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?

A Pale Native ....

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 ....

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?

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 ....

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 ....

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

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 ...

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 ....

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 ....

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

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?

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 ....

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 ....

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 ....

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 ....

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 ...