So i'm a bit pants really at the whole blogging thing - but at least started out with the best of intentions!
On Wednesday morning I am catching a small plane down to the Masai Mara where I will spend a lot of time in a 4x4 but hopefully seeing lots of big cats to make it all worthwhile!! I was originally going by road - which should normally only take about 5 hours from Nairobi. However as was widely reported in the media over Christmas, the Mara received hellish amounts of rainfall. Whilst the park has mostly recovered now (it was shut for a period of time over christmas) the main road into the park has been washed away and rendered totally inaccessible for the forseeable future. The two alternatives that I was offered involved either flying (at a further expense) or driving the long way round which take roughyl 9 hours. If you knew what the roads are like you would understand why I therefore chose to catch a small plane. And i'm terrified of planes ESPECIALLY small ones so I hope that illustrates just HOW much I don't want to be on Kenyan roads for 9 hours!!
Anyway, greatly looking forward to it. This week has been spent training hard for the Kilimanjaro trek. Despite spending a lot of time at the well air conditioned gym in Aylesbury (thus giving me the illusion of being fit) I arrive in the heat here and find myself struggling to do just an hour of hard cardio. So amidst my efforts here, my short trip to the Masai Mara - I feel - will be great relief! I almost look forward to the freezing cold early morning game drives. When I say freezing cold I of course am only talking about 14 degrees MINIMUM and there's me with windchill LOL. Oh dear I really am going to struggle when I am back in the UK.
Which is only 32 days away. Very depressing really - whilst I am missing home and all the connotations that go with it - I really am loving my time here. Despite hiccup after hiccup, Kenya has really grown on me. And I only have roughyl 4 and a half weeks left until I pack to come home. Which is another HUGE problematic issue. Packing. Since some intelligent person with an IQ of 2 at BA decided to change baggage policy - I now have to work out how I am going to return to England with ONE bag when I flew OUTHERE WITH TWO. What is that all about?! WHO EMPLOYS THESE PEOPLE/!?! Anyway, I am going to struggle with that I am sure but right now I have bigger fish to fry.
Apprehension is mounting (PUN!) now that the Kili climb is only 2 weeks away. All the usual is running through my mind - what if I don't make it to the top, what if I get attacked by a monkey and get rabies and go mad, am I fit enough? Will my waterproofs leak? Will my leg suddenyl fall off on day one thus rendering my presence there pointless. I MEAN these are all possible circumstances!!
Anyway that's all for now folks. Found our resident colobus monkey climbing the bars on the windows yesterday afternoon and as such we're now having to be obsessive in closing windows and doors. Not too much fun really now that the humidity is building as the rainy season draws closer and temperatures are around 36degrees right until half6 in the evening!
Han
Monday, February 26, 2007
Monday, February 19, 2007
So this weekend just gone, I ventured into the heart of the Great Rift Valley to stay in two towns - Nakuru and Naivasha. By road it is 2 hours to Naivasha and another 2/3 hours on to Nakuru. Both towns have large lakes; Naivasha is a freshwater lake and Nakuru is one of the many soda lakes that are dotted along the rift valley. Flamingos are at Lake Nakuru in abundance, although last year - due to huge drought and the levels of the lake vastly shrinking - the flamingos either flew away or were left for dead on the edge of the lake. They are slowly starting to return, although I cannot imagine anymore in the lake as it was just as if someone had poured strawberry flavoured angel delight all over the lake.
I stayed at the most luxurious of tented camps at Nakuru for one night before staying at the former home of Joy Adamson - Elsamere. They were, understandably, born free mad up at Elsamere and as such I found myself returning home with that stupid John Barry themetune stuck in my head. Learned the meaning of 'early morning game drive' on saturday morning. I think they should rename it 'middle of the night game drive' as I was up at 5am. That is just not healthy. Especially if you're me and allergic to early mornings.
