The Road to Ifakara

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Annemarie:

Well I knew we would have to have some mud at some point but wow, this is a bit much. It’s raining hard and we’re driving down a road that a website has said could be impassable in the rainy season. Martin is in a ‘determined’ mood, Hector is less sure and keeps on with his not-starting tactic which makes us very reluctant to turn the engine off. This is resulting in some long, unrelenting drives.

Ifakara is not on the beaten track, in fact we’re amazed at the amount of traffic that is also plunging down this muddy river/road; why are they all going to Ifakara?  Buses are the worst. On the main Tanzam highway they have been driving crazily fast and literally pushing other drivers off the road on narrow stretches. It’s all made worse by a news report we saw a couple of days ago of a bus in a head-on collision with a couple of trucks, killing 43 immediately but with the death toll rising by the day. We thought we’d escape them on this smaller offshoot of a road but no, one ploughs straight past us and a broken down truck in front of us, shooting great washes of muddy water over the people trying to mend the truck and virtually toppling into the ditch at the side of the road. We crawl past the truck and check they’re OK, at least we’re behind the bus now. The rain gets worse, the windscreen wipers can’t really keep up, please let us arrive soon.

Then suddenly it stops and we’re pulling into a small but bustling town, looking for a convent. There’s a huge brick church at the end of a muddy road and we draw to a halt. A nun wearing a habit as dark grey as the sky but with a radiant smile greets us “We’ve been waiting for you! Come in!” Sister Olimpia is incredibly welcoming. We’ve come to see yet another (thank you Martin) bakery. This one is run by the nuns and since 2001, when the ovens were shipped in, it has been running profitably, selling to those who can afford to pay, with bread  given to the very poorest in the community.  

Sister Olimpia shows us through the side door of the convent to the bakery itself. The warm smell of bread is all that remains of the day’s activities so we admire the inactive mixer and the huge ovens. As I snap a picture she dashes off to grab a friend, Sister Hilda. They’re quite bubbly with the idea that we have come all the way down this road in the rain to see them and the bakery. Have we seen their new building? No, Ok, we’ll take a look. It’s going to be a much bigger shop and store and an office base for the business. Money for the building work is a problem but it’s coming in gradually.

The Ifakara bakery is the brain-child of Eugene and Margaret Schellenberg. They first visited their son and his wife and family, who were young doctors working in the area, in 1998 and were horrified at the child mortality rate – a real indicator of true poverty. They wanted to set up the bakery to provide a source of food that would be available even when the maize crop failed. So, they raised funds over the next two years, bought and shipped in ovens, trained the sisters and helped them develop the market. They then handed over the running completely. The business rapidly became self-sustaining and so their role is now to oversee the accounts and fund raise to enable the bakery to give free bread to schools, the hospital, an orphanage and a leprosy centre.

Eugene and Margaret’s son and daughter in law are now respectively Prof. of Malaria at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Prof. of Epidemiology also at the LSHTM.  I wonder if they know Andrew and Madeleine Bastawrous - what a small world!

Tanga to Tinga

Annemarie:

Tanzania is, in a word, busy. Every village you pass through has stalls and shops by the roadside and people are either carrying things to market or taking home their purchases. Bicycles, motorbikes and tuk-tuks are laden with people and produce; chickens dangle upside down, goats, piglets and even calves are carried across the seat or over the frame at the back of a motorbike. Not sure they make good passengers! Huge sacks of maize, potatoes and other lumpy unidentifiable goods are carried on heads or sandwiched between two people, charcoal bundles are loaded five or six high on a bike, which is then wheeled laboriously to the roadside destination. Fruits and vegetables are piled in impossibly high pyramids on stalls; onions hang from the roof frame or are laid out in neat rows; beans and maize lie drying on huge mats.

This scene of business reflects the rural Tanzanians who are largely subsistence farmers but who also grow a few crops for sale. The small towns have cheery, efficient fuel stations often with modern pumps. We see school signs again and hordes of children either walking purposefully toward them or meandering and joshing with each other on their way home. There are lots of bicycle repair stalls to keep the overworked and heavily loaded bikes on the road and even the occasional bakery!

We’re whizzing past these rural pictures again, on relatively fast roads heading for a night in Dar es Salaam. With an odd sense of coincidence this is also to visit a sister of a very good UK friend and she’s also called Deborah. Our rapid progress slows as we stop for petrol and Hector decides he’s gone far enough and won’t start. After some ‘under the bonnet fiddling’ and much cursing, he cooperates and we turn up in Dar’s ex-pat sector just as the sun sets. We’re welcomed by a trio of dogs, Debbie, her lovely daughter Ruby and an excitingly English supper of shepherd’s pie and peas!  Debbie has travelled a lot in Africa working in leadership positions for VSO and Save the Children, has set up and run a school and is now an author of a lively little number: “The Darling Menopause” so we have a wide-ranging discussion. Her husband, Nick, a lawyer, arrives home and joins the debate over a glass of wine. We have turned up empty-handed due to Hector’s delaying tactics so we break out our only feasible contribution: chocolate. It turns into a perfect evening, a hot shower, intelligent talk, supper, chocolate - bliss. We retire to our roof tent very happy.

Next day we’re struck by a painting in Debbie’s home.  We saw some in the same style on our first visit to Tanzania in December: brightly coloured, stylized busy pictures of street scenes, hospitals, markets and menageries of fantastical animals. We find out they are known as TingaTinga paintings named after the artist, Edward Tingatinga who first created the style in the 1960’s. What’s more we’re in luck, the art co-operative that produces them is literally down the road. We spend a couple of hours talking to the artists and buying several canvases to take home. We couldn’t have a better means of remembering our time here.

tingatinga3.jpg

The Battle of the Bees

"Battle of Tanga, 3rd–5th November, 1914" by Martin Frost (German War Artist - 1875–1928)

Martin:

Our journey down from the Usambara Mountains towards the coast took us along the route of Tanzania's first railway. At the beginning of the First World War, this was German East Africa, and the Usambara Railway provided a key strategic link between the colony's interior and its busy sea-port of Tanga. The town was only 50kms or so south of British East Africa, modern-day Kenya, so when war broke out it wasn't long before the British High Command began planning an attack. Capture Tanga and the whole of German East Africa would surely quickly fall.

