caro's choice

Haiti - two years on

2012-01-15T22:20:00.008+08:00

Also see another version of my slideshow in The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/video/2012/jan/12/haiti-two-years-on-audio-slideshow

I wasn’t looking forward to returning to Haiti. Two years ago, I was one of the first of Oxfam’s emergency team to fly to the island, arriving three days after it was hit by a devastating earthquake, which killed more than 220,000 people and left over a million homeless.

It was one of the toughest emergencies I’d ever had to cover. It was really only after I’d left Haiti, almost three weeks later, that I’d realised the powerful emotional impact it had left on me. Even today, with time and distance, I can barely read a story about Haiti in the news without becoming teary-eyed.

So it was with some apprehension that I found myself on a plane headed for Port au Prince, the traumatised capital of the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. I’d been hearing about the recent cholera outbreaks; the slowness of the recovery effort; and the fact that more half a million people were still living in the camps, many still in tents and under tarpaulin. I was scared that what I’d see now would be little better than the Haiti I’d left behind two years earlier.

First impressions weren’t good. Rubble still lay in the streets – though much of it was carefully piled up, many collapsed buildings still remained balancing precariously and fighting for survival in between other spaces where rebuilding had taken place.

And then there were the tented camps. Not the flimsy shelters made out of clothing scraps and plastic sheets I’d become so familiar with on my first visit. These camps appeared depressingly permanent. It seemed people were settling down for good; that what had been a temporary option was now the only long-term solution available.

The National Palace still lies in ruins

Sadly, for many tens of thousands of families that is not the case. They’re camped on private land, not public spaces, and now face the threat of forced evictions, often through the use of violence, from the owners who haven’t received any rent for the past two years.

I spent the first few days retracing my steps. The old Oxfam office – part of which had been seriously damaged in the quake – had been remodelled and repainted and was now the office of a private company; the damaged annexe had been fenced off and the collapsed top two stories had been removed.

The enormous camp for displaced families occupying what had been a golf course in the leafy and well-to=do suburb of Petionville was still bursting at the seams. Although the number of residents had decreased, people were still living check-by-jowl. The daily struggles for the basics: clean water, some privacy, and work, were still as pressing as ever.

I returned to the neighbourhood of Baillergeau, in Carrefour Feuilles. It had been one of the worst-hit areas I’d visited two years ago with around 90% of houses flattened, debris piling and obscuring the road and thousands camped out on what had been a football field. The campsite was no longer there. Most people had moved into transitional shelters, rather than proper homes and a lot of the rubble had been cleared.

There was a lot of rebuilding going on; noisy trucks tore up and down the narrow, dusty and windy roads with various building materials. There were many people along the roadside selling food and other basic necessities from small kiosks. Some had received small grants from Oxfam to restart their businesses.

It was in Baillergeau that I found Marguerite Ulysse. She’d given birth to a baby girl two days after the quake. Now, two years on, she was pregnant again. Her baby, Neika, was a healthy, gregarious and mischievous toddler.

We hugged in greeting and then sat down to talk. While daily life had been a struggle, Marguerite was neither pessimistic nor bitter, but grateful for the help that she and others had received from Oxfam and other aid agencies.

Marguerite Ulysse and her daughters

True, she admitted, she had been hoping that change would happen more quickly. But these were the realities. She was happy for the small things: that her husband, who’d been trained as a policeman, would have work; that her children were healthy; that her oldest daughter was still in school.

Her main concern was shelter; she wanted to move away from the rubble and the dirt and into a permanent home they could call their own.

“’The most important thing for me is the future for my children. When I die, I want to know I can leave my daughters a place where they can grow up”, she told me.

I visited more sites over the next few weeks where Oxfam and its partners have been working: installing water and toilet facilities in communities and schools, carrying out health promotion activities to try to control the spread of disease like cholera; supporting people to start up in business again with grants and skills training, including literacy classes which have given people a new-found sense of pride and purpose.

I want to say Haiti has changed a lot over the past two years. But I can’t. The emergency aid effort and the donations that flooded into Haiti after the quake undeniably helped save lives and provided basic and essential services, including food and water, to millions. But rapid progress in Haiti’s reconstruction and rebuilding has been quite another issue.

Yet the thing that struck me when I first visited and continues to strike me today is the energy, creativity and the intelligent spirit of its people – despite the daily difficulties and the challenges. Haitians are survivors; realistic, but not defeatist. They still hope for change and believe that some day, change will come.

An economic lifeline for women in rural Haiti

2011-12-08T06:09:00.002+08:00

“Unemployment is the only thing we have here”, declared Dumel Deralus, smiling grimly as we sat in the shell of a concrete building that will soon be a new expanded home for the Organisation for Community Development in Thomazeau, (ODECT), an Oxfam partner working to improve economic and social conditions in the town, about two hours drive north-east of the Haitian capital Port au Prince.

Dumel Deralus

Thomazeau is a rural area in western Haiti, home to about 52,000 inhabitants and picturesquely surrounded by mountains, little-touched by the earthquake two years ago. In fact, it was an area that saw a large influx of arrivals from the capital, Port au Prince, immediately after the quake. But it is also economically deprived. Most people here are “planteurs” – small-scale farmers living off their land and selling what crops they can. But poor roads are a major problem in getting goods to markets. And, as Dumel told me, there are few economic opportunities available in the community.

That’s also true across Haiti, where an estimated 75 percent of the population are not in salaried employment, and jobs are scarce. Unemployment is especially hard in rural areas, where there are few economic opportunities available, even the most casual of jobs. This was a major issue in Haiti, as much before the earthquake as now. But, after the quake, it’s also hampering people’s ability to rebuild their lives. According to an Oxfam survey last year, finding work is the top priority for most Haitians.

And that’s why a project which Oxfam supports in Thomazeau is raising the hopes of many women.

The women have their own section within ODECT known as RAFARE, or “Rassemblement des Femmes pour l’Accès aux Ressources Économiques” : Rallying Women to Access Economic Resources, to try to improve their economic status. The group owned one milling machine and earnt money processing grain brought into the centre by farmers and merchants. Oxfam hired them after the earthquake to help provide milled cereals which formed part of food kits that were distributed in the outdoor camps where people had sought shelter after the earthquake.

Marie-Claude Estenfile

Oxfam is now helping the women again - with funds and training, including enlisting the help of expat Haitian experts with specific skills - as they move to a new phase. The group are modernising their service centre and expanding their operation. The small building where they’re currently located will double in size, allowing them to have storage facilities where they can stock processed and unprocessed grains; buy and market milled cereal grains. Oxfam has helped them to purchase two new grinding machines and is providing training and other equipment.

The goal is to enable the women to run their operation as a proper business. They will buy and sell locally produced grain throughout the year, rather than just seasonally; and during lean times, in between the harvest periods, the surplus stocks can be released and sold in the local market.

“It will bring more economic opportunities here; there will be more jobs and more money coming in”, said Marie-Claude Estenfile, general secretary of RAFARE “There was always a shortage of grains being sold in the local markets from April to June; but we will be able to provide processed grains during that period.

“It means people won’t have to travel an hour or more to some of the markets, like in Croix de Bouquets, 24 kms away, to buy what they need. It will be easier to purchase food locally and we will help to strengthen the supply chain. The markets will be busier; the money will benefit the local economy”.

Having proper storage facilities and being able market their own cereals will enable the women to work all-year round, and not just stay open for business during the busy harvest period.

For Dumel Deralus, co-ordinator of the project and of ODECT, the project will create new jobs and improve people’s access to food. “It will guarantee people’s food security here. During the lean periods, people would have to buy imported rice and grain from other places. But we will have stocks to sell and supply to the local markets.”

RAFARE’s members are excited about the project, which has only just got underway. “It gives me hope for the future”, said 40 year old Hermircie Alfred. “I hope we can buy and sell the grains locally all year round; and we can make more profits.”

“There are very few job opportunities here”, said mother of eight, Alexina Augustin, 45. “The only jobs we can really find are selling cereals and this project will help us.

Alexina Augustin

“I lost my home and land a few months ago during flooding and now I can’t send my children to school. This will be a lifeline for me” she said.

Inside Oxfam's work fighting drought and poverty in Somalia | Oxfam International

2011-11-04T23:08:00.001+08:00

Between a rock and a hard place

2011-09-18T14:35:00.004+08:00

Every few minutes, a gust of wind blows, forcing people to screw up their faces in pain against the fierce sand-dust that tears into their eyes, and forces its way into their mouths, ears and noses. Only the large scarves traditionally worn by women for modesty offer any protection against the dust which covers everything in a thick layer of yellowish brown in a few seconds.

Around a thousand Somali refugees arrive each day at this camp, Hiloweyn, in Dollo Ado, Ethiopia, just a few kilometres from the border with Somalia. They’re been moved here from a transit site about an hour’s drive away. Many have walked for days by foot. They’re weak and nearly everyone is malnourished.

Their new home is a dusty, rocky and windy spot. It might seem the last place on earth that anyone would want to stay. But for these refugees, who have fled extreme drought, famine and conflict, for now at least, its much better than what they left back home in Somalia.

Fifty year-old widow, Habiba Abdullahi, left her home in Dinsor, Baidoa region, walking for eight days with her son, a farmer, and his family. She told me that they used to own nearly 20 cows but that they had all died in the drought. There had been almost no rain over the past three years, she said, and it was impossible to grow crops. Their decision to leave Somalia, she said, was a decision to leave for good – as there was “nothing left for us to go back for”.

Habiba Abdullahi

“We had no rains and no food. We feared for our lives because of the drought. We were living in unstable conditions. We decided we had to leave after the farmland dried up, and our few animals died. There was nothing for us. Life and our survival was becoming fragile and things looked fatal”.

Daily life here is difficult. Families are given a tent which is hot in the day and cold at night; there is no vegetation providing any precious shade, apart from some small shrubby, thorny bushes.

Oxfam is helping to provide clean drinking water for the refugees. But as the camp swells in size and has been created from nothing, water is still rationed and not available 24 hours a day.

“I cannot predict how long we will stay here. But I think it will be for the rest of my life”, Habiba told me. “Whatever conditions are like, even though things are very harsh here, we have no option. Its still better for us to live here than back home.”

“There were no schools back there where we lived. There was persistent drought and nothing to eat. The crops had all dried up. Our animals had died. We need to begin a new life here and I think it will be a better life for my grandchildren.”

30 year old Nishe Hussein, a mother of four, left her home in Lug. She used to sell tea at a hotel. But the night it was bombed, and two people were killed she decided that there was no future for her in Somalia.

“We came here looking for food. If the food rations we get now improves, I will never go back to Somalia, because there is lawlessness and no government. I hope that now we are here, my children can go to school and get an education.”

Nishe Hussein

Mother of two, Sarura Mohammad Ibrahim, 24, from Dinsor, Baidoa,came to Ethiopia while she was heavily pregnant, travelling by donkey cart. She has now sold the donkey and cart and runs this small shop. She says she has no intention of returning to Somalia and that Ethiopia offers a better future for her and her family.

“Security is better here; also we have food and shelter provided by humanitarian organisations. Back in Somalia, we don’t have those things.”