Anyway it was a most enjoyable weekend and it was nice to have another break away from things. Have now started another week of gym training in prep for Kili and will spend the week being healthy (or at least trying to be) and doing lots of exercise. The following week I will be spending several days in the Masai Mara. As it turns out, the roads to get to the mara are now impassable due to heavy rains creating giant mud roads - so I am instead flying there (at a very high cost annoyingly.) This I am most looking forward to, but even more so since I received a parcel from my parents this morning. Amongst the hot chocolate sachets and Hello magazine were two newspaper articles on the Masai Mara. The Mara is a natural reserve and not a national park. The difference is that a national reserve is owned by the local council (in this case the Masai tribesmen) and a national park is under the charge of the Kenyan Wildlife Service. The articles claim that the park entry cost is soon to go up from £22 to £58 PER DAY (well, 24 hours). This is absolutely ludicrous. The Masai are getting too greedy and wanting more money - the charge was only put up from £15 to £22 last year. They claim it is to protect the delicate ecosystem in the Mara and the only way of doing that is to drive away budget tourists and attract less but richer tourists who can provide the same level of revenue to the parks but without the hords of people. I do understand this to a certain extent, but they are not only shootign themselves in the foot (in that the Mara is not the only place to see Lions - Botswana and Namibia have huge safari industries) but not solving the problem! Whilst they are driving away tourists, the clear solution to the preservation of the Masai Mara is to make it a National Park and hand it over to the KWS. By doing this, the KWS would be able to enforce the rules of being in a NP very strictly. The main reason that the Mara has turned into the dustbowl that it has been in times gone by is because of tourists not sticking to the tracks provided and offroading it. But if there is no enforcement of rules like this then people will have no incentive to adhere to them.
By increasing prices so dramatically it is my personal opinion that many tourists will go elsewhere for safaris and the Kenyan government will complain about the lack of tourism. The claim in the newspaper article was that 'People perceive Kenya to be a very cheap holiday destination' and quotes were given of very low rates. However these are only out of season (i.e. going ot the mara when it has been raining lots and the grass is too thick to be able to see anything) and if you visit in July/August/January/February you will pay extortionate prices for the most basic of accommodation. In this way I am glad I am in Kenya now, and not in 5/6 years time when I fear it will be only a small 'elite' that will be able to visit one of the most beautiful countries.
I am very quickly running out of money - due mostly to the living costs in an expat area being so much more than that in Kericho - which is what I budgeted for. Very frustrating and i'm not sure travel agents and the like quite realise what my financial situation is. (for example - assuming it'll be easy to pay for a £100 return flight to the mara) I.e. i'm not some gap year student with bags of money to spare and endless resources. and I am literally going to go back home without a single penny to my name. Perhaps slightly exaggerated but true lol. aaahhh. lol.
I stayed at the most luxurious of tented camps at Nakuru for one night before staying at the former home of Joy Adamson - Elsamere. They were, understandably, born free mad up at Elsamere and as such I found myself returning home with that stupid John Barry themetune stuck in my head. Learned the meaning of 'early morning game drive' on saturday morning. I think they should rename it 'middle of the night game drive' as I was up at 5am. That is just not healthy. Especially if you're me and allergic to early mornings.
Anyway it was a most enjoyable weekend and it was nice to have another break away from things. Have now started another week of gym training in prep for Kili and will spend the week being healthy (or at least trying to be) and doing lots of exercise. The following week I will be spending several days in the Masai Mara. As it turns out, the roads to get to the mara are now impassable due to heavy rains creating giant mud roads - so I am instead flying there (at a very high cost annoyingly.) This I am most looking forward to, but even more so since I received a parcel from my parents this morning. Amongst the hot chocolate sachets and Hello magazine were two newspaper articles on the Masai Mara. The Mara is a natural reserve and not a national park. The difference is that a national reserve is owned by the local council (in this case the Masai tribesmen) and a national park is under the charge of the Kenyan Wildlife Service. The articles claim that the park entry cost is soon to go up from £22 to £58 PER DAY (well, 24 hours). This is absolutely ludicrous. The Masai are getting too greedy and wanting more money - the charge was only put up from £15 to £22 last year. They claim it is to protect the delicate ecosystem in the Mara and the only way of doing that is to drive away budget tourists and attract less but richer tourists who can provide the same level of revenue to the parks but without the hords of people. I do understand this to a certain extent, but they are not only shootign themselves in the foot (in that the Mara is not the only place to see Lions - Botswana and Namibia have huge safari industries) but not solving the problem! Whilst they are driving away tourists, the clear solution to the preservation of the Masai Mara is to make it a National Park and hand it over to the KWS. By doing this, the KWS would be able to enforce the rules of being in a NP very strictly. The main reason that the Mara has turned into the dustbowl that it has been in times gone by is because of tourists not sticking to the tracks provided and offroading it. But if there is no enforcement of rules like this then people will have no incentive to adhere to them.