I'd just started reading William Boyd's An Ice-cream War, which tells the story of the tragic but farcical Battle of Tanga and wanted to see for myself what remained of the events there.

The man chosen to lead the attack  on Tanga was an Indian army officer, Major-General Arthur Aitken. On the 16th October he set out from Bombay (now Mumbai) with a convoy of 45 ships including 14 troop transports. The ships carried an 8,000 strong invasion force, some were regulars from the 2nd Battalion of the Loyal North Lancashires, but the vast majority of Aitken's troops were poorly trained and badly- equipped Indian reserves. After a two week journey on the overcrowded transports most of the soldiers arrived off the African coast malnourished and weakened by seasickness.

HMS Fox

Meanwhile, ahead of the invasion fleet, on the 2nd November 1914 the British warship HMS Fox hove too off Tanga. The original plan had been to bombard the town and force its surrender. But this was a time when wars were fought by gentlemen and there was a prior agreement in place that guaranteed the neutrality of Tanga. The commander of HMS Fox, Captain Francis Caulfield decided that it was only fair to warn the Germans that the deal was now off. He went ashore to speak to the German District officer and gave Tanga one hour to surrender. Before leaving he politely inquired if the harbour was mined. It wasn't, but the German assured him that it was. As soon as Caulfield had left a call was put out to the German army commander Lieutenant Colonel Lettow-Vorbeck. A brilliant tactician Lettow-Vorbeck would go on to become the bain of the British Army in Africa. He rushed to Tanga gathering reinforcements on the way.

Some hours later the German flag was still flying over Tanga. Caulfield chose not to bombard but began sweeping the harbour for mines. When the invasion fleet arrived Aitken decided the best thing to do would be to immediately land his forces  - 3km south of Tanga on an "unmined" beach. But with no prior reconnaissance the already weakened invasion force found themselves struggling ashore through a mangrove swamp. It took two days to get the troops onto dry land. Meanwhile Lettow-Vorbeck marshalled his forces.

German Askaris (African troops) attack

Frustrated by the delay, and again with no prior intelligence of enemy positions, Aitken ordered his ill-prepared force to advance on Tanga. Though outnumbered 8 to 1 the German forces quickly broke up the first advance. Then all hell broke loose. Some of the British managed to break through to the town but were driven back by naval gunfire from HMS Fox - which though it had no idea where the Germans were but began shelling anyway. As their own shells fell on them the British and Indians were set upon by hoardes of viciously-stinging African bees which had been disturbed by the gunfire. As one British soldier observed afterwards "We don't mind the German fire, but with most of our officers and NCOs down and a bunch of n****s firing into our backs and bees stinging our backsides, things were a bit 'ard...".

The invasion soon turned into a rout. Nearly 400 British and Indian troops died in the swamps with a similar number wounded or captured. German casualties were less than a 150. The British Official History of the War described the battle "as one of the most notable failures in British Military History"

Indian soldiers lie dead on the beach

We managed to track down the beaches where the failed invasion took place. There are still mangroves there but nothing else to recall the tragic events of November 1914. It's all very peaceful and a little forlorn today.

The invasion beaches today

Tanga was eventually captured by a Commonwealth force, with very little opposition, in 1916. At that time the bodies of 270 unidentified officers and men who had been killed in the earlier battle were reburied in the Tanga Memorial Cemetery. They were among 64 British and 330 Indians who died in "the Battle of the Bees". Their names are inscribed on the memorial wall.

The cemetery was supposed to be open when we arrived but we found the gate padlocked. A kind local brought us a chair to stand on and we climbed over the fence. Annemarie laid a small flower on the memorial. I don't expect the memorial receives many visitors. I think one day I'd like to make a documentary about this.

Tanga Memorial Cemetery

Tanga Memorial Cemetery

Ups and Downs

Martin:

Change of plan. Rather than head directly south from the Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater through Tanzania to Malawi we’ve decided we can’t miss out on seeing the Indian Ocean. On the way we decide to stop at an eco-lodge built upon a cliff top in the Usambara mountains.

By the time we turn off the main road to take the 4x4 route up to lodge it’s mid-afternoon and blisteringly hot in the scrubby desert at the base of the mountain range. We pull over for a short break but when we try to start off again the engine won’t turn over. The starter motor is completely dead – first time that has happened.  Thirty minutes of fiddling around with the contacts and it fires. Phew we’re on our way again.

We have the GPS on and find the turn off through a village that we’ve been told to take. A few miles further on our instructions say take a diversion and cross through a dry river bed. We descend down into it and out the other side but fairly quickly the road on the opposite side disappears into bushes. This can’t be right. And there are no tyre tracks anywhere to indicate other cars may have passed by recently.  We re-cross the riverbed and find what appears to be a dirt road leading along the bank of the river towards the mountains. Maybe it’s this way now – routes change quickly around here.

We know we’re definitely on an old road, and it seems to be going the right way, but it’s not easy going. There are a couple of tricky descents in and out of stream crossings and then the road begins to climb.

The narrowing track is now steep and crumbly on the edges. Large boulders have fallen down from the cliff above and there’s a sheer drop to the left.

Annemarie climbs out to walk ahead. At one point I have to coax Hector over a largish boulder and I stall. Starting up again the car slides alarmingly towards the cliff edge as the passenger side rear wheel loses grip. I try again – it slips some more. This is getting a little dodgy. I can’t get out of the car because the handbrake won’t hold it. I have to keep my foot on the brake pedal.

Annemarie suggests she takes her phone out of the car just in case she needs to call for help. I hope she’s not envisaging me going over the edge! She puts some large stones under the rear wheel and I try again. It’s just enough to give the car some traction and I’m off again. This time I don’t stop and continue on round a couple of switchbacks much further up the mountain. 

Annemarie jumps back in. The road begins to level out and we’re beginning to think the worst is over. Then we round a corner to find a huge boulder the size of a car blocking the road. There’s no way through this time. We’ll have to turn round and go back.

