I recently watched Van Diemens Land.

It was quite confronting and a little disturbing and definitely thought provoking for me.

It made me think a lot about Tasmania and Australia.. about how wild and rugged a landscape it really is. And I would say, along with Alaska and Antarctica, it is one of the only truly 'wild' places left on the planet. Even here, sitting in Darfur, I know I could ride a camel north for a few days and be in the middle of the Libyan Desert and I would still find people and huts and traders and life. I would still find away to survive (excluding rebel bullets of course). All across the extremity of the Himalaya it was the same as well. There were people absolutely Everywhere. They were poor people. But they were living people.

But there is a reason why Australia is the most urbanised country on the planet. We have to live in the coastal cities because it is near impossible to live anywhere else on that wide and mysterious continent. Or perhaps it is that we realise the power she yields over us and we are frightened to be alone with her so we cling to each other and the light of the ocean and its life giving rains over our heads.

The men in the film say "Hunger is a strange Silence". The food in Australia certainly is hard to get a hold of. Especially in the denseness of the Tasmanian ancient forests, where even few Indigenous groups lived before Europeans arrived with their shipload of diseases and wiped them all out. Although the blokes in this film seem to find their way around Hunger...

I will always know the Australian wilderness as beautiful and unique. But it is also dangerous, isolated, frightening, dark, unforgiving, lost and alone...all at once. And this movie really captures that I thought. The lighting and camera work are excellent. As is the Gaelic voice-over. Sends a shiver down your spine.

But I do not think I will ever watch it a second time.

Anyone seen it?

Felt like a change..

I am about to reach the halfway point of my time in Sudan

and as my thoughts and perspectives change, I felt the need for a clean new slate.

What do you think??

While my title is a little hard to read (blogger won't et me change the colour grey..),

the header photo is a pic of one of the old woven basket lids

that the Sudanese villagers use to cover their food from the flies and sun.

It hangs on my wall in my flat in Khartoum.

p.s. Nobody comments any more... I love comments!!

Dreams are green and blue..

Want to see what my dreams look like these days?

Climate Change: A change needed...

If women are the key to breaking perpetual poverty - why are they being left out of Climate Change talks? Why is it always old farts in bad suits who appear on my screen as I catch the nightly BBC highligts from Climate Change forums around the globe?! (excluding the Lovely Peter Garret..not that he seems to be talking much these days..).

Not all are immune to the urgency though... such as this cool organisation.

And I was happy to see my own crowd taking a step in the girly direction too, in Bangladesh. Where they are providing flour rations to women in disaster-prone areas as an incentive to come to training sessions in climate change adaptation skills like; rasing homesteads and building embankments. Makes sense huh?

Our home is this weeping planet.. Healing hands are needed - we all know that now. But parts of our home are worse than others - the poor will (and indeed already have been with murderous droughts) suffer the most and the most immediately. People sometimes struggle to turn off a light for the planet, or stop driving so much to be a bit greener..but perhaps if the mind-set shifted a bit to: reduce your carbon footprint and save a five year old Kenyan boy from starving the death. Or push the Polly's to get serious on carbon reductions to create a future for a family in the foothills of the melting Himalaya's... to save people, to save our planet, to save our conscience, to live up to our responsibility as one big family of humans.

.....And now to pretty it up a wee bit...

Pulled out an oldie from NZ glacial lakes at Mt.Cook, taken 5 years ago..

Attacking the Hungry

Yesterday the organisation I work for was attacked in Pakistan. A suicide bomber entered the building and at least five people are reported to have been killed, many injured. It makes me sad and angry. I wrote an entry about a month ago about the increase in the targeting of humanitarian workers to harm in order to make global, political messages. It is deeply worrying - to all of us in the international community. Because, ultimately, it is an attack on the worlds poorest, the persecuted and the hungry. They are the people who suffer when humanitarians can no longer access them to support them when they need help the most.. This new trend is a devastation to all of us in countries like Australia, countries with the means to help, and I am sure you feel the sadness I do..

Here is the letter the executive director of WFP sent to all her staff (myself included). I think she sums it up well:

To WFP's global family,

It is with great sadness that I confirm the shocking news about this afternoon's bombing in Pakistan, which killed five WFP employees and injured others. We will continue sharing details as we learn them, but the facts alone cannot capture the profound pain - and outrage - we all feel today.

I wish you all to know that you are not alone in feeling anger or grief at this unprecedented targeted attack on the World Food Progamme. This is a tragedy for the whole humanitarian community and for the millions of hungry women and children, who are also victims of this senseless and cowardly act of murder.

I deplore and condemn this brutal attack. I am angry at the loss of the beautiful souls who dedicated their lives to advancing our life-saving work. I join with their families, friends and colleagues in their mourning. We all take comfort from those who have already shared loving tributes in the first hours of this sad news in mourning. And I am grateful for the quick response from all of WFP to assist in any and every way possible.

We all stand by our entire team in Pakistan and know they have all worked with excellence and great skill under the most challenging conditions possible to provide assistance to up to 10 million people in urgent need. You have our most profound respect and support.

We will not be stopped by this. Every meal we serve, food delivery we make, program we implement and monitor will be tribute to those who have lost their lives on the frontline of hunger.

But today we must focus on our colleagues and families in Pakistan, who need us most.
Josette