It’s monsoon and, during these rainy days, my mind wanders to thoughts of ten-year-old Tariq. I remember his family cowering under their small shack in Koyra of southwestern Bangladesh.
Most of all I remember his tranquil big brown eyes cloud over with fear when he spoke about Cyclone Aila.
We need community workers, cars and fuel to physically go out, find these children, bring them back and save their lives.
And we need to help families in the longer term. They need food now, but they also needs to be protected from having to sell seeds and tools for just a few days of food.
It’s been about three weeks since I returned to the cool northern highlands but I’m still not taking my escape from the heat for granted. I spent nearly two weeks wilting in the extreme heat of Ethiopia’s Afar region, home to the Danakil Depression – the hottest place on earth at 100m below sea level. I’d never experienced heat like this before. When our car broke down in the desert we ventured out with a thermometer and weren’t surprised to see it read 43°C.
It’s always a bit strange meeting someone whose voice you’ve heard so often on the radio but never seen what they look like in the flesh. Before meeting Mike Thomson – reporter for BBC Radio 4 Today Programme – I did a quick google on him to find a picture. In reality the picture didn’t look like him at all so it wasn’t much help!
I just read the latest blog by my friend Genevieve Rasle. While I was celebrating 5,400 lives being saved, she experienced the sheer horror of one life being lost. Reading her post made my hair stand on end.
Go and read it now, then come back.
Ginny’s absolutely right. Every preventable death is a death too many. No child should be dying in 2010 from diarrhoea, measles, pneumonia, malaria. It’s insane.
Almost 10 million children die each year from conditions that are simple to prevent and treat. That’s a huge number, impossible to imagine.
After an intense two weeks on the advanced field training (AFT) course, my mind turned towards the next half of my internship that I would be spending in South Sudan.
I felt well-prepared after six months of working and participating in training courses in London, although I was not sure how the freezing temperatures in the Welsh hills on the AFT would help in the 35+ temperatures of Africa’s largest country…
Sure enough, on arrival, it was the heat that hit me and a realisation that this rather alien environment would be home for the next six months. As soon as I stepped off the plane I started sweating and I have not stopped since. Why i packed three jumpers in my luggage I will never know.
Spencer with children from one of our programmes in Angola
I was incredibly lucky to receive a visa into Angola, entirely due to the British High Commissioner’s intervention (presumably after pulling strings somewhere along the bureaucratic line). It was full throttle ahead out of Windhoek and into Angola, but not quite!
Leaving Namibia was not a problem but then having to wait three days before entry into Angola was, as this left me in a stretch of no man’s land between the two borders.
However, not to be daunted, we booked into a “pension” at $55 per night, no facilities whatever, not even water and, having been warned not to venture onto the street with goods due to a strong likelihood of mugging, everything was stored in a room sporting burglar bars and a stout lockable key (presumably to instil confidence).
We then made off to collect food, only to return some ten minutes later to find the door kicked in and everything gone. Well, I’m sure you are able to imagine the worry and panic that ensued.
Today we visited a camp in Port-au-Prince where about 1,400 people have gathered in what is essentially the yard of a large house. The house owner lives up the road and has allowed these families to live on his property. Families are sleeping in tents or in makeshift shelters.
…I haven’t written for a while, but things are still live and kicking here in Myanmar and activities in the Delta just got busier for the logistics teams!
Tiripo!! I’m doing great, thanks. I’ve learnt the correct Shona response at last! People here in Zimbabwe never forget to ask, no matter what troubles they may have at home. Even as I walk in to work every morning, passersby will say, Mamukasei! Good morning! They smile and wave from across the street.