By increasing prices so dramatically it is my personal opinion that many tourists will go elsewhere for safaris and the Kenyan government will complain about the lack of tourism. The claim in the newspaper article was that 'People perceive Kenya to be a very cheap holiday destination' and quotes were given of very low rates. However these are only out of season (i.e. going ot the mara when it has been raining lots and the grass is too thick to be able to see anything) and if you visit in July/August/January/February you will pay extortionate prices for the most basic of accommodation. In this way I am glad I am in Kenya now, and not in 5/6 years time when I fear it will be only a small 'elite' that will be able to visit one of the most beautiful countries.
I am very quickly running out of money - due mostly to the living costs in an expat area being so much more than that in Kericho - which is what I budgeted for. Very frustrating and i'm not sure travel agents and the like quite realise what my financial situation is. (for example - assuming it'll be easy to pay for a £100 return flight to the mara) I.e. i'm not some gap year student with bags of money to spare and endless resources. and I am literally going to go back home without a single penny to my name. Perhaps slightly exaggerated but true lol. aaahhh. lol.
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Well well well, what a day!
Today we set off to visit the Elephant orphanage on the other side of town. It is called the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust (http://sheldrickwildlifetrust.org) and at at the moment they have 13 baby orphaned elephants in their care. (just put car by mistake - that would be interesting - fitting 13 small elephants into a car ahahahahah anyway ahem) Being the soft touch that I am seeing these small elephants made me literally go weak at the knees. They raise them until they are two years old and then re-introduce them into Tsavo East national park (as opposed to Tsavo West - the one that tourists usually visit). They have been going for years now, and whilst the elephants have a 50% chance of surviving whilst at the orphanage - once in the wild again they do really really well. It's always disheartening to see animals that will have to spend the rest of their lives in capitivity for human reasons such as keeping baby cheetahs as pets etc meaning they'd never be able to fend for themselves with the same instincts as a normal wild cheetah.
Their oldest elephant is 2 years old and the youngest is ONE MONTH. awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww
It was so so tiny (well, it's an elephant I guess it's all relative. you'd be a bit shocked if a human baby was 3 foot tall but still...) they only let visitors in between the hours of 11 and 12 to reduce the amount of human contact they have. Whilst the keepers have a lot of interaction with them - it is all done in the way the elephant's mother would have. They wear blankets to keep them warm as their mother would normally do that (being about 7 times bigger!). They have to keep them warm as pneumonia is the number one killer in baby elephants; of the elephants the orphanage has lost - about 90% die from pneumonia. They also put tarpaulin over them when it rains for the same reason and they sleep in stables with a mattress and blanket! They get fed every 3 hours with milk - in fact the closest to elephant milk that is around is the SMA formula milk given to human babies. It is vegetable based and therefore closer to the milk produced by an elephant than any of the other formulas around. The keepers rotate their time spent with each elephant so that they (the elephants) don't get attached to any one keeper.
Anyway. the elephants were so unbelievably cute - even when they were rolling around in the mud and squirting me...ugh. Still cute though! They made several bids for freedom by trying to crawl through the crowd much to everyone's delight but to no avail they were recaptured and fed more milk (it's a hard life eh?!) And I spent a good quarter of an hour playing with this 1 year old elephant who liked exploring my arms with his trunk (and I thus proceeded to get covered in red mud ... mmmm) and it was so exhilerating stroking and petting a "small" elephant! First the cheetahs, now the elephants...I better not get any ideas like this whilst i'm in the mara or else I might get my head bitten off. Quite literally...