The twenty-point turn is a bit of a drama with only a few inches to manoeuvre in between the cliff edge and the rock face but eventually we’re on our way back down.  Descending is a little easier than going up but its now getting dark. Then the rim of the tyre falls along a sharp rock and we have a puncture. The first of our trip and not the time or place for it.  We make it to a bit of level ground and change the tyre in the dark.

But there’s a tricky dry stream bed to cross and the climb out of it is just a little too narrow before a short drop.  If we slip sideways it’s only a few feet to fall but we could tip over.

We get out and Annemarie starts piling rocks on the driver’s side while I dig out some of the earth bank on the other – widening the space for our wheels. Suddenly, she yells out “Snake!”

“Where,” I say.

“Snake, snake,” she screams.

I’m frozen to the spot – not wanting to move in case the snake is by my feet. “Where is it?” I ask.

“Big … Snake,” she replies.

“Are you sure, where,” I yell.

“Really big snake!” she says.  By now she’s scrambling up the ladder and continuing to tell me how big the snake is from the top of the Land Rover.

It occurs to me this is not overly helpful. Then, as I look around I see the back of a very large puff adder disappearing into the darkness beneath the car.  It had come from the pile of rocks Annemarie was moving – she’d just had a very narrow escape. Puff adders are considered the most dangerous snakes in Africa because they are sluggish and don’t always move away when humans approach. That means there’s far more chance of disturbing one and getting bitten.  If one of us had been bitten out there in the dark with the car stuck we would have been in trouble.

Once we were sure the snake had gone we finished our road repairs and managed to get going again. Managing to get a call through to the lodge they explained that we must have gone wrong at the first river crossing. We should have followed the dry river bed for a few hundred metres and then climbed out of it rather than just cross it. They suggested we might like to camp where were rather than come up the 4x4 route at night – it’s a little tricky. But there was no way now that we were not getting to that hotel – and the promise of a meal and a hot shower. Nothing could be worse than the drive we’d just had.

We head off the right way or rather we nearly head off. Hector’s starter motor refuses to kick in again. It takes a few threats – and a few more minutes of twiddling around beneath the bonnet but finally he plays along and we carry on up the cliff road.

An hour later we’re eating pizza – bliss.

A Sliced White for Education

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Annemarie:

“Why are we going here? Is it somewhere we can stay? It’s another bakery isn’t it?” Martin is non-plussed. I am having to sneak bakery visits into the schedule as we begin to squeeze our timeline a little; the end of our journey is in sight now, every day and every place we visit is being carefully decided, but this is a place I really want to see. ‘I’m sure you’ll love it and it’s not far out of our way…” I cajole.

Rhotia Valley Lodge and Children’s Home were set up by Marisa and George in 2007, with the concept from the start of developing a project that could fund itself.  Now, just seven years on, they have two thriving organisations, which seem to be totally self-sustaining. The lodge itself is beautiful, tastefully designed and fitting really well into the local landscape, perched on a hillside bordering the Ngororogo Conservation Area. The tented rooms are perfect and attract a range of people who will pay for the privilege of staying in a sought after area, under canvas and yet with all the luxury of a five star setting – and with wonderful fresh bread at the table night and morning. Yes, there’s a bakery! It’s been built into the business model and provides regular loaves bought by the local community plus a wholemeal version baked for the lodge guests. The profits from the bakery fund the secondary education of the children in the Rhotia Valley home and other children from the Rhotia Valley community. The running costs of the home itself are funded by 20% of the turnover of the lodge.

Marisa greets us enthusiastically when we arrive and talks through some of the teething problems of setting up and their ideals and philosophy: They were both doctors in the Netherlands and after working in Africa wanted to do something that was a permanent positive influence with a real legacy. So they diversified, transitioning from hospitals to hospitality with a strong ethos of local involvement and engagement. It’s an impressive list of achievements in only seven years.

Early next day I explore the bakery with their wonderful Italian manager, Valerio. I meet the master baker and manager Habibu and his team, Anatol and Yusuf and watch as they deftly cut and shape the dough for two batches of loaves while we talk about the marketing of the bread with seller Ezekial. At present the most popular loaf is still the white sliced and even a diversification to add pumpkin seeds on the top wasn’t popular. The message is that to make the profits they need to fund the children’s education they had to listen to what’s in demand now and take any steps towards a healthier product very slowly.  The bread is branded ‘Bread for Education’ with bags printed with this message so it’s unmistakably a purchase that will have benefits over and above any other similar products in the marketplace.

George picks up the story when we get back to lodge, he describes their scheme to incentivise the local teachers and improve standards of tuition, paying a bonus direct to teachers based on their attendance, pupil achievements and classroom facilities. And it doesn’t stop there; some of the youngsters are now reaching the point of leaving school. One wants to be a pilot but others have more local ambitions and to provide another arm to the set up, George and Marisa have developed a roadside café. It will cater to the passing tourist bus trade and will employ local youngsters, giving them a qualification and a start in the catering and tourism business, which is becoming increasingly important in the Tanzanian economy.

Today it’s George’s birthday and in the absence of a cake, Valerio, who is teaching a group of students to make a pasta sauce, decorates it with some mushrooms in the shape of his age and we all gather round for a taste and to wish George well. He deserves more plaudits, he and Marisa are creating something which is tangibly succeeding, benefiting not only the young orphans of the area but also its wider community, creating employment and motivation. Many happy returns George and thank you for sharing your story.

Maasai Mara

Martin:

From Nairobi we headed south-west to the Maasai Mara National Park. It’s one of Africa’s greatest wildlife reserves but knowing exactly where in the park to base ourselves wasn’t easy. Much of the reserve is geared up for fly-in or package safaris and, initially at least, we wanted to self-drive so that we could spend more time with the animals and less around dinner tables.

Luckily, on our trip down from Ethiopia, we’d bumped into the marvellous Brian Freeman in a car park in Northern Kenya. Brian runs a photographic safari business in the Mara. He'd spotted our spare wheel cover with the Foley's logo on the back of Hector and come over for a chat. Turned out he knew the Foley’s well and was a fellow land rover enthusiast.  In fact he had a whole fleet of them, which he'd cut the roofs off, and now used for the photographic safaris.