Sarura Mohammad Ibrahim

Oxfam is providing clean water, building latrines and giving hygiene training for ten thousand people who are currently in the camp. It’s a race against time to install water tanks and tap stands so people can access water as the camp swells in size

Gathering water at Oxfam tapstand

There is a serious risk of disease spreading in the camps. And providing clean water, soap and toilets is essential to prevent that from happening.

“Oxfam is responding to this emergency crisis now by providing clean water and sanitation for people which will save lives but it also really improves the dignity of people”, said Oxfam’s Chief executive, Barbara Stocking.

“The work that we are doing isn’t going to be over very quickly, though, it will take months of work and we really would appreciate more funds coming in. It’s not also just the saving lives now that is the issue, but we need to work in the long term so people develop their own resilience and can cope with the sort of disasters that face them such as when drought comes so there’s a real need to keep this work going in the whole region to make sure that we don’t have these sort of crisis in the future; so there will be a need for funds in the long term as well. “

Oxfam has been working in the camp for the last few weeks. Its one of four in Dollo Ado, which is now sheltering more than 100,000 Somali refugees.

The aid agency, which in July launched its largest-appeal for Africa, is aiming to help 3.5 million people across Somalia, southern Ethiopia and northern Kenya – areas that are all affected by the severe drought

While aid is reaching affected communities, the worry is that the situation is worsening. Predictions of lower-than normal rains in the coming months could mean that this emergency continues well into 2012. People are going to need our help for months to come.

Pakistan floods - one year on

2011-07-26T22:13:00.003+08:00

As Pakistan marks the one-year anniversary of the worst floods in living memory, the aid agency, Oxfam, has warned that country is still unprepared for the monsoon season.

In a new report “ Ready or not? Pakistan’s resilience to disasters, one year on from the floods”, Oxfam said that families had not fully recovered from last year’s disaster and were likely to fall even deeper into poverty if hit by floods again. Oxfam is calling on the Pakistan government and donors to invest more in more in measures to reduce the impact of disasters.

This could include flood resistant housing, and effective early warning systems – especially at the village level. The cost of reconstruction for last year’s floods is estimated at more than ten billion dollars; but investing an initial 27 million dollars, backed up with yearly top ups, to improve disaster management would make a huge difference in making Pakistan better-prepared for future emergencies.

An emotional moment

2011-07-12T17:39:00.004+08:00

Oxfam's goodwill ambassador, Kristin Davis, breaks down in tears as she describes her visit to Kenya's Dadaab refugee camp where thousands arrive every day, escaping drought and hunger in eastern Africa. Its a very moving interview.

Oxfam is one agency that's launched a massive appeal to help those affected by drought in East Africa.

Making local music popular with new generations

2011-07-03T18:09:00.004+08:00

In Pakistan, there's a great tv series Coke Studio which features live performances from musicians from all all over the country. I love it.... this is one of my favourite songs at the moment..Ith Naheen, performed by singer Sanam Marvi. Found the English lyrics too..its really haunting

Title: Ith Naheen – – If Not Right Here

Language: Urdu, Siraiki

Poet: Sachal Sarmast (d. 1829)

tu mila bhi hai tu juda bhi hai

You are merged, You are also apart

tera kya kahna

You defy description!

tu sanam bhi hai tu khuda bhi hai

You are the idol. You are also God

tera kya kahna

You defy description!

kya kahna

defy description!

ith naheen te kith naheen

if not right here, then nowhere

ith naheen te kith naheen

if not right here, then nowhere

eeho kaun pya bolainda

who is this who is speaking

bolainda

is speaking

bolainda

is speaking

ith naheen te kith naheen

if not right here, then nowhere

kanjari waali soorat ban ke

assuming the appearance of a dancing girl

sachal naam saenda

“Sachal, the Truthful’ is he proclaimed as

he is proclaimed as “(Sachal) the Truthful’

saenda

proclaimed as

saenda

proclaimed as

ith naheen to kith naheen

if not right here, then nowhere

India - broken food system

2011-06-03T14:04:00.002+08:00

I travelled to India to collect material for the launch of Oxfam's GROW campaign aimed at ensuring everyone in the world has enough to eat; and why the numbers of those going hungry is now increasing...

A broken system

Hunger, death and disease:

Impact of rising food prices

Oxfam launches campaign to ensure a world where everyone has enough to eat

2011-06-03T13:52:00.001+08:00

Ivory Coast - trying to recover from the crisis

2011-04-26T22:07:00.002+08:00

Pictures of the Ivory Coast refugee crisis - refugees in Liberia

2011-04-17T16:26:00.003+08:00

More than 120,000 Ivorians have fled -- and continue to flee -- into neighboring Liberia.

In the past week alone, its estimated that more than 9,000 refugees arrived in the southeastern Liberian coastal city of Harper, in Maryland county, after many villages were attacked.

This abandoned school building on the outskirts of the city is now home to more than 4,600 people. The site was designed as a temporary transit center for 1,500 people -- but is now bursting at the seams.

The early arrivals got tents; but those who arrived more recently have to sleep on the floors of the derelict schools; others have built makeshift wooden shelters themselves; using leaves as a roof to try to shield them from the searing sun and the occasional rain.

IVORY COAST REFUGEE CRISIS

2011-04-17T02:49:00.003+08:00

Responding to the Ivory Coast humanitarian crisis

2011-04-15T01:15:00.003+08:00

The birth of a nation and challenges for the future

2011-02-08T16:16:00.008+08:00

The people of southern Sudan have voted overwhelmingly in favour of independence

Election officials confirmed nearly 99% of voters who took part in a landmark vote in January favoured separation from the north. The move will pave the way for the creation of the world's newest nation by July.

In the past few months, tens of thousands of southern Sudanese have been returning home; most had been living in the north, some for decades.

Oxfam's emergency, preparedness and response team (EP and R team) has been intervening in some of the most crowded areas to help prevent the spread of disease. The team, funded by the European Commission Humanitarian Aid department, ECHO, has been working for the last few weeks in Leer county, Unity State, to provide some basic water and sanitation services to the local communities as well as the new returnees.

Southern Sudan remains one of the poorest and least developed regions in the world, and only recently emerged from decades of civil war.

After decades of war, southern Sudan needs to be built almost from scratch, and there are enormous challenges. Most people do not have access to clean water, sanitation, or adequate schools or healthcare.

Island and coastal hopping, Tanzania

2011-01-16T12:47:00.021+08:00

Fish market, Stone Town, Zanzibar

Colobus monkeys

south Sudanese vote in a historic referendum

2011-01-16T12:44:00.001+08:00

Strangers back home

2011-01-10T23:35:00.001+08:00

Martha Bol, a widow, and her children, spent their first night back in Leer county in southern Sudan sleeping outside in the cold. It wasn’t quite the homecoming she was expecting, but she was still excited to be back after spending the last two decades living on the outskirts of Khartoum, in the north of Sudan.

“I was born here and I will stay here”, she said. “This is our land and our chance to be free.”

Martha and several other families had temporarily camped out in the yard of a government building in Leer town. Their household belongings, all they could carry with them, were scattered all around. A few mats, some blankets, a few pots and pans. Suitcases. Recently-laundered clothes hung on bamboo fences to dry in the afternoon sun.

The families were all originally born in the south but left during Sudan’s decades-long civil war, which finally ended in 2005 after claiming more than two million lives. Their journey back by boat, chartered by the Government of Southern Sudan, had been delayed many times and eventually took 11 days. Too late for them to register to vote in the landmark referendum – in which southern Sudanese will decide if they want to remain part of a united Sudan or secede and become the world’s newest nation.

The families are among tens of thousands of southerners who had been living in the north and who have returned to the south in the last few months. Thousands more are likely to follow.

For many like Martha, they’ve been away for so long that they either can’t remember where they lived or their houses no longer exist.

Huge challenges lie ahead. The family will need to find land to settle; work out how to earn some money and adjust to a new way of life.

They are returning to one of the least developed regions on earth, and putting additional strain on villages and communities that already struggle to find enough water and food. 80 percent of adults cannot read and write; there are few paved roads, and limited numbers of schools and health clinics. Less than half the population are able to access safe drinking water.

Martha told me her husband, a soldier, died in the fighting. They used to be farmers, she said, but she’d long-forgotten that way of life and had no idea how she would earn a living and feed her family.

“Its been a long time,” she sighed. “I don’t even know the village where I used to live… if anything still exists.“

“You cannot compare life in the north to here. Khartoum is more developed, but things were not easy for us. I’m happy to be back even though we have no house, and no job”, she said. “I’m happy to be back”, she insisted again.

“I want my children to go to school; to live in peace and not experience the difficulties we had; to live a better life in the future.”

Pakistan floods: debt and land worries

2010-11-12T12:59:00.003+08:00

AFTER PAKISTAN’S FLOODS, NEW WORRIES ABOUT DEBT AND LAND RIGHTS

Naimat Ahmed’s village in Thatta district, in Sindh, is still under water. She shows me her flooded field, where she’d been growing rice, wading into the waters to show me how high the levels still remain. She opens up the door to her simple mud-and-thatch home, which is full of squelchy mud. She won’t be able to move back inside until the ground dries out and has to sleep with others in the village out in the open air, in makeshift shelters constructed from wooden poles with cotton sheeting as a roof. Yet she and a group of other women in the village were determined to head back home as quickly as possible after Pakistan’s devastating floods to protect their stake to the land.

“Our land is here. We feared if we didn’t come back quickly, people would come and stay here and take things from our homes”, Naimat Ahmed told me.

Naimat Ahmed

Naimat’s wish to protect her precious assets is understandable. Until earlier this year, she had no land at all, until she was awarded four acres under the Sindh provincial government’s land re-distribution programme. It’s the first scheme of its kind in South Asia, where tracts of state-owned land are given to landless women peasants in an attempt to begin reducing poverty and bring about much wider social changes in rural areas.

It’s estimated 60% of people in Sindh are landless, while large areas of farmland are owned by small, wealthy and politically influential elites. And now Pakistan’s devastating floods, which destroyed homes, fields and livestock, are forcing some of the poorest in Pakistan, without adequate food, shelter, or jobs, deeper into debt.

“This was going to be my first crop from my own land and the rice was almost ready to harvest. Then the floods came”, said Naimat. “Everything was destroyed. I can’t see how we can get enough food and it will be several months before we can use our land again. But even then, we don’t have money for seeds and fertilizer”, she said. “We have debts from shops that have given us credit. Things are difficult.”

Sindh was the region worst-affected by the floods; and in many areas flood waters still remain stubbornly high, refusing to drain away.

More than a million people remain displaced, their homes damaged or destroyed. The worry is that when families do return home, new disputes could arise over land as many boundaries, previously marked by irrigation channels, have been washed away and ownership records have been destroyed.

Land disputes had arisen even before the floods. The first phase of Sindh’s land redistribution programme had some serious flaws and was tainted by allegations of nepotism and corruption.

Mother of six, Aasi Mallah, was physically attacked by people in her village in Jati town who disputed her claim to land after she had been awarded a four acre plot by the provincial government. “Our land was a blessing. But a large group of people gathered and threatened us; they became violent and beat us”, she told me, showing me a scar on her daughter’s face.