It was 35 degrees C this morning whilst at the elephants and we set off to have lunch up at the club and enjoy a cooling afternoon spent in the ice cold swimming pool. However! It soon clouded over, temperatures had dropped to 14 degrees C (brrrrr freezing) and following the thunder and torrential rain with lightning came the .... HAIL. what the HELL?! Massive humungous balls of hail that were falling out of the sky like some torrid rainfall. The majority of cars pulled off the road to sit it out and the remainder of cars drove at 5kph with their hazard lights on. It was like footage you see of hurricanes in florida where all the trees are leaning scarily horizontally and leaves blowing sideways 6 foot in the air... Global warming anyone...?
The even scarier news is that I am now in my 7th week here and just over half way through my trip. In 6 weeks time I should be safely back home regaling the by-then-boring anecdotes that will dominate my conversation for the next 3 months. Hurrah!
Today we set off to visit the Elephant orphanage on the other side of town. It is called the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust (http://sheldrickwildlifetrust.org) and at at the moment they have 13 baby orphaned elephants in their care. (just put car by mistake - that would be interesting - fitting 13 small elephants into a car ahahahahah anyway ahem) Being the soft touch that I am seeing these small elephants made me literally go weak at the knees. They raise them until they are two years old and then re-introduce them into Tsavo East national park (as opposed to Tsavo West - the one that tourists usually visit). They have been going for years now, and whilst the elephants have a 50% chance of surviving whilst at the orphanage - once in the wild again they do really really well. It's always disheartening to see animals that will have to spend the rest of their lives in capitivity for human reasons such as keeping baby cheetahs as pets etc meaning they'd never be able to fend for themselves with the same instincts as a normal wild cheetah.
Their oldest elephant is 2 years old and the youngest is ONE MONTH. awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww
It was so so tiny (well, it's an elephant I guess it's all relative. you'd be a bit shocked if a human baby was 3 foot tall but still...) they only let visitors in between the hours of 11 and 12 to reduce the amount of human contact they have. Whilst the keepers have a lot of interaction with them - it is all done in the way the elephant's mother would have. They wear blankets to keep them warm as their mother would normally do that (being about 7 times bigger!). They have to keep them warm as pneumonia is the number one killer in baby elephants; of the elephants the orphanage has lost - about 90% die from pneumonia. They also put tarpaulin over them when it rains for the same reason and they sleep in stables with a mattress and blanket! They get fed every 3 hours with milk - in fact the closest to elephant milk that is around is the SMA formula milk given to human babies. It is vegetable based and therefore closer to the milk produced by an elephant than any of the other formulas around. The keepers rotate their time spent with each elephant so that they (the elephants) don't get attached to any one keeper.
Anyway. the elephants were so unbelievably cute - even when they were rolling around in the mud and squirting me...ugh. Still cute though! They made several bids for freedom by trying to crawl through the crowd much to everyone's delight but to no avail they were recaptured and fed more milk (it's a hard life eh?!) And I spent a good quarter of an hour playing with this 1 year old elephant who liked exploring my arms with his trunk (and I thus proceeded to get covered in red mud ... mmmm) and it was so exhilerating stroking and petting a "small" elephant! First the cheetahs, now the elephants...I better not get any ideas like this whilst i'm in the mara or else I might get my head bitten off. Quite literally...
It was 35 degrees C this morning whilst at the elephants and we set off to have lunch up at the club and enjoy a cooling afternoon spent in the ice cold swimming pool. However! It soon clouded over, temperatures had dropped to 14 degrees C (brrrrr freezing) and following the thunder and torrential rain with lightning came the .... HAIL. what the HELL?! Massive humungous balls of hail that were falling out of the sky like some torrid rainfall. The majority of cars pulled off the road to sit it out and the remainder of cars drove at 5kph with their hazard lights on. It was like footage you see of hurricanes in florida where all the trees are leaning scarily horizontally and leaves blowing sideways 6 foot in the air... Global warming anyone...?
