South Africa burns ....

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 ....

Zambia .... or the crazy world of NGOs

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.

In the perfect moment .....

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 ....

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 ....

No More Mandelas ...

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?!

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.

Heart of Darkness indeed ....

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

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 ....

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 .....

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 ....

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

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

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 ....

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 ....

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 ...

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 ...

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

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

Its all about sex baby ....

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 ....

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?