Aasi Mallah

Aasi and her family were forced to flee their village and now live on a small plot of land by a roadside owned by her husband’s former landlord, determined to pursue her land battle through the courts. It could be a long process. Oxfam and its partner, Participatory Development Initiatives, have been helping Aasi and other women like her with legal support as well as spreading awareness among some of the poorest in Sindh about their rights to claim for land under the re-distribution scheme.

Some of the original flaws in the land programme have been ironed out, thanks to lobbying by groups like PDI and Oxfam. And, despite the floods, the authorities in Sindh have pledged to continue with the scheme, rolling it out to more areas across the province.

“Property rights for women in Pakistan is a rarity – and sometimes an impossibility”, said Saima Hassan, PDI’s Land for Women Programme officer. “The distribution of government land to landless peasant women in Sindh is a historic initiative. And while it has had flaws, we’re trying to make sure that all the women eligible for land under the scheme receive it; and can change their status from peasant to landowner.”

The hope is that not only will the scheme continue to be rolled out across Sindh, but also in other parts of Pakistan; giving some of the poorest families a chance to own land that, for generations, they’ve cultivated and lived on; a chance to finally begin to lift themselves out of the cycle of poverty and debt.

Pakistan floods - 3 months on: the crisis is far from over

2010-10-30T14:22:00.000+08:00

Three months after floods devastated Pakistan, cases of disease are increasing and in the worst hit region, the southern province of Sindh, large areas remain under water. At the same time, warned the international aid agency Oxfam, funds for the UN flood appeal are drying up and thretening the aid and reconstruction effort. As winter approaches, seven million peple are still without adequate shelter. Oxfam called on the donor community to generously fund Pakistan in its time of need

Bhutan

2010-10-03T17:46:00.064+08:00

Paro and drive to Thimpu

We're sitting on the left hand of the plane as we head to Bhutan - and despite the thick clouds, the peaks of the Himalayan mountains become visible as we come closer to our destination,

I'm excited and full of anticipation. I've wanted to visit Bhutan - the land of the thunder dragon, a country which has never been colonised and until the 1960s was pretty much cut off from the rest of the world - for many years. The mantra for the country is now gross national happiness - a collective good which is rated above gross national product. Bhutan used to be ruled by hereditary monarchs until holding its first democratic elections in 2008.

Landlocked Bhutan is sandwiched between the world's two most populous countries, India and China. It has pursued a policy of insulation for many decades; and still puruses a policy designed to protect its cultural identity, though in the last decade, there have been dramatic changes: satellite television, the internet, and democratic elections which saw the country shift from an absolute monarchy to a parliamentary democracy.

Stepping off the plane the country doesn't disappoint. The small airport is traditional in architecture and colourfully painted. Airport staff wear the traditional dress - gho for men (a knee high wrapped tunic held together tightly with a waistbelt) and a kira for women - also a beautifully decorated tunic held with pins at the neck and topped with a brocade jacket)

Outside its warm and sunny. Its so green and there are brightly coloured flowers

Our smiling guide Tshering tells us there are only 3 International flights into Bhutan (population est. at 700,000) each day. This year tourist arrivals will number about 37,000 - well up from the time when the government limited visitor arrivals to just 3000. But there were plans he said to build more hotels to accommodate as many as 200 000 by 2012. Most would have to travel by road from India unless there were changes to expand the existing airport.

Driving around the picturesque narrow lanes with white painted buildings and farmhouses around Paro it was hard to see how that could happen. "The infrastructure can cope", Tshering assured us. There's enough electricity (he told us hydropowered electricity is their country's top export earner followed by tourism) and that many new hotels were being built.

Our first stop after coffee was at Paro Dzhong, or citadel.

There was a new rule banning tourists from wearing t shirts. Some of my group, about to return to the car to find jackets or shirts, were told by the temple official that after all, it didn't matter - and were waved in with a smile.
We explore the dzhong. Near the entranced are some paintings depicting the circle of life. There are 3 animals in centre of wheel reprsenting the three poisons; snake (avoid being hot /short tempered); rooster (avoid sexual excesses) and cow (avoid laziness). Dharma can be achieved if you are pure in intention and avoid the 3 sins. But if you don't follow the path you can face a grim future with torture/reincarnation as animals

We have a delicious lunch sampling some traditional Bhutanese dishes - lots are in cheese sauce and of course a plate of spicy chillies - ema datsi- which we will later discover is part of every meal here. We love the spice.

We drive onto the capital, Thimpu, about an hour and a half away, to catch the end of the annual tsechu or festival. We walk to the dzhong but its raining hard. Many Bhutanese, dressed in their finest costumes, are drenched to the skin.

But the crowds are still queuing to receive spiritual blessings

Groups of dancers perform in front of the crowd

Its a shame its raining so hard. Some people have disobeyed instructions not to use umbrellas while others shelter under arches and doorways

We explore more sights in the capital. High up there are scenic views of the city from the telegraph tower. The site is covered with prayer flags fluttering in the breeze

This is Bhutan's indigenous animal - a Takin.It's like a cross between a goat and a cow and is part of the country's mythological culture.

Other stops included the textile museum, the chorten (the bhutanese word for stupa) and the school of traditional arts where we watched young students carving wood, weaving and showing off their embroidery skills

Its raining as we leave Thimpu. We drive along the Dochu La pass that is supposed to give us a spectacular panoramic views of the eastern Himalayan range and stop at a cafe for drinks

But clouds swirl like thick fog and we can barely see our feet in front of us

We drive on dipping down into a valley. This is the most beautiful place we've been so far. Rice fields are carved out in terraces across the valley. In another month it will be ready for harvest but for now there's a vivid patchwork of vibrant greens as the rice blows in the breeze

Our lunchstop is at a restaurant with stunning views over the valley

We pass houses and shops with phalluses painted on the walls. This area is located by the temple of fertility - Chimi Lakhang, built in the 15th century by the 'divine madman' Lama Drukpa Kuenley one of Bhutan's favourite saints

He used songs, ribald humour and outrageous behaviour to get across his teachings to ordinary bhutanese- believing that stiff social norms and the buddhist clergy were blockages to peoples' true understanding

In his life his outrageous sexual exploits were legendary and the phalluses painted on houses today are said to represent him

Its quite funny to see so many phalluses on display - paintings on walls, wooden and stone phallic symbols, even wooden ones hanging or on display almost everywhere here

At the temple we watch young monks practice their speed recitation of texts. They pull faces, joke with each other and act like normal children, gleefully playing around as we take out our cameras

The temple itself contains statues and paintings as well as wooden and stone
phalluses said to be several hundred years old.

We walk back through the rice fields to reach the road and drive to Punakha's dhzong - a beautiful building placed at the confluence of two rivers

Its a really amazing setting we enter climbing steps and then going across a bridge with views across to the river

Astrological charts are among the paintings on the entrance walls and in the first courtyard a huge beautiful bodhi tree

We climb up multiple stairs to the top for views over the whole fortress.

We head to our hotel high in the valley which in the morning will give us some stunning views over the rice terraces with dramatic swirls of cloud in the blue sky

Drive to Bumthang
We leave early morning for the long drive to Bumthang

It was raining hard overnight and while there is now light rain the sky is clear and blue

We set off stopping at the weekly market at Wangdi. Its small but colourful with villagers selling fruit and vegetables and lots of bright chillies, including some tiny round ones looking almost like cherries that are supposed to be the hottest.

We break our journey further along at Rukubji a spot where the film Travellers and Magicians (a Bhutanese film well worth watching) was filmed. They had painted some buddhas on the wall and a prayer as well as hundreds of tsa tsa - tiny stupa shaped objects made of clay painted gold and blue - praying for good health, good health, good future

Its a day of long driving which we break with scenic stops, lunch and a drive to a dzhong.

Tangbi Mani festival
Today is a national public holiday, our guide told us the night before - blessed rainy day, marking the end of the monsoon rains.
He told us rain was predicted at 0540 am and we should gather some of the rainwater to shower in if we wanted spiritual purification. Sleep seemed a good option. When we asked our guide in the morning if he had showered in the water he smiled in embarrassment. No, he said, I was also sleeping.

Today is also a festival day which we have been waiting very excitedly for. We drive to Tanbi monastery to see the tangbi mani festival - 'tang' means land and 'mani' part of a buddhist mantra - meaning 1000 eyes and hands.

There are dances celebrating Pema Lingpa, the man who subdued demons in the valley and hid bows and arrows in his sleeves

And there is a fire dance. People leap through burning haystacks, said to symbolise purification.

Bhutan is luxuriantly and densely forested unlike many neighbouring areas like Sikkim in northern India where there has been serious deforestation

There's a national policy that if you want to cut trees says our guide. If you cut one tree, you must plant two. June 2 is marked national forestry day when all students plant tree saplings (also coronation day for the 4th king)

We visit a nunnery where nuns are playing badminton as we leave there is light rain and suddenly one strong rainbow forms followed by a second - so beautiful

We drive on a little to a sacred place festooned with prayer flags - known as the burning lake

We head back stopping in the town for sightseeing. The shops are traditional buildings. A huge film poster advertises the next production - Miss Bhutan

Drive to Gangtey

We stop on way taking pictures and then visit Tt Dzong - a new museum located in former fortress. Its impressive with fantastic views over the valley

We restart our long drive to the Gangtey gompa - one of Bhutan's oldest monasteries

Our overnight is in a valley Phobjika where black necked cranes visit in November. There is no electricity in the valley to avoid disturbing their habitat Its much colder here. Our hotel Dew Chen is surprisingly good: and one of our favourite places to stay. Its new but charming and has great panoramic views of the valley. Its also got its own generator - so there is electricity until 9pm.

To Wangdi
Early start for drive to Wangdi. We stop at the Wangude Phodrang Dzong, built in the 17th century.
We stop off at a market and then head to Paro.,

Our last full day in Bhutan is one of the most amazing. We climb to a monastery/fortress set high in the clifftop and looming dramatically over the valley. It takes about 2 hours to walk and the scenery is incredible. It's known as the tiger's nest - Taktshang monastery. Its where Guru Rinpoche is said to have flown riding on a tigress and meditated here in a cave for 3 months. Its one of the holiest sights in Bhutan and there is a wonderful sense of calm and stillness despite the large numbers of tourists and pilgrims coming here.

Bhutan's locally produced and wonderfully fruity beer...

Rains bring misery for many in Niger where millions go hungry

2010-08-25T02:17:00.002+08:00

Twenty-one-year-old Issouf Ali directs me along what used to be the road to his house. It now resembles a river. He wades through the water and points out to me what used to his family home. All that remains are some collapsed adobe walls. A few buckets, a pair of flip-flops and some cooking utensils lie scattered around on the floor.

Issouf and his family have joined more than 300 others in his neighbourhood in the capital, Niamey, taking shelter in a youth centre. They have little with them. And their main means of livelihood – growing vegetables to sell in the market – has also been wiped out by the heavy rains which have caused the worst flooding of the Niger river for more than eighty years.

“We were so happy to have rains in Niger,” he told me. “When we have rain, we can plant. Our gardens can grow and that helps us to have something to eat and sell. But when the rains came last week, water flooded everywhere. The protection barriers just collapsed.