When we rang him up a few days later Brian very kindly invited us down to his place and allowed us to camp on his property. The opportunity to hire one of his land rovers plus one of his very knowledgeable drivers was just too good an opportunity to miss.

We arrived late in the afternoon, met up with Brian, and were immediately dispatched on a game drive with our driver,  Jonathan. Before long we'd pulled up alongside a pride of lions feeding on a recent buffalo kill. Brian’s Defender is the perfect photographic platform. Instead of standing on a seat and looking out of a cutaway roof the sides are open and a door can be pulled away allowing you to lie down on the floor of the vehicle – at the same height as the wildlife. Perfect.

It was a fabulous introduction to the Mara. After a lovely dinner with Brian, his manager Di,  and couple of his other long term guests we headed for bed ready for an early start.

The next morning as the sun came up, we head off again. Only a few minutes into our drive Jonathan spotted a male leopard. As we followed it through a dried up river bank we spotted a second – a female.  The two stayed together for a while before they disappeared into the bush for the day.

More lions were to come, and a mother cheetah and her four cubs, a separate sighting of two more male cheetahs – brother’s who now lived and hunted together. Hyena, jackals, elephant, buffalo, wildebeest, giraffe, zebra, crocodile and hippo plus numerous antelope and great range of birds.

So many highlights in just 24 hours. The perfect Safari experience - thank you Brian, Jonathan and Di. I think we've fallen in love with the Mara. We'll be back.

Kenya Burns £20 million of Ivory

Martin:

Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta has set fire to £20 million worth of elephant ivory in an effort to put an end to poaching in the country. The ivory pile, weighing 15 tonnes was set alight on Tuesday 4th March to commemorate World Wildlife Day. Kenya hopes that by demonstrating that it is willing to put confiscated ivory beyond economic use that it can influence the end-user nations of ivory, especially China, whose hunger fuels the slaughter of elephants and rhinos in Africa. Responding to increasing criticism China, last week, imposed a one-year ban on ivory imports despite its citizens' huge appetite for ivory.

But twenty-five years since the ivory trade was banned African nations remain concerned about the rising demand for ivory from the emerging nations. The charity Save the Elephants estimates that 100,000 elephants were killed between 2010 and 2012.

The burning has made headlines around the world but it seems most journalists were only tipped off about the event the night before. So I'm hugely indebted to my friend Debbie Kirby who heard about it early on Tuesday morning and put me in contact with the Kenya Wildlife Service. A mad dash across Nairobi got me to the park just in time to be accredited for the ceremony. The sight of what amounts to a funeral pyre for hundreds of needlessly slaughtered elephants is one that will live with me for some time.

Here's a quick edit of the footage:

Kenya has promised to destroy the remainder of it's ivory stockpile, an estimated 115 tonnes, by the end of the year.

"We want future generations of Kenyans, Africans and indeed the entire world to experience the majesty and beauty of these magnificent animals." President Kenyatta said. "Poachers and their enablers will not have the last word in Kenya."

Meanwhile, on the final day of his tour of China, Prince William has condemned illegal wildlife trading while visiting an elephant sanctuary in the province of Yunnan.

Prince William called it a "vicious form of criminality" that "erodes the rule of law, fuels conflict and may even fund terrorism".

He went on to say: "The greatest threat to elephants worldwide today is not local farmers protecting their livelihoods, it is ruthless and organised poaching and trafficking."

Home to Kenya

Annemarie:

Yes, we did reach the highest point in Ethiopia but it was a bit of a low point on our journey. I was sick and we were both a bit weary so we headed for Kenya and the very kind offer of a bed for a night or so with Deborah Kirby, sister of a my good friend Lindsay. She lives in Limuru, just north of Nairobi and as we hurtled south, being in Kenya again felt a bit like coming home as we retraced some of our steps. I had wanted to take pictures as we travelled, the people of the Samburu with their wonderful beaded neckwear, the stark rocky landscapes of northern Kenya softening into rich farmland with the backdrop of Mount Kenya. Most of it passed me by, I still felt too sick after my Moyale supper mistake to focus on anything let alone use my ‘camera fishing’ technique so my pics are pretty bad.

Everything changed once we got to Limuru though. Deborah and her gorgeous daughter Raquel and wonderful mum, Anne were brilliant at putting us back together again. We ate well, washed everything we owned, gave Hector a health check in a Nairobi garage and I even had a couple of glorious swims in local pools. Martin was tipped off about the ivory burning ceremony so managed a good journalistic day out and I met up with Maggie, an inspiring young woman who has set up AM Café in Nairobi (see my baking blogs for details).

In the end we stayed a week and the ‘grand finale’ was visit to the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust centre for orphaned elephants. The young elephants arrive from all over Kenya and have various reasons for being orphaned, sometimes as simple as getting trapped in a well and separated from their mother, but tragically also through the adult elephants being killed by poachers. Poaching is still a problem despite the risk of heavy fines and the public condemnation by the Kenyan president himself.  The shocking statistic quoted on the Sheldrick’s website  states that:

“…at the current rate elephant poaching, with an estimated one elephant killed every 15 minutes for its ivory, a lack of action could see the loss of wild elephants in Africa by 2025.” I

It’s a wider issue I know, with some herds in Africa becoming so huge that culling is seen as a legitimate control mechanism but in other areas these incredible creatures are endangered. I’m not soppy about animals but when you realise it takes two years for a young elephant to even get its full set of teeth and that they don’t mature until around the age of 20 you can see they don’t have much chance to survive on their own. The Sheldrick Trust seems to do a great job, assigning an individual keeper to each orphan, letting them roam in the daytime in the bush, coming home each evening to sleep in the safety of a stable block. The youngest need food every three hours and after their day out, literally run in to get their evening milk, after which, within half an hour they fall asleep. Eventually they will be rehabilitated into the wild but this takes a number of years and in the meantime many people sponsor the orphans to provide their upkeep costs. We went home with three – yes I know the joke, two in the back and one on the roof!