The even scarier news is that I am now in my 7th week here and just over half way through my trip. In 6 weeks time I should be safely back home regaling the by-then-boring anecdotes that will dominate my conversation for the next 3 months. Hurrah!
Sunday, February 4, 2007
ERRR so picture this if you will…
There I am innocently sunbathing in the garden for half an hour. I am with my hands behind my head (as one does). All of a sudden I feel claws drag across my hands and I look up to see a red kite inches from my face before flying off again (obviously realising that my hands were indeed attached to the rest of my 6 foot body and no I wasn’t food). Cheeky blighter! The red kites here are commonplace – they take permanent residence on the lawn eating the fallen avocados from the tree. But it is not everyday one tries to make a pass at eating you. Ah.
Other animal related stories this week…The house is meant to be anti-monkey because it has about 6 or 7 Bombax trees. They are evil – they have spikes all over the branches so the monkeys don’t climb them hence SUPPOSEDLY you don’t have monkeys. Monkeys are a huge problem here, baboons being the worst, and they can wreck houses just hunting for food. So as you might have guessed we have a resident monkey. But not just any old monkey! A male colobus monkey. Each day he has ventured a little further up the garden and we’re now being especially cautious to shut windows etc as this could potentially turn into a really nasty situation. I, however, am most excited about this latest development! In the blurb provided to us Kilimanjaro trekkers by Kuoni, Colobus monkeys are written about with such excitement e.g. ‘watch out for the rare colobus monkey’ ER got one in the bloody backyard. They are magnificent though, they have these white ruffles on their bellies and a white fluffy hat like an old gentleman with white hair.
Another growing problem here, and across the country is the Rift Valley Fever. It isn’t actually a problem here in Nairobi – no one living in Nairobi has caught it yet. But it is a huge problem in Naivasha/Nakuru area (which is about 2/3 hours west of here towards Lake Victoria). People are literally dropping like flies. This bodes well of course when you then take into account that I will be spending 4 days in that exact area on safari etc in 2 weekends time. Ahahahahahaha! It is spread through undercooked meat, such as steaks etc so I think my eating policy for that weekend will be adapted to vegetarian mode. There is a cure, but unsurprisingly it all comes down to cost. The harsh reality of it is that people just can’t afford to get treated and there aren’t sufficient enough facilities in the local and more rural areas to get the correct treatment.
Despite being the middle of summer and many parts of Kenya reaching 50° C every day – the last two nights we have seen torrid and torrential rain. This kind of rain is what leads to flash flooding and within the space of hours parts of Nairobi are awash with muddy water and the roads have deteriorated beyond belief. These are further effects felt here of the El Nino phenomenon. It seems that Africa is the continent that is least harming the planet in terms of global warming but is most seeing the effects of other countries polluting. The arid land and extreme drought are testimony to the furthered effects of desertification across this amazing continent. And while some elements of this are natural processes, we are acting as a catalyst and only provoking the problem. Being a bit of a greenpeace groupie I find this very hard to bear witness too. It reminds me of some quote in the film ‘Sahara’ – ‘It’s alright, nobody cares about Africa’. To a certain extent this is true. Multinational companies may have green policies and seem to be ethical but it is they who dump waste on the continent. It is they who trial new untested medications on locals out here abusing the fact that they can’t afford medication so they offer it free (constant gardener anyone? It’s true). It is they who burn the natural gases produced from the oil refinery process – and produce more in the way of greenhouse gases than would be regulated in their native country where they are signed up to the Kyoto protocol… Another story that failed to ever make the news was the wash up of nuclear waste bins on the Somali coast. The Italians had been illegally dumping into the Indian Ocean for years and it was only after the Tsunami of 2004 that these bins were washed up on the Somali coast. Locals opened these bins inquisitively (as anyone would do if huge big bins appeared on the beach) and there are huge exposure health issues now as a result.