“We lost everything, our house, our garden, clothes and other small things. We had 15 plots for vegetables… and we lost all of that.

“Its Ramadan now – it should be the busiest time of the year for us, because everyone is going to the market for shopping. I think we lost 150,000 CFA when our gardens were destroyed,” he said.

At this time of the year, most Nigeriens, like Issouf, would be praying for more rain so their crops could grow stronger. Erratic rains and drought-like conditions over the past two years have been one of the main causes of the current food crisis in Niger and many parts of the Sahel region – with around 50% of the population in Niger facing severe hunger because of failed crops.

Now the rains have come and in some cases, they’ve come with fury. Parts of the country have been hit by intense downpours and flooding, destroying houses, roads, bridges and killing thousands of animals. The UN said that more than 67,000 people have lost their homes in the past week alone and six people have been killed since the severe rains started at the end of July.

The River Niger – which flows through nine West African countries – has reached its highest level in more than 80 years. In the Nigerien capital, Niamey, more than 6,000 people were affected when the river burst its banks, destroying homes, and flooding vegetable gardens and rice fields.

Oxfam is responding, helping to provide hygiene and cleaning kits, installing water storage tanks and connecting communities to water systems.

But it’s not just the capital that has been affected by serious flooding. In several regions, the rains have washed away roads and bridges, destroyed peoples’ precious crops and killed thousands of livestock.

In the village of Kazoé, in Zinder region, I saw just how severe things have been. It’s been about two weeks since the village was hit by heavy floods. One hundred and eighty houses were destroyed; more than 1,200 sheep killed; and 135 gardens and 30 hectares of fields flooded.

Our journey to the village – normally a short 45 minute drive from Goure province – took us more than two and a half hours because roads and bridges had been washed away.

Oxfam and its partner, AREN, have been distributing food supplied by the World Food Programme to communities in the province. “It was all supposed to be finished in four days,” said Mai Abdou, who is in charge of the operation. “But, two weeks later, we still haven’t finished. It’s all because of the heavy rains. Logistically, things have been very difficult. One village was even cut off by the rains for a week,” he told me.

The rains have come early this year. The worry is that more flooding will hamper the delivery of much-needed aid to desperate communities. There are also fears that floods will bring water-borne diseases, increase the risk of malaria and diarrhoea putting the most vulnerable, particularly young children under five, already severely weakened because of lack of food, at further risk.

After a long drought, the rains were supposed to bring hope. But, in many areas, it’s only adding to peoples’ misery.

2010-08-09T00:12:00.011+08:00

A short stroll through le Grand Marche in Niamey..said to be largest market in Africa.

Its a maze of stalls selling everything you could possibly want..and stuff you don't even need.

From traditional blankets, or kounte...

To Obama-branded clothing

Sunset by the river Niger

Hand carved calabash being turned into cool lamps and boxes at an artisinal centre near the city's museum

Niger's food crisis

2010-07-09T17:42:00.007+08:00

Food crisis in Niger: 'Animals are dying every day'

Niger, the world's least developed country, is in the grip of a worsening food crisis, with more than seven million people facing hunger

Oxfam has launched an emergency appeal to help more than 800,000 of the most vulnerable people

See my video which ran on The Guardian:

http://gu.com/p/2t8hp

Niger photos

2010-07-04T04:36:00.010+08:00

Villages emptying as Niger food crisis worsens

2010-07-04T03:36:00.002+08:00

The village of Dabré, in Oullam district, about one and a half hours north of the capital Niamey, used to have more than four thousand inhabitants. 4,584 to be precise. But now, says village chief, 64 year old Halidou Younoussa, the village has been hollowed out.

He estimates that around 60% of villagers have left in search of work and food. “it’s one of the strategies we have to deal with the crisis”, he says, as we sit down in the shade to discuss how hard times have affected people the village, most of whom would normally be able to make a living through their livestock and cultivating cereal crops.

But even in good times, things can be tough. Local officials told us that even in years when Niger had good harvests, Oullam will remain a food-deficit area, especially in northern areas of the district. Back in April, a Niger government food security household survey classified Ouallam as having the highest level of food insecurity in the country – 64.1% compared to the national rural average of 21.5%

“We have had so many difficulties because of the harvest. The food from last year’s harvest only lasted for 2 months…which left us with a 10 month gap until the next harvest”, explained Halidou Younoussa.

“Some houses have had no harvests at all.”

Patchy rains in 2009 have not only affected the harvest, but livestock. There is little pasture land. The landscape around us is almost barren – horizons of sandy brown soil, punctuated by a few spiky plants and trees.

Around 100 animals have died in the village weakened by lack of food, estimates Halidou. Many farmers have been forced to sell their emaciated livestock, but for significantly reduced prices, to buy cereals to feed their family.

And as Halidou told me, many have simply decided that they can no longer stay in the village hoping that help and rains will come, but have moved to urban centres in Niger and neighbouring countries to try and find more regular work and food.

But, as is often the case, it’s the women who are facing some of the toughest burdens now. As many men have left in search of work, its up to the women to look after the household and any remaining small livestock. To put food on their families’ plates.

“Its very hard for women”, said Kadidja Tahirou, who heads the village committee.

“Women have to take on extra jobs, often very physical ones, in order to look after the household, get food and so on..and that can be very difficult.

“The women often collect wild fruits…either they eat them in the family or sell them in the market.”

Oxfam, through its partner Karkara, has been helping some of the most vulnerable villagers, distributing cash vouchers so people can buy food staples (mostly cereals, the cheapest way of filing stomachs; villagers told me oil, tea and sugar were items only for “rich” people) providing animal fodder, and carrying out some “de-stocking” work: buying weakened animals at above-market prices to help farmers, and distributing the meat to the poorest families in the community.

To people like 78 year old Bibata Thairou, whose animals died several months ago.

“I have never seen things as bad as now. Everything is so dry”, she tells me, her painfully thin limbs part-hidden by her flowing robe.

She insists things are worse than in 2005, the last time that Niger faced a serious food crisis. “Things weren’t as bad then. Now, more animals are dying, more people are suffering”, she said. “It’s a catastrophe.”

But she and her nephew, 26 year old nephew, Boubacar Idi, haven’t given up hope yet. They are both praying for rain. They tell me there’s still time for the rains to come, which would allow people to begin planting for the next harvest.

Boubacar’s twins, just 22 months old, are being treated for malnutrition at a health clinic.

“Its been very difficult during this crisis”, said Boubacar.

“If we have rain, things here can get better. We pray for God’s help.”

His prayers may soon be answered. Just five minutes drive away, we pass a village which had its first heavy rains the night before, the ground still soft and damp from the downpour. People were busy digging holes in the ground to plant seeds for the harvest

There is some room for hope after all.

Tens of thousands of animals dying as Niger faces food crisis

2010-06-21T19:10:00.001+08:00

A sudden sandstorm whipped up and dramatically turned the air bright red in Niamey as I started to write this blog. Within ten minutes rain filled the air. At first it was only a very light fall. But then the water came in dramatic heavy bursts. And it continued for the next two hours

People told me it was the most rain they’d seen for many months in Niger - a country where rainfall for the past year has been extremely erratic. That’s led to a sharp drop in crop production and the disappearance of large areas of grasslands. Herders have had to travel further afield in search of pasture and water for their livestock.

It is often said that for most Nigeriens, livestock are their bank accounts. More than 80% of people here live in rural areas, and depend on subsistence agriculture and stockbreeding. If times are good they’ll buy more animals, which is seen as an investment in the future. But now times are bad

And many herders, facing growing hunger, food shortages and rising prices for basic cereals, are having to make a tough choice: a decision to sell their prized assets at a fraction of the price they originally paid for them.

More than seven million people in this landlocked West African country are said to be facing food insecurity – almost half the population. Acute malnutrition is on the rise, with young children most at risk. And animals are dying. Tens of thousands of them.

Unable to access enough food and water for their animals, many herders are forced to sell their painfully thin animals, their ribs protruding, at prices well-below market rates. They have no choice: their animals are already on the brink of starvation and will soon fetch nothing.

But these desperate measures also mean that the “bank account” for families is being depleted, making them more vulnerable to future shocks.

One of Oxfam’s main responses to the current crisis has been to offer support to communities focusing on livestock – their main livelihood. We’ve been providing free or subsidized animal feed; vaccinating and de-worming animals. We’re also carrying out “de-stocking” activities: buying weak and thin animals at above-market pre-crisis prices, helping to inject cash into the local economy, and slaughtering and distributing meat from the purchased animals to some of the poorest and most vulnerable households.

“It is an important lifeline for families many of whom rely entirely on their animals for their income”, Mbacke Niang, Oxfam GB’s country director told me. “We’re currently targeting 10,000 pastoral households, many of them extremely vulnerable. But it is not enough. The needs are enormous.

“We’ve only just received more funding to expand our work. But there will still be people in need.”

He’d just returned from an activity marking the official launch of ongoing activities at Mangaizé, Oullam district, Tillaberi region.

More than a hundred people turned up for the event, during which cash vouchers and animal fodder was distributed to vulnerable families and the meat of weak animals, purchased by Oxfam, also handed out.

People were grateful for the help but said much more was needed. Oxfam programme officer, Aoula Aichatou, who also attended the event, called the situation “critical”.

“Things are dire, which is why we are intervening to help. So many animals are dying or about to die. We need to offer more support. The needs are huge.”

She showed me some replies Oxfam staff had gathered from villagers in target areas where we’re working. In one village in Abala commune, prices for goats over one-year period had fallen by more than half; for cows, by nearly two-thirds, and yet the cost of basic foods had risen: millet prices had increased by more than 40% and rice by 13 %.

People said their main worries were accessing food for themselves, their animals and getting enough water for drinking and irrigation. How would they cope in these difficult times? The answers ranged from “work hard” to selling wood, and eating wild fruit and vegetables. Many families are already eating one meal a day or reducing rations.

But one answer that caught my eye was from a female headed-household. They had no livestock, no money and had only eaten four times in the last seven days. What was their coping strategy? “Patience only” was the reply.
We’re only at the start of the most critical period in Niger, the hunger gap season, with several months to go before the next harvests. Without urgent funding to support aid agencies responding to the food crisis, both in Niger and across many other countries in West Africa, families will need more than just patience to survive.

Signs of Niger's worsening food crisis

2010-06-21T19:02:00.002+08:00

I'd been in Niger for less than a day, and things were not quite what I'd expected. There are few obvious signs warning visitors arriving in the capital, Niamey, a slow-paced and laid back place, that life for millions of Nigeriens is beginning to get extremely desperate.

A worsening food crisis prompted the government to acknowledge a problem in March and launch an emergency appeal for help.

The appeal by Niger's new military leaders, who took power in a coup in February, was seen as an important break from the past. In 2005, during Niger's last serious food crisis, the previous government had strongly denied there was any problem.

Aid agencies, like Oxfam, have also been sounding alarm bells, warning that this year more than seven million, approaching half of the population, are facing hunger with malnutrition rates on the rise. Yet donors have been slow to respond and organisations like Oxfam are struggling to fund programmes to deal with the widening crisis.