Coffee Houses of Nairobi

in

Annemarie:

What a treat, a cappuccino and a chance to meet and talk with an inspiring young woman who is determined to do her bit to tackle social issues in Kenya.

I am in a café in Nairobi waiting to meet Maggie Muthuma who is  founding director of AM Café:  AM Café is a small start up social enterprise that sells all manner of things from brownies and sumptuous chocolate cakes to chapatis and soup but is not your usual coffee shop. For one thing at the moment it doesn’t have any premises, the baking happens in people’s homes and is sold to order. But that’s not the only difference; Maggie arrives and enthusiastically explains. Her vision is to create a space for people to discuss and decide on ways to address society’s pressing social and economic challenges. Much like the coffee houses of the 1700s in London, which were a hotbed for debates, she hopes to create a means of people finding a voice and creating some collective action or simply finding a way forward as an individual. So far the business is in early days and she has held just a handful of discussion sessions but she’s already helping one person take up a place at catering college and find a job that’s fulfilling her ambition. As Maggie says, it may be small steps initially but empowering people to help themselves then supporting them in their journey through peers and ‘buddies’ is a very viable option in today’s Africa where the concept of aid and financial support sees so many projects start strong then fail.

All over Africa we have been hearing similar stories and I am provided with a lot of food for thought as I make my way through the affluent crowds in the shopping centre. I am sure it’s the people like Maggie, determined to make their own way and to help others in their society realise their potential that will move the agenda in Africa forward.

Little Bad Wolf

Martin:

Such a pleasure to be driving a car that isn’t smoking like a volcano. And what's more one that actually moves forward when the accelerator pedal is depressed. It's now the only thing in the car that is depressed because we're off again. Out through the seemingly endless suburbs of Addis on our way to the Bale Mountains.

Because we wanted to rid Hector of the final vestiges of “dirty” fuel we don't fill up on the journey so we're almost empty by the time we arrive in Goba - our stop for the night. The town used to be the capital of Bale province but it appears Goba is now in a state of decline and there's no fuel to be had - primarily because there is no longer a petrol station anymore!

Neither is there fuel in Goba's growing upstart neighbour, Robe, 15 kms back down the road. In fact there's no diesel anywhere within the next couple of hundred kilometres. All the fuel stations are awaiting a delivery. So it's a bit of a tense night working out whether we continue and take the risk of running dry somewhere in the mountains or whether we should wait, possibly for days, until the promised fuel tanker arrives.

Luckily the next morning the tanker does arrive - and early enough for us to set off to Bale Mountains National Park.

There's stunning mountain scenery as we climb higher and higher. Eventually we reach the summit of Tullu Demtu - Ethiopia’s second highest mountain. We're on the lookout for the rare Ethiopian Wolf. He's supposed to live on the plateau around here, feeding on big-headed mole rats (serves them right for being big-headed I suppose), but he's proving elusive. We almost transverse the entire park searching for him and are thinking we're going to be out of luck  when  we spot something trotting nonchalantly towards us. At first I think it might be a stray dog. It looks more like a large fox than a wolf but sure enough this is him - the Ethiopian wolf. There’s hardly any time to get the camera out before wolfie's on his way. But I do get one half decent shot of him. He may not be big enough to scare Red Riding Hood but at last our luck in Ethiopia has changed. We've seen the wolf. 

The next day we head towards the Kenyan border. Spending that night at Moyale ready to cross into Kenya early in the morning.  To celebrate our wolf-spotting prowess Annemarie decides to try a local Ethiopian dish. She spends the night being violently sick – should have stuck with the pasta!

Ethiopia Breakdown

Martin:

We were anticipating Ethiopia being one of the great highlights of our journey. The rock cut churches of Lalibela, the blasted deserts and active volcanoes of the Danakil Depression, the possible home of the Ark of the Covenant at Axum, the tribal people of South Omo, maybe even a glimpse of the rare Ethiopian Wolf. Ethiopia would also mark our most northerly point before turning south again – for another two months or so of travelling before heading home.

In the end though things have not quite turned out as planned. We knew we were already running late before we entered the country and that meant we would have to head straight for Addis Ababa to renew Annemarie’s visa which was close to running out.

Border officials were all smiles on the Kenyan side as we left but in Ethiopia they had just gone for lunch. After an hour’s wait they returned but maybe lunch hadn’t been to their liking. Immigration especially were the surliest we have met so far – literally throwing our passports back at us after they had finally deigned to stamp them. Not a good start.

On the drive away from the border there were a number of incidents of kids throwing stones. It’s just a game for them but still Ethiopia was losing a little of its promise. Yet despite an overnight stay in a rather rough motel in Yabello our spirits lifted as we headed west along dirt roads on a circuitous route to Addis.  We’d heard the main highway was undergoing serious repairs and would be very slow so we were taking the long way round. The countryside up to Arba Minch for our second stop was stunning, really beautiful – despite sporadic stone chucking.

But as we arrived on the outskirts of Addis on day three Hektor began to chuck out enormous clouds of blue/white smoke. Something was clearly wrong. We struggled on through heavy traffic making it to a hotel just as it got dark.

The next day there was no time to fix Hektor as we had to go straight to immigration to sort out the Visa.  A whole day of being shifted from room to room – each seemingly randomly numbered – Room 12, Room 77, Room 89, Room 7.  I’m sure we entered Room 77 several times from different directions.  Eventually charged  $150 for a ‘fast track ‘ service – that unfortunately might not be ready for another 4 days we were told. After a considerable amount of arguing we managed to get agreement that the Visa could, maybe, be ready for pick-up tomorrow,  Friday – if we knew which room to go to.

Annemarie spent half of Friday waiting for the Visa but was eventually granted it. I’d meanwhile convinced myself that Hektor’s smoking habit might be due to a little plastic part called an oil breather – it separates out droplets of oil from the air going into the engine and returns them to the sump (I’m turning into a mechanic). It would be a simply job to clean it if I could get some kerosene. Unfortunately there wasn’t any to be had in any of the garages near us. In the meantime though I had found the address of what looked like Addis’s only Land Rover garage – fantastic.

