ANY minister ANYWHERE keeping his job after telling his people that if they don't like the crime - they can just emigrate?! It shows that in this country ... even the fight against crime is still prejudiced by colour .... its seen as a white whinge topic ... even though the majority of crime is against black people ....

This has sparked all manner of debates at to what kind of responsibility the SA government is taking over the levels of violence here .... and some people have taken the matter into their own hands through an internet site ... and tried to highlight to the international tourists the realities and dangers of travelling around here ... and even casting doubt over whether it will be safe to have the 2010 World Cup here ..... a real kick to the balls as it were ....

Welcome to the new South Africa.