Niger is already one of the poorest countries in the world. And it boasts some unenviable statistics: the fastest population growth in the world, which has seen the population rise from 2.5 million in 1950 to more than 15 million now; one of the world's highest infant mortality rates; more than 40% of children under-five underweight for their age, their growth stunted by hunger; low literacy and school attendance rates.

It's a country that often experiences cycles of drought which has a devastating impact on the majority of its people who live in rural area, depend on subsistence agriculture and breeding livestock. But this year has been worst than most. Erratic rains last year caused a 30 percent reduction in cereal production.

You would hardly know it in Niamey, where the bustling colourful markets are full of fresh fruit, vegetables and cereals. The same is true across most major towns, with much of the food imported. The problem, say analysts, isn't the shortage of food available, but the ability of people to access it.

Prices have soared - in some areas, doubling. But incomes have fallen by the same amount. Families have been forced to sell their highly valued but currently under-fed livestock and receiving prices that are pitifully below normal market rates. They're selling their remaining family assets and agricultural tools; often getting heavily into debt in order to borrow money to buy food and seeds for planting.

And that's forcing families to pull their children out of school and abandon their homes, moving to towns and cities, often crossing borders, in search of help.

Oxfam driver, Mohamed, pointed out people in the street to me as we traveled to the office. "They're not from Niamey", he said.

"They're beggars and they've come from the countryside."

Some estimate that the number of people begging in the capital has doubled this year. As we drove, I started to notice some telling signs. Often, women and children resting from the overpowering heat under trees; children approaching cars at traffic lights gesturing and pointing to their mouths that they are hungry and holding out their hands in expectation of food or money; women using sieves to sift through the sandy ground to find any grains of cereal that had escaped from food trucks. It wasn't so easy to tell, though, if these were families newly-arrived from the countryside.

But outside the Oxfam office that morning, I met father of two, Issoufou Moumouni, walking down the street with a small tin bowl in his hands. He told me he had left his village in Fandou-Kaina, in Oullam region three weeks ago. He guessed that nearly forty men from the village of around 50 households had left home in search of work and food in the last few months.

"Its very bad this year. We can't grow anything. There is no rain and there is no hope", he told me, smiling ruefully.

But if things are bad now, they're likely to get worse. We're at the start of what's known as the hunger gap season. There are several months to go before the next harvests in September. If Nigeriens, well-used to dealing with drought and hunger, are struggling now, one can only fear what will happen in the coming weeks unless they get much more help.

HELPING THE LANDLESS BECOME LANDOWNERS

2010-05-18T02:51:00.013+08:00

“The women peasants of Sindh have awakened – and now they will be the landladies; the owners of the land” (slogan sung by women at events organized by Oxfam’s partner, Participatory Development Initiatives, PDI)

They came by bus and by truck. Some, like Hajiani, even walked part of the way barefoot, for more than an hour, to a packed centre in Gora Bari town, Thatta district, in Pakistan’s Sindh province, where hundreds of women had gathered. They were here to hand in their applications to formally claim state land which was being reallocated to some of the province’s poorest women in a landmark land distribution programme aimed at helping some of the most marginalized and poorest people. Many would hear the same day if they’d been successful.

Hajiani, who doesn’t know her age, shyly held out her thumb, which was now covered in blue ink, to show that she had registered her papers and was waiting to see if she would be among those formally awarded land for the first time.

“We have nothing. We’ve got by from fishing; but stocks are reduced these days. It is hard to make any good livelihood”, she told me. “I have come today to seek land.

“If we get our own land, we can feed our family and earn more money. Sometimes, we have enough to eat; but often, its not enough”.

Pakistan did not carry out essential land reforms soon after independence. As a result, critics say, Pakistan’s agricultural and rural sectors are characterized by highly feudal relationships which keep many in abject poverty, included bonded labour. It is estimated that more than 60% of farmers in Sindh are landless, while vast tracts of farmland are still owned by a small wealthy elites who wield huge political and social influence.

Sindh’s land distribution programme is seen as a bold step forward: for the first time in Pakistan as well as South Asia, state land is being specifically distributed to landless women peasants in an attempt to begin reducing poverty and bring about much wider social changes in rural areas.

When I visited the packed kutchari, or open hearing, it was bustling with activity. Many women and their families had traveled in vans organized by Participatory Development Initiatives, PDI, a local partner supported by Oxfam, to ensure as many deserving women as possible had the chance to register for land. PDI staff were also on-hand to help those unable to read and write to fill out land application forms; and for weeks earlier, had carried out awareness campaigns about the land distribution programme, including using local radio broadcasts, to ensure as many deserving people as possible could benefit from the scheme.

“It’s very important for me to get land”, said mother of four, Janat, who currently farms on four-acres of land belonging to her landlord. Her family only receive a quarter of the crops they cultivate; while the landlord takes the rest.
“We want land of our own to pass onto our children; to have our own house and not live with threats or the fear of having to move. A landlord can ask us to leave at any time” she explained.

Another lady, Sakina, who traveled with her six year old son, chipped in. “Security is a priority for us. If we own land, we will have a safe house; no corrupt people can snatch our crops from us….There are always threats from influential people who can take the land for us.”

Around 43,000 acres of state-owned land has already been distributed in the first phase of the programme, which had prioritised women landless peasants. But civic groups like PDI had pointed out a number of serious flaws in the scheme. Much of the land allocated proved uncultivable – because it was affected by salinity; waterlogged, unleveled or had multiple ownership claims – which led to protracted legal battles. PDI has been helping many women with legal support to fight their cases through the courts, to face the challenges lodged by richer, more powerful landowners.

The second phase of distribution is now solely targeting landless women and hopes to iron out many of the flaws in the original process, as well as offering women longer-term packages of agricultural support including providing seeds, fertilisers, pesticides and technical help.

Faisal Ahmed Uqaili, co-ordinator of Sindh government’s Land Distribution Programme, acknowledges that about 50% of the original land allocated had proved problematic. But he says lessons have been learnt and that around 80% of cases have been settled. He said officials were also under strict orders to ensure greater transparency, to stop nepotism and corruption in the second phase of the distribution process. There had been cases reported of officials trying to sell application papers to the women, or grant land to people favoured by influential political leaders.

“You need to say the glass is half full instead of half-empty”, he told me. “When you meet these success stories, women are now making a livelihood for their husbands and families. There is a marked difference.

“If change is coming in the life of the people for this allotted land and for a fairly large percentage of people, then it’s the start of success.”

Mother-of-seven, Beebul Hassan’s face lights up as she holds up a slip of paper with a signature showing she has been successful in her application. She is now the proud owner of four acres of land.

“I still don’t believe I am a winner here”, she said. “I can’t help making plans about how I will now use my land”. She says she wants to start growing wheat, chillies, tomatoes and vegetables; and for the very first time, a family home on land that she now can call her own.

Pakistan's conflict - far from over

2010-04-21T23:34:00.003+08:00

I met Marhaba, who introduced herself as a widow and mother of four young children, at Jalozai camp, near the Pakistani city of Peshawar.

She told me that she’d been forced to abandon her home in Upper Dir , north-western Pakistan, during intense fighting and shelling a year ago. As families fled in terror, she became separated from her husband. “I call myself a widow now”, she explained ”I have no idea if my husband is dead or alive”.

Marhaba and her family

Marhaba has ended up living on a site that now houses almost a quarter of a million people: a vast city of plastic tents. Jalozai first opened three decades ago, providing shelter to Afghan refugees fleeing into Pakistan to escape fighting. But more recent arrivals have come from Pakistan’s Swat Valley and other regions in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).

Last year, more than three million fled their homes amid military operations in the Swat Valley and surrounding areas in what was one the largest and fastest displacements in Pakistan’s recent history. It triggered a major humanitarian response.

But almost a year on, more than a million Pakistanis remain uprooted, depending on emergency relief to survive. More than 200,000 have been freshly displaced in recent months by military offensives in tribal areas of Pakistan. While some live in overcrowded camps, the majority have received no official help. They are forced to rent or stay with friends or relatives.

Jalozai - a tented city

Most like Marhaba left their homes with nothing but the clothes they were wearing. “We fled our village barefoot”, Marhaba told me, saying it took two nights of travel to reach the safety of the camp.

Daily life is still a struggle. While she has a domicile card, Marhaba doesn’t have her husband’s identity card and that can make it hard to access food and other help from the camp authorities. She often has to wait last in line, hoping for leftovers or help from her brothers-in-law and their families.

Like many, she’s heard that her village has been badly damaged, and she’s reluctant to return to an uncertain future. She’s also not entirely convinced the situation is safe for her children to return.

The government is keen for people to return home. It has recently declared several areas safe and wants families to move back. But many people I talked to in the camps were reluctant, knowing that basic services like electricity, water and hospitals have been destroyed. Opportunities to work are also scarce. And they have received no compensation for their destroyed or damaged houses and livelihoods.

Oxfam has been working with many returnee families, running cash-for work programmes so that people can earn some money working on projects that can also benefit the community, like wells and building roads. It is also helping farmers, providing agricultural inputs, tools and cows and goats.

But Oxfam, like many other leading humanitarian agencies, is also sounding an alarm bell: funding for emergency work is drying up. Less than one third of an emergency fund to help those affected by the crisis has been funded by international donors and some programmes may have to close.

Pakistan is in danger of becoming a forgotten crisis. And the future remains uncertain for those like Marhaba, now living a hand-to-mouth existence, who prays for things to get better.

Voices of Pakistan's displaced

2010-04-21T23:07:00.000+08:00

Cleaning up a neighourhood

2010-01-30T02:10:00.004+08:00

This was video I took - using, for the first time, a tiny hand-held flip camera. It can be a bit shaky if you dont hold it really really steady; but for web purposes, its actually pretty good.

This was taken in Baillergeau neighbourhood, Carrefour Feuille suburb in Port-au-Prince, the same place I blogged about yesterday.

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New life in a shattered community

2010-01-29T03:42:00.005+08:00

Less than two days after the earthquake which devastated Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, Marguerite Ulysse gave birth to a baby girl, Neika.

The nearest hospital was destroyed. Marguerite’s home had collapsed. The family had nothing with them. So she gave birth at night on the grounds of what was the neighbourhood footpall pitch, which now serves as a camp for families who’ve lost their homes.

“My daughter is a blessing from God. We lost everything. But as long as God can help us, I know it will be OK”, she said, holding her young daughter in her arms.

“My hope is that we can get some help from the international community. We don’t have anything at all. Nothing. And now my daughter has a cold but we cannot get any medicine.”

Marguerite and her family share a small makeshift tin shack on the football field with nearly 30 others. More than a thousand others are also camped out around them.

Camp manager, Widelson Pierre-Louis, told me that more than a thousand people died in the neighbourhood of Baillergeau, in Carrefour Feuille suburb, and that 99% of homes, more than 2,000 buildings, were completely destroyed.

“Only one house is left in this area - mine”, he said, gesturing down the narrow mountain road which is lined with collapsed houses everywhere you look. While Widelson’s single-story home still stands, there are cracks in the walls – some caused by neighbouring houses coming down; and the staircase leading up to the rooftop is full of building rubble.