Saturday we took Hektor to the garage.  I pointed to the oil breather, but the mechanic was convinced the only problem was dirty fuel so suggested we’d be OK once we’d burnt it up. Well that was a relief. Reassured we managed to drain half a tank of diesel out at a local Total station and filled up with clean fuel. We then set off out of Addis towards all the sights we wanted to see in the north.

We only managed a few kilometres before the clouds of smoke started to grow significantly worse.  The smog was now positively volcanic, Addis’s roads are polluted at the best of times but we were laying down a smoke screen that might have heralded a second front on the Somme. If Hektor had wings and could fly al la Chitty Chitty Bang Bang we could have practiced sign writing in the sky. We were also losing power fast.

We struggled back into town. Being sworn at by truck drivers for throwing out more pollution than they were. It wasn’t meant to be a competition! By the time we got back the garage had closed for the weekend. We’d have to wait until Monday. Finding the Ark of the Covenant was clearly not going to happen anytime soon.

A frustrating weekend of making plans not knowing what was wrong with the car followed. Then on Monday came the bad news that we needed a new turbocharger shipped from Dubai. Incredibly it arrived the next day. But customs kept hold of it for another 48 hours. When they finally released it they’d kindly slapped enough tax and duty on it to make the cost of a £400 part now £1200.  Apparently Ethiopia receives a larger share of the UK’s aid budget than any other country – well it’s just gone up a few quid!! That’s the last time I ever donate money to Bob Geldorf.

It’s now Friday and after two days of installing the new turbocharger the mechanic and I go for a test drive. The smoke is as bad as ever. We get back to the garage, I point to the oil breather, he removes it, gives it a quick clean in kerosene and pops it back in. Five minutes work and …. bingo. No more smoke. Did we need the new turbocharger? The whole garage is absolutely convince we did. The mechanic has 11 years experience don’t you know … there must have been a second problem. Anyway it is fixed now.  

We now have just 4 days left in the country before my visa runs out. No we’re not going to Axum, or the Danakil, or Lalibela or South Omo. No I’m not going to immigration on Monday.

Instead, early tomorrow morning, we’re off the wilds of the Bale mountains to recuperate on the way back south to Kenya. And who knows maybe we’ll see the rare Ethiopian Wolf – we have to have some luck in this country surely!

Leaving Kenya

Annemarie:

My image of Africa before I left the UK was probably of largely hot, dry grassland and thorn bush, punctuated by Acacia trees and perhaps alternating with some Gorilla Mist style landscapes and dense equatorial forests frequented by Attenborough and his peers looking under rocks and plants to  “take a glance at those fancy ants.”  Yes, you can tell the films I’ve seen by this hopeless list. So, I didn’t predict dahlias and arum lilies, or fuschias and sunflowers, but they’re here. And as we move from the hills and mountains of northern Kenya into the barren black volcanic rock landscape of southern Ethiopia we travel through a huge range of other variations. I try hard to capture them and some of the people we see from the car window as we move. It’s a bit like fishing really, I set a fast film and shutter speed, select ‘burst’ mode and open the window when things start to look interesting and just shoot. I’m not very good. Often as not I get a great picture of a very boring shop-front or a bush, missing the goat herder and his charges or the children playing in the river, but now and then I get lucky. The pictures here show some of our journey north – from fields of golden barley and distant hazy blue Mount Kenya, to scrubby thorn bush, volcanic ‘plugs’ and dark rocks; from shops and huts with red mud walls and pointed straw roofs to homes with painted walls and roofs of grain bags, fertiliser sacks and swathes of bright fabric in huge domes, bound down with rope and thin branches. Camels appear in their hundreds between the herds of thin cows and goats. We see whole families of donkeys being driven down the road and sometimes just running along on their own. And then we arrive for our first night in what feels very much like a wild west border town: Yabello  and this is it, this is Ethiopia.

PEEK

Martin:

After a weekend spent camping at Kenya's smallest game reserve, Saiwa Swamp, we're back in Kitale to film the PEEK trials.

Andrew Bastowrous is in town to launch the trial alongside Rono and staff from the Kitale Eye clinic. The aim is to train up teachers to use the smart phone's mobile app so that they can test the eyesight of every child in a school. The App uses the standard "Tumbling E" eyechart - designed for those who are not familiar with the roman alphabet. The phone's screen displays a series of randomly pointing capital E's of different sizes and the patient simply has to gesture in which direction the E points. The teacher then swipes across the screen in the same direction. The app then calculates a score based on which it decides whether or not the child needs to attend the eye hospital for further tests. Because it is on a smart phone the App can then generate text messages for the parent, the school and the hospital requesting that the child attends.

The "Tumbling E" test can give an early indication of developing eye problems but the PEEK phones are capable of much more. With a lense adaptor on it becomes a sophisticated eye examination tool capable of producing high resolution images of the eye  at a fraction of the cost of standard equipment - and it can be used in the most remote locations. PEEK is deceptively simple, but has the ability to take eye care well beyond the centres of excellence in major towns. This really could be a revolution for Africa and the world - all very exciting.

With Andrew, Rono and Cosmos we head out for a school just outside Kitale. The teacher here is an English teacher, or more precisely as he points out - "A teacher of English". He's not used anything like this before and isn't familiar with the basics of smartphones ie he needs to learn how to swipe the screen. It's a good test of PEEK.

With a little help from Cosmos he soon gets the hang of it. The phone diagnoses one of the boys in the class as needing glasses and sends a text to the parent, headmaster and hospital. After further tests at the clinic he'll be fitted with a new pair of glasses.

You might expect that having people in a classroom filming the teacher doing something strange and interesting at the back of the room might be disruptive but we're amazed by how well behaved the children are. Despite the disturbance they carry on with their work. It's hard to imagine that happening so smoothly back in the UK. These kids really do want to learn.

I'll edit together a little film of the PEEK trials as soon as I get time - but in the meantime here's the result of a little fun we had with the kids and Tumbling E at breaktime...

Seeing is Believing

Martin:

Surgery day back at the Kitale Eye Unit and we're waiting to see which of the patients we are following will turn up. When we talked to him last week Simeon, who only has a cataract in one eye, seemed to have the most doubts. Friends and relatives have told him horror stories about what might happen and he has very real doubts about coming in for surgery.  Though his wife is quietly determined to encourage him to go ahead we won't be surprised if we don't see him today.