Is it just me that this saddens? It’s not even anger. It’s extreme sadness that we willingly live in our own naivety, turning off the tap when we brush our teeth to be green. But really what difference does that make when we continue to (often unknowingly) support big organisations that are slowly destroying our planet. You say ‘a football field’s worth of amazon rainforest gets cut down every 18 seconds’ to anyone and it’s upsetting to hear. But what do we actually do about all of this? I’m not trying to convert people to become lunatic save the planet types, but isn’t it all a little frustrating that we are being shown adverts on saving the planet and making a difference when we’re really not. Our country is tiny. I know that we as Brits use stupid quantities of electricity and fuel – I myself am guilty in that I was too lazy to ever walk from school to tesco so we would drive. Hands up who else drives when they could really just walk?
When there are 435 million living in the European Union alone compared to the number of brits trying to energy save (which will be nowhere near the 60 million who reside in the UK). Aren’t we being made to feel guilty enough? Are our efforts all just futile? I get the impression most people are already feeling strongly about global warming but surely the next step for the government would be to actually try and make a global difference. So long as America doesn’t sign up to the Kyoto protocol or anything like it – what are we doing wasting our time getting stressy about turning off the odd light or two? It’s not like America can’t afford to use more Eco-friendly methods of living – such as running cars on Ethanol (distilled from sugar – the Congo’s largest export btw and being 5 times the size of France supply and demand would not be a huge issue). It’s because we’re nearing a US election and they don’t want to upset car manufacturers, factories and the like for fear of losing votes. I could just scream with frustration!!!
And would someone please explain this new air tax to me please? Being 4000 miles away and relying solely on the 2 dodgy international news channels (one being Sky, which reported Jo S’Club from celebrity big brother in an interview claiming to be suicidal ABOVE the birdflu story and destruction of recent ceasefire in Gaza….) So anyway it all seems to be a little unclear at the moment, but has the government actually given any information as to what the money will be spent on? Or will it be joining the lottery funds that are soon to be raided by Mr Brown in an attempt to cover the costs of the 2012 games that have reportedly risen to 5bn? What the hell is going on?
More importantly above ANY of these global issues is the superficial problem of what to do with the great big djembe drum I have recently purchased at a local market…It is literally about 3 ½ feet tall and I arrived about 7 kg over the weight limit….bags that is. Not me. So I’m not entirely sure what I will be doing to solve that problem….
Until next week. Leave a comment! Even just to say hi – I want to hear from you!
There I am innocently sunbathing in the garden for half an hour. I am with my hands behind my head (as one does). All of a sudden I feel claws drag across my hands and I look up to see a red kite inches from my face before flying off again (obviously realising that my hands were indeed attached to the rest of my 6 foot body and no I wasn’t food). Cheeky blighter! The red kites here are commonplace – they take permanent residence on the lawn eating the fallen avocados from the tree. But it is not everyday one tries to make a pass at eating you. Ah.
Other animal related stories this week…The house is meant to be anti-monkey because it has about 6 or 7 Bombax trees. They are evil – they have spikes all over the branches so the monkeys don’t climb them hence SUPPOSEDLY you don’t have monkeys. Monkeys are a huge problem here, baboons being the worst, and they can wreck houses just hunting for food. So as you might have guessed we have a resident monkey. But not just any old monkey! A male colobus monkey. Each day he has ventured a little further up the garden and we’re now being especially cautious to shut windows etc as this could potentially turn into a really nasty situation. I, however, am most excited about this latest development! In the blurb provided to us Kilimanjaro trekkers by Kuoni, Colobus monkeys are written about with such excitement e.g. ‘watch out for the rare colobus monkey’ ER got one in the bloody backyard. They are magnificent though, they have these white ruffles on their bellies and a white fluffy hat like an old gentleman with white hair.
Another growing problem here, and across the country is the Rift Valley Fever. It isn’t actually a problem here in Nairobi – no one living in Nairobi has caught it yet. But it is a huge problem in Naivasha/Nakuru area (which is about 2/3 hours west of here towards Lake Victoria). People are literally dropping like flies. This bodes well of course when you then take into account that I will be spending 4 days in that exact area on safari etc in 2 weekends time. Ahahahahahaha! It is spread through undercooked meat, such as steaks etc so I think my eating policy for that weekend will be adapted to vegetarian mode. There is a cure, but unsurprisingly it all comes down to cost. The harsh reality of it is that people just can’t afford to get treated and there aren’t sufficient enough facilities in the local and more rural areas to get the correct treatment.
