Rations

Baby girl being weighed

before being started on high-nutrient supplement.

IDP Mothers waiting to register at supplementary feeding.

The camp rations - six commodities, set amounts per person.

Supermarkets will never look the same to me again..

Its Hard to Concentrate on an Empty Tummy...

A quick visit to one of the Darfur schools involved with the WFP school feeding. For lots of kids in the world the only decent meal they get in a day is at school.. But they definitely know what a camera is, little posers.

Common thoughts from the back of a Khartoum Rickshaw (aka Tuk Tuk):

This pleasant breeze is drying the sweat I am covered in.

Can I remember how to say Left and Right in Arabic?

Answering driver with "I come from Straaaalia" (Sudanese for Aus.)

Just got a mouthful of sand.

I wonder if I will die. (as we take a corner at high speed with incoming traffic).

Will he be happy or angry with the 2 pounds I am about to pay him?

Made it to my destination Alive - humdoolilah!

Addis

The festival of Eid al-fitr is certainly a lovely time to be emmersed in the Islamic world. Everyone is in a super great mood (which, given they have just finished fasting for the month, I suppose I would be too), and there is much eating of elaborate cookies (even found a bucket on my desk one day!) and going around to the houses of everyone you know, eating, playing with kids, just being together. Much like Christmas in other countries really. A happy vibe all round.

The UN was kind enough to give us a long weekend so my friend Shanoo and I climbed aboard Ethiopian Airways and jetted into Addis Ababa for the weekend. What a cool place! At times I felt like we had stepped in a time warp to the 1950's, other places had more of a 70's vibe happening. It is a city set amongst rolling green hills (arrrived at the end of the rains), cloaked in Orthodox Christianity (over 100 ancient Cross designs) and displays clear remnants of the Mussolini years when the Italians attempted to colonise Ethiopia: the architecture, awesome Italian restaurants (fresh Proscuito, home made pasta, gorgonzola, you name it) and then there's the staple drink in Addis - the Machiatto. Everyone seems to drink these and the tiny road-side places serve up a brew that would rival Roma or Paris. Mmmmmm...yummy. I indulged in more than a few. The Ethiopian coffee beans are filled with the richness of their volcanic soils and their ancient cultures.. The tiny coffee houses were smoke-filled as they roasted the beans out back.

When people think of Ethiopia, many must have images come to mind of barrel rib-caged children surrounded by flies from the 1984 famine. I know I used to. I was only a child back in the 80's but even then, all us kids new there was a place called Ethiopia where kids were skinny and the land was dry. When Geldoff gave us BandAid and Michael Jackson told us We are the World. From reading and hearing stories of that time I think that was basically the first time the world was informed on what poverty and famine actually meant and were appaled and ashamed all at once. That will always live in Ethiopias history now. But I hope it is not the only image people will encounter.

I felt a strong energy in Addis, the place was literally pulsing with humanity.Which is perhaps not surprising as many historians say Addis was the birthplace of the first humans.. If so, I would certainly be proud to say I am one of their descendants.

Panic Attacks...

What a wonderful little invention WiFi in public places is. I write as I sit under the air-con, sipping an icy Lemon and Mint juice (a Khartoum speciality) in a local cafe. (And here you thought I was a struggling aid-worker, doing it tough).

I have not been posting of late as my internet at home has been down sadly, (okay i use the word "my" a bit loosely as I have actually been piggy-backing of someone else's wireless for the past 4 months.. I have suspicions it is one of the two embassy's next-door.. but I am sure they have looooaaads of money and would not mind..?).

It is super frustrating. Becoming addicted to technology and then to have it fail me. These days I live trapped in a world where all my beloved time-filling activities are just not accessible to me and so I have begun to increasingly rely on the internet to enable me some kind of 'escape'. So when this avenue of escape is suddenly blocked..I almost do feel literally trapped...Sudden panic. Until I brave the 48 degree sun and jump in a rickshaw down to the cafe of course.

I have to laugh at myself and my level of frustration when I think of a whole year spent writing (real!) stamped letters from Yorkshire and I did not even touch a keyboard, (I don't think I even knew something like email existed, but of course it did in 1998). And then Cambodia, where the connection we had was so bad (a mobile phone modem with a home made antenna 3 meters in the air that got knocked down every afternoon when the monsoon hit) that I used to type up emails on a floppy disk and then when someone mentioned the internet was working I would grab the disk and run across campus to the computer to quickly load it up before it crapped out 10 mins later.. sometimes it would hold on just long enough to send my precious connection with family, friends, the outside world.. sometimes it did not. But I coped.

These days I struggle to cope.. But perhaps that is just a simple matter of conditioning. Spend long enough 'off the grid' , with other stimulating occupation available and I am sure it would be rather heavenly.

But for now.. I log-in and I write. Humdoolilah!!