We're pretty certain Justace, who is now blind in both eyes will arrive. And we're also expecting to see Elizabeth who, until a few weeks ago was completely blind. Since then the cataract in her left eye has been removed and she wants to return to have her other eye fixed.

To our delight Simeon arrives, on a motorbike taxi. Shortly followed by Justace with his brother. And then Elizabeth - but today she is experiencing pain in her previously operated on eye and at the last minute decides to delay the operation for another day.

Rono suggests that we now follow Ann, who is just arriving with her family. Ann, like Justace, is completely blind from cataracts in both eyes. So we are back to three patients again.

We follow Simeon, Justace and Ann through the check-in and examination procedures and then on up to surgery. Annemarie, who is valiantly struggling in her new role as sound person, and I don surgical scrubs, hats and mask.

At first sight the operating theatre may not seem as slick and high-tech as we would expect back in the UK but it has a superb surgeon at its helm. I'm amazed at how quickly and efficiently Rono is able to work his way through a long list of cataract patients - it's not just our three that are waiting for him in the ward outside the theatre doors.

At one point the microscope he uses breaks down, he resets it and starts again, it breaks down again, and then again. Justace is on the table waiting patiently for the procedure to be finished. Rono is calmness personified as he copes with the unexpected problem and finishes removing Justace's cataract and inserting the new artificial lense.

As he explains later he needs to be both a surgeon and a maintenance man in this job.

Our three patients leave with patches over their eyes.  I think all are surprised at how quickly they have been processed through the operation and glad they can spend the night at home. Tomorrow they will be back to have the patches removed and hopefully their sight restored.

The next morning dawns and all three are waiting for the bandages to be removed. As Rono explains this is the best part of being an eye surgeon - when you see the joy in your patients faces as their sight is restored.

When the patch comes off Justace he's ecstatic. He tells the nurse what she is wearing, waves at Rono and shakes everyone's hands including mine and Annemarie's. He says he knew from our accents that we were white but now he can see we are!

Ann is full of smiles and laughter. She tells her beaming husband that he has gone grey since she last saw him.

Simeon is relieved, but maybe because he still had sight in one eye there is not such a moment of revelation. He complains it's a little bright! Something which causes Annemarie to launch into her favourite joke about the Israelite who complained to Moses after the parting of the Red Sea that "It's a little bit muddy".

Later, Simeon is delighted that the sight in his newly repaired eye is better than in in his 'good' eye. He now wants to be an ambassador for cataract operations. All his fears have evaporated.

The Ujima Bakery rises to the occasion

in

Annemarie:

It’s a BIG day on the baking front: the opening of the bakery that has inspired me to focus on community bakeries and cafés as we travel through Africa. 

The scent of the dough wafts out of the tiny bakery as we drive into the lodge site at Maili Saba; there is no mistaking we are in the right place. As if on cue, a curly haired bundle of boy-energy runs across the grass – that’s Lucas, I recognize him from the photos on Madeleine’s blog site eyebakekenya and chasing fast behind him is Ben, the baker from E5 Bakehouse in North London who is supporting the set up and training the local team. We’re welcomed with open arms and – excitingly - a piece of sourdough toast with avocado and egg, by Brian. He’s now going to be the brains behind the development of the business as well as a master baker. Behind him Justin begins to don his baker’s white jacket, and as a nod to today’s importance, a baker’s hat.

Ujima bakery was the brainchild of Madeleine and Andrew Bastawrous. It’s a social enterprise providing skills development, employment and of course healthy high quality bread. The big plus is that part of its profits help fund eye operations in the nearby St Mary’s hospital.  (As well as baking entrepreneurs, Madeleine and Andrew are both doctors and Andrew has developed the innovative eye health diagnostic tool using a mobile phone (PEEK) and trials for this system explain why they were in Kenya in the first place  - and why eye operations are part of the picture.)

As we watch Brian and Justin knead and shape the dough that will soon be the loaves for the opening feast, Madeleine arrives with her new baby, Elena, on her hip. It’s very exciting to hear more of the story behind the bakery from the woman who began the baking bug here. I hand over my banana cake gift, this time I cheated and cooked it in a real over so it is edible. Lucas approves, so does Ben, thank goodness.

Amid a flurry of exclamations of delight, more guests arrive and we melt into the background a little: Rosalinde, an ophthalmic nurse and a true force of nature gives massive ‘clap’ handshakes to everyone and hugs to Madeleine; Redempta, the director of the bakery bustles in in organising mode – she’s a problem solver extraordinaire and is the one who has made the day happen. Swiftly the area fills up with more guests and now the film crew from Mazda are here, capturing the event for their website in recognition of a grant made to PEEK and the bakery. It’s a very jolly affair, then the dignitaries roll up in swish cars, we all stare a bit, we’re amazed they made it down the bumpy track.

Things happen in quick succession now: ribbons are arranged; bread comes out of the oven; flour is swept up; more guests are welcomed; extra film crew line up. Finally Lucas hands over the big scissors to the dignitary and snip, Ujima Bakery is declared open. Ben hands out some bread and we all pause as the ‘Big Man’ tastes it...Hooray, he likes it and we all get a taste too. It’s heaven, two types of sourdough made with wild yeasts from the Maili Saba area.  Oh, I am SO happy to be part of this big day.

Let's go for a drink.

Annemarie:

Sharing our campsite with an animal or two has become normal while on this journey: hyenas, hippos and elephants have all livened up our nights but Lake Nakuru provided a different kind of experience.