It’s one of the most devastated communities I’ve visited in the last two weeks. Densely packed, it’s also an extremely poor neighbourhood. Around 85% of the community is unemployed; and gang violence has been a problem.

The needs are evident. Clean water is being distributed thanks to aid agencies; and latrines are being installed.

Oxfam worked in the neighbourhood before the quake, helping people access food when prices sky-rocketted. It has now begun a new project this week – paying community members to start cleaning up the area; removing rubbish and waste.

The cash-for-work programmes mean that not only do communities begin to improve their living conditions, but people can earn desperately – needed money so they can buy food and other
necessities.

It can boost a local economy and the money helps those who need it most. People like Marguerite, who struggles every day and is praying for a brighter future for her new-born baby girl.

Ends

Washing away the smell of death

2010-01-27T02:49:00.006+08:00

It was a relief to read the sign on the wall: no dead bodies after 3.30 pm. My watch showed it was 4pm. Thankfully, when I poked my head into the morgue at the Hôpital Universitē de l’Ētat de Haiti, also known as the General Hospital, the room was empty.

Outside, though, the ground was grimly sticky underfoot – a reminder of how many bodies had been taken to the public morgue for disposal since the earthquake that struck Haiti nearly two weeks ago.

I’d come to the public hospital, one of the largest in Haiti, to look at the work Oxfam had been doing there. My colleague, Karine Deniel, a public health specialist, focussing on preparedness and emergency response work, had been called to the hospital the week before.

She had been visibly shocked by what she saw: the hospital was packed with more than 1,000 patients, many of whom were surgery cases. There was no running water and no electricity.

Outside the morgue, she said, piles of bodies were laid out covered with flies. There was no water close by for doctors to make plaster casts for those with broken limbs; and water she saw in a bucket used to mop the floor was black. “It smelled bad; it smelt of death”, she said.

The morgue
Oxfam installed a 5,000 litre water bladder in the hospital, and also trucked water to the site so that soiled surgery clothes and bedding could be washed, the kitchen could re-open, and workers in the morgue could wash down the floors, and lessen the putrefying sickly smell of corpses.

water bladder

“Oxfam has helped”, said Hencia Josena, one of the laundrywomen. “Before we had no water, no soap.”

Hencia Josena

Staff told me nothing could be washed in the hospital after the earthquake struck until Oxfam trucked in water more than a week later. “Before Oxfam came it was a mess”, said laundry operator, Jean-Robert Deus. “In the surgery room, doctors had blood stains over their clothes.”

Many patients still remain outside the main hospital buildings, many of which were badly destroyed, being treated in tents. They’re scared to go indoors, for fear of after-shocks.
+university+hospital+of+Haiti+.JPG">

The dedication of staff working there both impressed and humbled me. From the laundry washers, to the kitchen staff, to the steady stream of volunteer medics like George Williams, from New York City, who works in the triage area.

“As bad as things are, this is the best humanitarian effort that I have ever seen”, he told me, also praising the “phenomenal” Haitian doctors he had worked with. “It’s the spirit, the humanitarian effort reaching out from all over the world.”

OXFAM WATER DISTRIBUTION IN HAITI

2010-01-26T01:08:00.002+08:00

One of the sites in Haiti we are working in is at Petion-ville Club - a former golf course, now a huge camp housing families displaced by the earthquake.

Discover Simple, Private Sharing at Drop.io

2010-01-24T03:25:00.003+08:00

I was doing a live television interview earlier this week with Canadian television at 6am when there was a very strong aftershock in Haiti - a week after the big quake.

video of Caroline Live on CTV news (canada) as aftershock is felt from voice project on Vimeo.

2010-01-23T04:14:00.005+08:00

People queuing at an Oxfam distribution point

I've been in Haiti for just over a week, part of our emergency response there after a devastating earthquake which has killed an estimated 200,000 and affected as many as 3 million people.

its been incredibly challenging providing aid to people where its most needed: all kinds of problems: phone lines/internet down; blocked roads; collapsed buildings; lack of fuel.

But a week on, we are targetting over 80,000 with clean drinking water, sanitation, shelter, and about to start some cash-for-work programmes, giving people money or food in return for working on programmes eg clearing rubbish, rehabilitating markets etc.

Follow my updates on Twitter @carooxfam

Rescuing the peace in southern Sudan

2010-01-08T19:52:00.006+08:00

Finding enough food to have one meal a day is proving a daily challenge for 45 year-old Rebecca Konjo.

The mother-of-thirteen is hunting for wild grass to eat with three of her young children, collecting plants in metal pans.

“We should not have problems, because we are in peace”, she says. “But we have no food and the raiders destroyed everything. Where can we go? What can the government do? We are with God. We just pray that peace will come”.

Rebecca and around 4,000 others living in her village in Lakes State, southern Sudan, were forced to flee for their lives following two attacks earlier this year by a rival tribe. At least five people were killed.

Families moved back to their homes in July after the government installed a visible security presence. Rebecca returned to find her house completely looted, her 11 chickens and 10 goats stolen and her crops ruined.

“All our crops – sorghum, ground nuts, and sesame – suffered”, she said. “We couldn’t cultivate normally. Everything was lost. Everything was destroyed. What could we do? We have to stay here and collect wild fruit in the bush.”

Southern Sudan has seen an upsurge in violence in the past year. Much of it is taking place in remote, rural areas between rival tribes.

It is often linked to disputes over resources, especially cattle and land.
Many civilians still have guns – a legacy of Sudan’s devastating 21 year civil war between the central government in the north and the southern based Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army, the SPLM/A. The proliferation of arms means means disputes can easily flare into violent conflict.

It wasn’t meant to turn out like this. Five years ago, the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, the CPA, was signed, heralding a new era of hope for Sudan. It was supposed to end one of Africa’s longest conflicts, which cost the lives of around two million people and displaced around four million more.

But Sudan is once again at a crossroads. The coming year – with landmark elections and a referendum where southerners will decide if they want to remain part of a united Sudan or secede – will be critical. There are fears that unless the international community acts swiftly to bolster the fragile peace process, Sudan could once again face serious instability.

Public confidence in the CPA is also being undermined by the slow delivery of what many had hoped would be “peace dividends” – the establishment of basic services such as water, health clinics and schools. South Sudan is already one of the poorest and least-developed regions of the world. Less than half the population has access to safe drinking water. One in seven children will die before their fifth birthday.

But development cannot come without peace. Many aid organisations, like Oxfam, have re-started emergency response programmes to help communities displaced by conflict, setting aside longer-term development work.

Some villages that were untouched by the civil war are now facing violence and upheaval for the first time.

“I only heard peace was signed in Sudan”, said mother of four, Mary Agya.
“I don’t see or feel peace.” She speaks from experience. Her village in Diko, Mundri West County, was unscathed by Sudan’s long civil war. But she and villagers were forced to flee their homes after an attack by the vicious rebel group, the Lord’s Resistance Army, the LRA, which first originated in northern Uganda.

Her fourteen-year-old daughter, Fubi Idia, is still traumatised after being abducted the rebels. She spent 12 days in the forest before she could be reunited with her family.

The family remain worried about the future and what it might bring. Communities in south Sudan have wearied of war and yearn for peace. The coming year will be a testing time.

Check out my video on YouTube.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLWpr06jPeA

Ethiopia travels part 1

2009-12-27T05:40:00.013+08:00

Rock-hewn churches of Tigray and the amazing journeys getting there

Wenchi crater..

Lake Tana

Blue Nile Falls

Lalibela...

Ethiopia travels pt 2

2009-12-27T00:22:00.035+08:00

Traditional Tigrayan hairstyle

Fasting Injera (all veggie!)

Believe it or not..the view from the toilet on my trek in the Mesket escarpment. The trek is a great community tourism initiative by TESFA which I highly recommend.

This is how the traditional dish, Injera, is made..

Fasiladas' bath...echoes of the temples at Angkor, Cambodia, for the amazing trees

Simien Mountains

Gelada baboons in Simien Mountains

Gonder

Harar

South Sudan images

2009-12-24T02:32:00.011+08:00

Some amazing sunsets

Friday night in Rumbek, South Sudan

2009-12-21T01:57:00.003+08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdAwLjm8ATU

Sunset, Western Equatoria, South Sudan

2009-12-12T01:53:00.002+08:00

It's been an exhausting trip - terrible roads, long days, steamy weather. This glorious sunset uplifted my spirits on the way home

The hyena feeder of Harar, Ethiopia

2009-12-01T12:43:00.007+08:00

Hyenas are feared and despised in Ethiopia...blamed for killing livestock and, reportedly, drunken individuals who sleep on the streets at night.

But in the walled city of Harar, in the east, there is a symbiotic relationship with hyenas. Some mosques prepare porridge for the animals as part of an annual festival If the main hyena leader doesnt eat, its a sign of bad times to come. If he/she eats that means good times are ahead.

In the last 20-30 years, some men have become known through tv coverage for feeding hyenas meat by the city walls. Its become a tourist attraction.

Yusuf is one of the 2 main hyena feeders. He calls them by name and seems to know their habits pretty well.

I met an Australian researcher when I came to take a look...he is written his phd thesis on Harar's relationship with hyenas.

Pretty bizarre to see these predatory animals so close up.

Hunger in drought-prone Ethiopia.

2009-11-30T22:05:00.001+08:00

Oromia region, about 250 kilometres south of the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, is one of the most fertile parts of the country. But, like large parts of the country as well as much of East Africa people are facing drought and serious food shortages.

The Ethiopian government says inadequate rains mean 6.2 million people need aid this year and has appealed to the international community to help. International aid agency, Oxfam, has called for a shift in the way the world deals with food crisis; and is urging donors to switch more of their funding away from short-term emergency food aid to longer-term development work, which strengthens the ability of communities to prevent and deal with possible shocks and climate disasters

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZCdq2AOZww

Ladakh travels

2009-10-08T13:29:00.058+08:00

So excited to get the chance to travel to Ladakh..a Himalayan region of India. In the winter, overland travel there is impossible because of heavy snow. I read that in some cases, temperatures dipped to minus 46.

But I was going at the tail end of the summer – and towards the end of the tourist season.

It was mainly pretty hot and dry in the day; but nights could get very cold. Even so, places I stayed seemed bemused by my requests for extra blankets; in one basic guest house run by a monastery, I piled on 5 blankets!!

The landscape is stunning. Its part of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir: a lush and largely muslim area. By contrast, Ladakh is austerely stark in its landscape – bare mountains often covered by snow; and mainly Buddhist.
frequent flier

Its sometimes been called “Little Tibet” – the population is racially a mix of Tibetan and Indo-Aryan and many Tibetan refugees live there – opening up small restaurants selling momos, and market stalls filled with Tibetan jewellery and textiles. They can freely practice their religion and culture. Unfortunately, I just missed the Dalai Lama who visits every year who comes to give spiritual teaching to thousands of followers.

Ladakh literally takes your breath away: its the highest region of India; the capital, Leh is 3,500 metres above sea level. Many suffer altitude sickness; and for the first few days, moving around, however slowly, seems like a major exertion. You find yourself wheezing as you ascent a hill to visit Leh Palace or Shanti stupa.
I spent the first few days in Leh, acclimatizing, resting and then enjoying the start of the annual Ladakh festival – a colourful parade of costumes, sounds and dances – which lasts for 15 days at the beginning of September each year.

