Crikey, this is an inhospitable and unlikely place for people to have a settlement. The only water here has to be pumped up from boreholes nearly 500 feet deep in the earth’s crust. Holes used to get dug by hand, apparently, desperate nomadic cattle-herders frienziedly chasing the receeding river-flood, grubbing for dampness in the blinding Continue Reading »
Yesterday, I was teaching Malo, my generator man, and electrical know-how worker about percentage. The generator fuel reads as percentage on the little control screen, and I was trying to explain that one of our generator readings jumped around between 0 and 86% when it was running. I think he understood, ‘de facto’, but not, Continue Reading »
Monday morning was the most daunting morning so far. The drums have been constant this week. I wondered how one man could keep the same rhythm through the night and well into the afternoon of the next day. Sundays are the most tuneful days, though, with church harmonies and drumming drifting across from the church. Continue Reading »
Arriving at Jomo Kenyatta was a proper re-introduction to Africa. Plywood-painted booths on a little concours, which sell mainly mobile phone credit, which was handy, as I had instructions to get a local SIM card. Subsequently a call to ‘Vincent’, the MSF-contracted taxi-driver, and then meeting with his deputy, Danson, who took me to a Continue Reading »
Last night, I arrived in a small plane into Lokichoggio border town on the South-East edge of Sudan. From what I can tell, this is the main nerve-centre used by scores of organisations for the relief of human suffering over the last twenty years of shifting warfare. Funds from contributors to LiveAid, and all those Continue Reading »