Despite being the middle of summer and many parts of Kenya reaching 50° C every day – the last two nights we have seen torrid and torrential rain. This kind of rain is what leads to flash flooding and within the space of hours parts of Nairobi are awash with muddy water and the roads have deteriorated beyond belief. These are further effects felt here of the El Nino phenomenon. It seems that Africa is the continent that is least harming the planet in terms of global warming but is most seeing the effects of other countries polluting. The arid land and extreme drought are testimony to the furthered effects of desertification across this amazing continent. And while some elements of this are natural processes, we are acting as a catalyst and only provoking the problem. Being a bit of a greenpeace groupie I find this very hard to bear witness too. It reminds me of some quote in the film ‘Sahara’ – ‘It’s alright, nobody cares about Africa’. To a certain extent this is true. Multinational companies may have green policies and seem to be ethical but it is they who dump waste on the continent. It is they who trial new untested medications on locals out here abusing the fact that they can’t afford medication so they offer it free (constant gardener anyone? It’s true). It is they who burn the natural gases produced from the oil refinery process – and produce more in the way of greenhouse gases than would be regulated in their native country where they are signed up to the Kyoto protocol… Another story that failed to ever make the news was the wash up of nuclear waste bins on the Somali coast. The Italians had been illegally dumping into the Indian Ocean for years and it was only after the Tsunami of 2004 that these bins were washed up on the Somali coast. Locals opened these bins inquisitively (as anyone would do if huge big bins appeared on the beach) and there are huge exposure health issues now as a result.
Is it just me that this saddens? It’s not even anger. It’s extreme sadness that we willingly live in our own naivety, turning off the tap when we brush our teeth to be green. But really what difference does that make when we continue to (often unknowingly) support big organisations that are slowly destroying our planet. You say ‘a football field’s worth of amazon rainforest gets cut down every 18 seconds’ to anyone and it’s upsetting to hear. But what do we actually do about all of this? I’m not trying to convert people to become lunatic save the planet types, but isn’t it all a little frustrating that we are being shown adverts on saving the planet and making a difference when we’re really not. Our country is tiny. I know that we as Brits use stupid quantities of electricity and fuel – I myself am guilty in that I was too lazy to ever walk from school to tesco so we would drive. Hands up who else drives when they could really just walk?
When there are 435 million living in the European Union alone compared to the number of brits trying to energy save (which will be nowhere near the 60 million who reside in the UK). Aren’t we being made to feel guilty enough? Are our efforts all just futile? I get the impression most people are already feeling strongly about global warming but surely the next step for the government would be to actually try and make a global difference. So long as America doesn’t sign up to the Kyoto protocol or anything like it – what are we doing wasting our time getting stressy about turning off the odd light or two? It’s not like America can’t afford to use more Eco-friendly methods of living – such as running cars on Ethanol (distilled from sugar – the Congo’s largest export btw and being 5 times the size of France supply and demand would not be a huge issue). It’s because we’re nearing a US election and they don’t want to upset car manufacturers, factories and the like for fear of losing votes. I could just scream with frustration!!!
And would someone please explain this new air tax to me please? Being 4000 miles away and relying solely on the 2 dodgy international news channels (one being Sky, which reported Jo S’Club from celebrity big brother in an interview claiming to be suicidal ABOVE the birdflu story and destruction of recent ceasefire in Gaza….) So anyway it all seems to be a little unclear at the moment, but has the government actually given any information as to what the money will be spent on? Or will it be joining the lottery funds that are soon to be raided by Mr Brown in an attempt to cover the costs of the 2012 games that have reportedly risen to 5bn? What the hell is going on?
More importantly above ANY of these global issues is the superficial problem of what to do with the great big djembe drum I have recently purchased at a local market…It is literally about 3 ½ feet tall and I arrived about 7 kg over the weight limit….bags that is. Not me. So I’m not entirely sure what I will be doing to solve that problem….
Until next week. Leave a comment! Even just to say hi – I want to hear from you!
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