A friend recommended the charming Sia-La guesthouse – run by a lovely couple with a beautifully tended garden full of vegetables and flowers.

After a few days, I was keen to explore the region more. I shared a jeep with 4 other tourists and we headed to some of the beautiful lake regions – Tso-Kar and Ts Moriri. I’d decided to go there as the landscape was meant to be stunning but also part of the Ladakh festival was going to be held there for the first time.

Several of my companions who’d arrived in Leh a day after me became ill with the dizzying heights we were experiencing. We drove up Taglung La (or Pass) – the world’s second highest motorable pass; spectacular scenery along the way. I have never really been into taking pictures of landscapes..but Ladakh made me change my mind.

Tso-Kar and Tso Kiagar with both beautiful lakes on our way to Tso Moriri. We were originally going to camp at Tso Kiagar – but it was a really exposed and cold area and we decided to push onto the village of Korzok, situated next to Tso-Moriri.

This was our base for the next 3 nights. It was an incredible setting; a wonderful village and even more special because of the festival.

The gompa’s (monastery’s) lama came back from Dharamsala for the event…he was greeted by villagers in traditional costumes who made incense offerings. I found out he was only 19 years old and this was his first return in a year.

He presided over some horse racing along the banks of the lake…to me it felt like watching something on the Mongolian steppe. There was a lot of humour…the crowd laughed as one rider almost fell of his horse trying to pick up a white silk scarf on the ground; then rallied round in support for him as the underdog in the competitions.

In the evening, a cultural show…but this was really an event for locals more than tourists…They crowded into the community hall and watched as if it was the first time they’d ever seen the dances. Children laughed and ran in and out of the crowds.

More festival activities the next day – with a series of wonderful cham masked dances performed in the gompa (monastery). The village gompa was lovely – and a perfect place to stage the event since the two-storey building formed around a courtyard (almost Shakespearean in style) allowing everyone to have a good view of the spectacle.

I peered into the gompa in between the dances…which was a lucky thing to do since they happily let me in and take pictures as the monks were preparing their costumes and masks.

I didn’t want to rest up in Leh again so headed out in the afternoon with a guide for a mini trek.
I didn’t have proper hiking shoes with me and wasn’t sure how much abuse my day trekking shoes could stand. (As it turned out, not a lot…when I returned to Leh a few days later, the sole had come unglued from one of my shoes!)

It was good to get some more physical activity – the treks (taking in villages from Likir) were not so strenuous but took you through some really beautiful scenery and picturesque villages.

It was good to get some more physical activity – the treks (taking in villages from Likir) were not so strenuous but took you through some really beautiful scenery and picturesque villages.
Likir gompa

People I met on my trek

After the trekking, I hitched a lift to Lamayuru – a medieval looking town, famous for its gompa which clings atmospherically to the mountainside.
Lamayuru

Though I was thankful for the lift, the Indian driver was hell-bent on trying to overtake 40 Indian army trucks as we crossed the hairpin bends of the Fotula Pass…one of the highest roads in the world and one of the scariest.I really thought this might be the end of my trip!

I was happy to be on terra firma in Lamayuru , spending the day exploring the gompa and the labyrinthine town.

The incredible Fotula pass

Back to Leh again…and preparing for a visit to Nubra Valley. I couldn’t get a jeep with other tourists…but one wonderful tour agent told me there was a cheaper option – a shared local jeep. I got up at some unearthly hour in the morning and found myself on the northern tip of the city…and yes, there were several jeeps all about to head to Nubra.
Arriving in Nubra valley

Road journeys are never boring in Ladakh. The scenery is magnificent, you always spot interesting things; and of course, this being India, my fellow car travelers were not good car passengers. One poor boy threw up most of the way there (and one woman threw up most of the way back when I finally made it back to Leh).

Buddha-like soldier in Nubra...close to the border with Pakistan

Nubra seemed like a dream..it was gloriously hot when I arrived. I was dropped off at a road by a gompa and walked down steps; crossing bubbling brooks, pretty trees and countryside. My guesthouse/campsite had a lovely garden – and a pet pashmina goat, which did tricks, standing on its hind legs, for food. It was lovely just chilling out there for a few hours before heading out to explore when it got a bit cooler.
Crazy clouds/sky in Nubra

The lighting that day was just incredible; the sky amazing and the clouds moving fast-forward like a psychedelic movie.

I’d decided that this was the place I would hang out for a few days. More Ladakh festival activities in Hundar (the town I stayed..though not really a “town” – more a village) and Diskit.

Nubra valley

Two humps better than one: Bactrian (2 humped) camels

Sad to leave and head back to Leh. But time was running out and I wanted to see some monasteries – and stay overnight to enjoy the atmosphere and morning worship or puja.

Nubra valley

Combat ready Indian police near the Pakistan border

Polo match, Leh

Alchi monastery

Leh tea shop

Ladakh festival in Nubra valley

Another trip - to the amazing Pangong Lake, which is crystal clear and changes colours during the day.
Snow journey to Lake Pangong..

Wildlife...this is a marmot

Beautiful Lake Pangong, crystal clear, and colours changing throught the day

Thikse monastery

Sad to leave and head back to Leh. But time was running out and I wanted to see some monasteries – and stay overnight to enjoy the atmosphere and morning worship or puja.

I stopped off to overnight at Thikse gompa, near the capital. It resembles the Potala Palace in Tibet. But because its so close to Leh morning prayers was also full of groups of tourists…not quite the atmosphere I had wanted. But it was still wonderful sitting in the semi dark and listening to the hypnotic chanting. Also watching some of the naughty young monks playing around before the new crowd of visitors.

It was enough to make me decide to travel to another monastery, Hemis. I hitched some more lifts and arrived around midday. It was a lovely place with a newly opened and very interesting museum. When the day-trippers left, I was the only foreigner staying there apart from another girl who apparently was visiting for several weeks to study Buddhism.

Morning puja was really special a very different atmosphere from Thikse and I’m glad I’d stayed the night.

Young monks at Hemis monastery

I was lucky to get a lift back to Leh. The morning bus never turned up!!
Part of the adventure and joy of travel.

Back to Leh again for final shopping before I flew back to Delhi.

An amazing holiday…incredible landscape; wonderfully hospitable people; I hope I will be back one day.

Ladakh festival

2009-09-24T13:00:00.003+08:00

Just got back from amazing holiday in Himalayan region of Ladakh, India...
it was also the start of the Ladakh festival...

Nepal poor hard-hit by climate changes

2009-08-28T15:29:00.008+08:00

Tending rice saplings

Oxfam has just released a report today looking at how climate changes in Nepal are having a big impact on millions of rural poor.

In the report, "Even the Himalayas Have Stopped Smiling: Climate Change, Poverty and Adaptation in Nepal", farmers said changing weather patterns had dramatically affected crop production, leaving them unable to properly feed themselves and getting into debt. Nepal is already one of the poorest countries in the world (31% of its 28 million population living below the poverty line). And more than 3 million are estimated to require food assistance because of a combination of natural disasters including last year's winter drought - one of the worst in Nepal's history.

Hear some of the voices of the villagers

I helped organise a media trip to the mid west - to Surkhet district. People told us that crop production was way down on previous years. Plus, they were having big problems with water shortages - which had helped to spread an outbreak of diarrhoea (more than 300 killed in the epidemic).

Spindly maize - not enough water

Among recent changes in weather patterns in Nepal are an increase in temperature extremes, more intense rainfall and increased unpredictability in weather patterns, including drier winters and delays in the summer monsoons. The melting of the Himalayan glaciers will also be felt well beyond Nepal's borders. Scientists warn that if the Himalayan glaciers disappear – with some predicting this could happen within 30 years – the impact would be felt by more than one billion people across Asia.

Some of the heaviest burdens have fallen on women who are on the frontline of climate change. They have to travel further distances to fetch water and take on the responsibility for feeding the family as men in many poor households migrate seasonally to seek work.

Men like Padam Bahadur Sunar travel to India for up to 8 months of the year to find casual work to feed the family

Poor and marginalised communities living here - in remote areas that often are several hours walk from the main roadheads - are the most vulnerable to weather shocks and the least able to protect themselves.

Oxfam says more work needs to be done in Nepal by the government and international organisations to create greater awareness about climate change and its likely impacts, to prioritise and institutionalise actions at national level; and help communities to play a greater role themselves in initiatives to reduce their vulnerability.

Nepal is extremely vulnerable to climate change; yet has one of the lowest emissions in the world – just 0.025% of total global greenhouse gas emissions. Oxfam is calling on the world's richest countries, those most responsible for global emissions, to do more to help poor countries like Nepal better adapt and mitigate the effects of climate change when they meet to discuss a global climate treaty in Copenhagen in December – in 100 days from tomorrow

aerial view of the desert - Mali

2009-07-26T15:34:00.007+08:00

Amazing views as I flew from Gao to Bamako, in Mali.

I was lucky enough to get a seat in the cockpit for part of the way.
Impressed by the pilots...

This was my 2nd time in Timbuctu...last time travelled by boat and went to the desert.

Views from the plane - journeying from Gao region, north-east Mali, via Timbuktu and Mopti to Bamako, the capital

Back from the desert in Mali

2009-07-20T05:08:00.008+08:00

Just got back to the Malian capital, Bamako, after spending the last week in the north-eastern Sahelian region..think desert, dust and camels!

It was an exhausting but inspiring trip

Its an extremely poor region; a food deficit area where people are struggling. Yet they are warm and friendly to visitors .

More pix to come..too tired to post now

'Mazing Mali

2009-07-14T06:06:00.010+08:00

I love this country.
And I must have one of the best jobs in the world that allows me the opportunity to travel to such great places

I last visited 13 years ago...and things have changed. Before, the place was pitch black at night save for a few cafe restaurants. Now, the city has electricity, there are lots of cars and motorbikes...

But the charm is still there.

I have been back less than 2 days and head up to the north-east to Gao region tomorrow. But in my disoriented haze on the first day, severely sleep deprived, i stumbled across this great wedding.

Sri Lanka tea farmers hostage to the weather

2009-07-10T18:43:00.001+08:00

Sri Lanka is one of the world’s biggest tea exporters. But production in the first three months of the year fell by more than 41% - the largest drop in a decade. The main reason was a prolonged dry spell, affecting tea cultivation and the income of those working in the industry. Drought-like conditions – not just in Sri Lanka, but in other major tea producing countries – have created a global shortfall of tea; pushing up consumer prices. But workers in the industry are not feeling the benefits of the price hikes.

CLIMATE CHANGE IN THE SUNDERBANS, INDIA

2009-07-09T23:24:00.001+08:00

Daily life is a constant struggle for tens of thousands of people still reeling from the devastating impact of Cyclone Aila which struck eastern India in late May leaving 138 dead and tens of thousands homeless in one of the worst disasters that West Bengal has faced in decades. The hardest hit areas were in the low-lying Sunderbans delta home to the worlds largest mangrove forest

Tea country - and attacked by leeches

2009-06-12T21:08:00.005+08:00

I'm currently in Sri Lanka, looking at the impact climate change is having on the country's tea industry....more of that in another post to come.