We’re on a ‘weekend off’ from filming in Kitale and have headed south to Lake Nakuru National Park. We swing past all the swanky lodges to the NP’s own campsite at the southern end of Nakuru; it’s a bit basic but there’s not another soul in sight, wonderful, we’re in for a peaceful night. As the sun goes down everything is going to plan: supper is about ready; the beer is cold; the tent is up; the fire is glowing…perfect. We are sitting down in our comfy canvas chairs to eat by firelight when we hear a bit of a crunch in the undergrowth. We pause, forks half way to mouths, and listen… another crunch and some footsteps. Martin grabs the BIG torch and shines it into the gathering darkness. Oh, it’s a buffalo, heading down to a very small stream in a deep gully next to the site. OK, back to supper, he’s not interested in us. More crunching, we grab the torch again, caught in it’s strong beam we see eyes… not one pair, or two, or three, it’s a whole line of buffalo turning to look at us! We hear a crunch from the other side of the camp… it’s another line of buffalo coming down to drink. Basically, it’s a herd and they’ve split either side of us to walk down to the water. “It’ll be fine.” Martin assures me, I pick up the plates and cooking stuff and begin washing up as close to the Land Rover as I can. As I clatter about I don’t hear anything but the light of my head-torch soon picks up more eyes, this time moving in the other direction. Oh good grief, now they’re going back, it’s like being caught on the central reservation of the buffalo M25.  We watch patiently and soon the huge beasts have melted into the darkness and we settle back round the glowing embers for a fortifying drop of Macallan.

Next morning we’re woken by some loud rattling on the tin roof of the toilet block, I peer out, not quite ready to wake up properly. Baboons, a whole troop of them, are wandering casually through the campsite and the youngsters are chasing each other round and round the corrugated roof of the toilets. Oh well, I suppose it is Africa; I crawl back into our cosy tent and close my eyes. Martin has gone though; maybe he’s making tea. Minutes later I hear a whooping noise and have to peer out again only to witness Martin, dressed only in a towel worn rather like Superman’s cape billowing out behind him, running round the site roaring at the baboons ‘Take that and that and that… ZAP!“ Some of them saunter off – others sit down and scratch their behinds in amazement.  Well, it was a quiet spot for a drink but then these humans arrived…. You just can’t work them out can you?

Out of the Darkness

Eye 3.jpg

Martin:

We arrive in Kitale, an agricultural town in Western Kenya. Population, just over 100,000. Main cash crop - sunflower, with a smattering of tea, coffee and pyrethrum (the flower-base for insecticides). Kitale may not hold many obvious attractions, but for us this is probably the most exciting and interesting stop of the trip.

We're here to meet and work with Dr Hillary Rono, an ophthalmologist and zonal eye surgeon for the North Rift Region of Kenya.  We've been introduced to Rono by Andrew Bastowrous of the London School of Health and Tropical Medicine and the inventor of PEEK.  Andrew will be over in a week or so's time for the PEEK trials which we'll be following, but in the meantime we've going to make a short film with Rono to help convince local cataract sufferers to come to hospital for an operation.

As far as eye health goes this region is a challenge with the highest prevalence of trachomas in the country and a serious level of cataract related blindness. Rono and his staff are dedicated to eradicating avoidable blindness but one of the problems they face is convincing local people to come to the hospital for cataract operations. There's a level of fear and superstition in the local community over just exactly what the surgeons will do to their eyes.  Many worry that the doctors will remove them from their heads and work on them on the table or that they may end up even more blind than they are now.

We're aiming to document the journeys of a group of patients from blindness, through diagnosis and operation, to successful recovery of sight, and so show exactly what happens along the way. Hopefully we'll be able to create a film the hospital can use to encourage more people to have the operation.

Our first stop is to the home of Simeon who is near blind in one eye from a cataract. He's already having problems reading and writing which is proving a real problem as he's afraid he may have to give up his voluntary job as secretary for his local church. He's also having problems keeping tabs on his cows. Simeon is worried that he may eventually also lose sight in his 'good' eye but has heard horror stories of what might happen during an eye operation so is not sure he will go ahead with the procedure.

Justace is already blind in both eyes and knows he is becoming a burden to his sister and brother. In a rural village there is very little he can do to help himself and its too dangerous to venture far from the house without help. He's very keen to have an operation as soon as possible.

Ann is also blind in both eyes and similarly can't wait for the operation. Whatever she fears may happen it can't be worse than what she is already experiencing.

Over the next week or so we'll follow all three through their operations.

Falling out of Uganda

Martin:

Travelling on through the Karamajong region we were in the shadow of Mount Elgon which straddles the border of Uganda and Kenya. It was getting late so rather than head straight for Kenya we decided to spend the night at Sipi Falls. A good decision because the lodge we stayed in that night was perched right across from the Falls and we had time to take an evening hike up to the top.

“…Sipi is one of those travel hotspots – the only one in Uganda- where it’s impossible to walk more than five paces without an annoying youth latching on to you and asking to guide you …” said the Bradt guide. Well, we were pleasantly surprised to find quite a different story.

Annemarie:

Sipi village teeters on the top of one of the foothills of Mount Elgon, there’s hardly a flat piece of ground anywhere with even the community football pitch on a perilous slope. I am trying to catch a picture of a game in progress; I fail but the young woman in front of the house next to the road thinks I am taking a picture of her. I try to explain what I was doing – too hard, so offer to take her picture instead. She is very pleased to pose and her sister comes giggling out to see what’s happening and poses too. They are so impressed when I show them the images on the camera that I rashly promise to print them a copy and come back in the morning.

We had intended to camp but there wasn’t a site or even a suitable place to park up so we splashed out on a lodge with cottages dotted over a steep hillside overlooking the falls, what a view. The young man showing us around is  informed and helpful and offers to take us up to the falls, where we began to chat. Turns out he’s a football player, a runner, works for the hotels and is part of the Sipi guides association. The community has got together to tackle the issue of the ‘annoying youths’ pestering tourists and now they actively support them with a youth centre and a proportion of the guiding fee goes to the community. Lacam Lodge, where we stayed, has a three-way international ownership including a local Sipi falls community representative. The lodge gives part of its profits to the school, which shares the same hillside and the Italian partners have provided a playground. It was the school holidays but I was proudly shown round the school, including a brand new classroom by the manager of the lodge, the local owner and a ‘youth who was definitely not annoying!

Next day we deliver the promised photos and our girls invite us in to meet their mum. She hugs me when she sees the pictures and then other children seem to pop out of every corner. They are all part of her family – so we pose again. Smile!