But while doing my research, I can boast (?) of a new experience...being bitten by a leech. Eurgh.

apparently their saliva acts as an anti-coagulant; so blood doesnt stop coming out of where they have attacked you. A sobering experience.

I've just googled leeches...and come up with these factoids...

Like earthworms, leeches are hermaphrodites. Some, but not all leeches feed on blood.

A leech attaches itself when it bites, and it will stay attached until it has had its fill of blood. Due to an anticoagulant (hirudin) that leeches secrete, bites may bleed more than a normal wound after the leech is removed. The effect of the anticoagulant will wear off several hours after the leech is removed and the wound is cleaned.

Leeches normally carry parasites in their digestive tract which cannot survive in humans and do not pose a threat. However, bacteria, viruses, and parasites from previous blood sources can survive within a leech for months, and may be retransmitted to humans.

A common but medically inadvisable technique to remove a leech is to apply a flame, a lit cigarette, salt, soap, or a caustic chemical such as alcohol, vinegar, lemon juice, insect repellent, heat rub, or certain carbonated drinks. These cause the leech to regurgitate its stomach contents into the wound and quickly detach. The vomit may carry disease and increases the risk of infection.[3][4][5]

Simply pulling a leech off by grasping it can also cause regurgitation, and adds risks of further tearing the wound, and leaving parts of the leech's jaw in the wound, which can also increase the risk of infection.

Mozambique

2009-04-28T02:33:00.016+08:00

Its a beautiful country...and still very poor. Colonised by the Portuguese, Mozambique gained independence but was then soon plunged into 16 years of civil war.

Backpacking isnt easy; in many places you need a 4 wheel drive, and public transport is on chapas or massively overcrowded vans...fun at times and definitely a good way to meet people. The authorities seem to want only encourage upmarket lodges and hotels...

Lunch..

These shells are so beautiful...and fragile. They're called Pansy Shells, because of the flower etched into the shell. Easy to break into tiny powder pieces, and so amazing to find on the beach.

This is the kind of trivia that comes up in pub quizzes...did you know that Mozambique's flag is the only one in the world featuring the picture of modern gun..an AK47?

Beautiful beaches at Barra..

I really liked this historic town, Inhambane. Great atmosphere..

I have never been able to do handstands...

Kruger national park, South Africa

2009-04-11T19:17:00.014+08:00

I've just come back from a 3 week holiday in South Africa and Mozambique after a 3 month stint working in the south african region - mainly Zimbabwe.

First stop was Kruger National Park in South Africa. Its huge - bigger than many countries.

I only spent a day there...but it was amazing. Spotted four of the "big 5" - including the elusive leopard. Our guide was amazing as we staked out part of the reserve and then moved to the tarred road to watch the magnificent animal slowly and gracefully cross the road into another part of the park.

The prehistoric-looking rhino....spotted walking towards two cheetahs eating some prey

The cheetahs kept looking up every few minutes to make sure no other animals were stalking them while they were busy eating their prey

There were lots of really beautiful birds too...

Victoria Falls Zimbabwe

2009-04-10T00:18:00.011+08:00

They’re one of the most spectacular waterfalls you’ll ever see. The Victoria Falls, which tower more than 100 metres high, majestically dropping into a series of gorges and stretching for more than 1.7 kilometres wide, form the largest curtain of falling water in the world.

The Falls have been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site and straddle the border between Zimbabwe and Zambia along the mighty Zambezi river.

They were considered the crown in the jewel of Zimbabwe’s tourism industry. But these days, there are few international flights and plenty of empty seats.

Today, most tourists – frightened by reports inside Zimbabwe of political repression, food shortages and cholera - opt to see the magnificent waterfalls not in Zimbabwe but in Zambia, where new hotels and river lodges have sprung up. Many Zimbabwean traders and tour operators have also moved their operations across the border.

Small tourist companies in the Zimbabwean town of Victoria Falls, a short stroll from the actual falls, are struggling to survive. I appeared to be the only shopper as I strolled around the town’s open market where crafts, from stone sculptures to wooden bowls and masks, were being sold. Local traders and artists crowded around me, each urging me to look at their wares.

“Just five dollars” they pleaded as I glanced at some bowls. “Special rate. Please - we need to buy some bread today.”

The number of tourists visiting Zimbabwe began to fall nine years ago, when political tensions between supporters and opponents of President Robert Mugabe increased. Tour operators in Victoria Falls told me visitor numbers have dropped to less than 25% of their former levels.

Victoria Falls has some world class lodges and hotels. But there are few clients these days.

On my drive back from a game reserve about an hour and a half away in Botswana, Zimbabwean police stopped motorists at a checkpoint. A female officer asked my driver if he had any food to give her. It was late afternoon, but, she said, she’d been on duty since six in the morning and hadn’t eaten all day.

Across the road, I spotted some other police talking to other motorists who’d climbed out of their vehicle and were talking under the shade of a tree. A loaf of bread was pulled out of a bag and torn into two halves. One policeman walked away, carrying a chunk of bread under his arm.

The country’s political crisis, hyperinflation and a cholera epidema, which has spread across the entire country and killed nearly 4,000 people, has meant Zimbabwe has had a hard time selling itself as an ideal tourist destination.

There are serious food shortages and more than half of the population rely on food hand-outs.

Many of the country’s problems are also evident in this tourist town. The shops are better stocked than in most other towns in Zimbabwe and restaurants have extensive menus. But locals, paid in virtually worthless Zimbabwean currency, are struggling to buy their daily necessities which are mostly sold in South African rand or American dollars.

Children beg for money from the occasional tourist passing by on the streets. Few have been able to return to school. Classes were closed for most of last year when teachers stayed away in protest at their pitiful wages which had failed to keep up with sky-rocketing inflation.

The only bright spot in Victoria Falls, it seems, is that the town itself – unlike most other parts of the country - is cholera-free. For travelers wanting to enjoy spectacular sights with few other visitors as distractions, Victoria Falls is the ultimate place to get away from it all.

Small steps at political reconciliation in Zimbabwe

2009-04-10T00:14:00.003+08:00

The new unity government in Zimbabwe has pledged to work for national reconciliation, as well as tackling the country’s urgent problems, including trying to stem its worst-ever cholera epidemic and ensuring its people have enough food to eat. Its a huge task. The country has been riven by political differences between supporters of President Robert Mugabe and his Zanu-PF party, and those supporting Morgan Tsvangirai, who headed a faction of the Movement for Democratic Change (or MDC). But in one rural area of Zimbabwe, steps have begun to try to heal the wounds of the past and reunite a deeply divided community.

hunger,cholera threaten villagers in Zimbabwe

2009-03-03T15:47:00.002+08:00

Nestled in the Zambezi valley, close to Zimbabwe's northeastern border with Mozambique, Mbire District looks lush and fertile. But appearances can be deceptive. Hunger and desperation stalk the region; and the first cases of cholera have begun appearing. If that wasnt enough, villagers are battling to protect their crops from wild elephants.

The international aid agency, Oxfam, is working in the area; distributing food supplies during the lean "hunger months" from November until April; and carrying out health and hygiene promotion work, to prevent the cholera epidemic, which has claimed nearly 4,000 lives in the country, from spreading further.

Matopos Hills, Bulawayo Zimbabwe

2009-03-02T03:21:00.007+08:00

Antelope Park, Gweru, Zimbabwe

2009-02-27T03:29:00.002+08:00

Chobe national park, Botswana

2009-02-27T01:34:00.008+08:00

One of the great things about my new job is the travel.

One weekend, I went to visit Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe. A day trip was to Chobe park in Botswana...

Snow

2009-02-03T22:18:00.013+08:00

This was the scene I woke up to on Monday morning - thick snow.

Not that unusual in many parts of the world. But it was making headlines in the UK - in particular, south-east England - where it was the heaviest snowfall in 15 years.

It looked beautiful. But I was nervous it could have forced me to cancel my travel plans as I was taking an early evening flight to Johannesburg.

Heathrow airport terminal 5 - normally an oasis of calm - resembled a camp-out. Thousands were sitting on the floors, or queuing..waiting for news of flights.

In the end, announcements were made declaring all european and domestic flights cancelled, with a handful of international flights operating. I dont know why they couldnt have made this clearer to a. prevent people going to the airport and b. to help people hanging around leave more quickly once they knew their flight was a no-show.

Luckily my flight was one of those cleared for take-off...though it was delayed for 2 hours. I was relieved to be flying.

A National Blitz to Control Cholera in Zimbabwe

2009-01-08T01:25:00.004+08:00

A song composed and performed by some of Zimbabwe's best known musicians talking about how to prevent the spread of cholera is set to become the country's unofficial anthem -- at least if the government has its way.

The song,"Cholera -- Chenjerawo", which translates as "Cholera -- Beware" , will be played on radio stations across the country every thirty minutes. Performed by a group of musicians calling themselves Artistes for Health, it's the brainchild of some of Zimbabwe's top performers including Tanga Wekwa Sando and Oliver and Sam Mtukudzi who wanted to do something to help stop the rapid spread of the epidemic -- the country's largest ever recorded outbreak. Cholera has now affected every province in Zimbabwe. More than 33,000 suspected cases have been reported and the disease has claimed over 1,600 deaths.

The first cholera case was reported in August in a suburb of Harare. This week, at a meeting attended by government ministers, provincial governors, traditional chiefs, health experts, the commander of the Zimbabwe's defence forces, diplomats and the media, the government announced what it called a nationwide blitz to control, cure and eliminate the disease.

"Information is the greatest tool in fighting this epidemic", declared Dr Edward Mabhiza, permanent secretary at the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare.
The plan is to recruit as many as 20,000 volunteers to help spread messages about good hygiene. Radio jingles, messages in the papers and on television will be used in the campaign. Pamphlets and posters carrying information on how to prevent cholera are to be distributed everywhere, from beer halls to church entrances, and everyone, from provincial chiefs to soldiers, is being urged to play a part in the national effort.

Theatre groups will be also enlisted. Oxfam, which last month announced a £4 million aid appeal for Zimbabwe, is already using drama groups to promote key health messages as it distributes hygiene kits to vulnerable communities across the country.

Team Arts Works, a drama group working with Oxfam

Using music, theatre, dance and humour, the groups entertain the crowds. But its entertainment with a message, as the shows also highlight the need for careful hand washing and food hygiene.

Yet even the government, which acknowledges there is still some way to go before it can declare the epidemic under control, concedes that it needs more than educational messages to fight the cholera epidemic.

The country's sewage systems have broken down; rubbish is no longer collected and piles up rotting on streets. Hyperinflation has caused many health workers to stay away from work, unable to live on their salaries which are paid in rapidly devaluing Zimbabwean dollars. More boreholes need to be drilled, to provide clean water sources for communities. And many Zimbabweans are struggling to feed themselves.

There are worries that the epidemic could spike with the approach of the peak season of heavy rains, which could spread contamination to shallow wells; flooding; and the movement of infected people within Zimbabwe and to other neighbouring countries.

Education, though, can go a long way. And the call for action to mobilize the nation is an important step forward.