tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-51928935305986819282024-03-13T21:22:06.310+08:00Brain Scoops from Princess SnapperheadAdventures from my eccentric life with a bizzare entourage of mere mortals living at latitude 16-ish, roaming the mind & globeAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12110104320011408280noreply@blogger.comBlogger104110tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5192893530598681928.post-17170682681871148782015-08-06T11:12:00.000+08:002015-08-06T11:19:00.226+08:00Elixir, Surrealism & Dada - Are We Homogenised Mindsoup?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EyVWLC6BY4Y/VcLG42BI9xI/AAAAAAAADGs/rP5AMCXcVjA/s1600/artelixir.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="394" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EyVWLC6BY4Y/VcLG42BI9xI/AAAAAAAADGs/rP5AMCXcVjA/s640/artelixir.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">Last
night Indil-cat and I went to the Melbourne International Film Festival to
see a brilliant Australian-Berlin collaboration by a brave new
director Brodie Higgs called 'Elixir', a working title with no particular meaning and for which no 'better' name was ever found. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">The
surrealists from the 1920's are alive and (more or less) well in modern
day Berlin living in a communal warehouse studio called the Glasshouse, named
after André Bretons actual Parisian house where he hosted his
troublesome friends. André and his friends are reeling after the death
of Jacques Vaché (who died of an opium overdose in real life). A new
comer to the house André picks up in the streets, Bohemian Lexie, a
writer who expresses herself as a graffiti artist, becomes the catalyst for
exposing the souls of each of the Glasshouses's residents. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">Tristan
Tzara, one of the founders of the Dada art movement, hatches a wild
plot to sabotage Malcom MacLaren's (father of punk fashion which Brodie
says is just a rip off of Dadaism) Art Week fashion show in a way that
reminded me totally of our children's CAD fashion design performances
that were often surrealist and involved shooting the audience with guns
in a way which in hindsight was perfectly Dadaist. <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qtyK2PfAavY/VcLMtLPC91I/AAAAAAAADHo/mkt53b_-BdU/s1600/IMG_8314.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qtyK2PfAavY/VcLMtLPC91I/AAAAAAAADHo/mkt53b_-BdU/s640/IMG_8314.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">India d'Scarlett CAD 2009</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Y29JKHdCQXo/VcLMwoRhfkI/AAAAAAAADHs/gE1tkjQHeP8/s1600/IMG_8311.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Y29JKHdCQXo/VcLMwoRhfkI/AAAAAAAADHs/gE1tkjQHeP8/s640/IMG_8311.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">India d'Scarlett CAD 2009</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SUHDGOY2gUs/UIvEwOJdlfI/AAAAAAAABEI/rpV29IL8gCk/s1600/P1020889.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SUHDGOY2gUs/UIvEwOJdlfI/AAAAAAAABEI/rpV29IL8gCk/s640/P1020889.JPG" width="474" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Savannah d'Scarlett CAD 2012</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">The
movie is richly surreal and satisfying in its commentary on the
commercialism of art close to my heart - one of my pet hates is the
propensity of people to purchase art 'to match their decor' reducing it
to mere 'decoration' rather than for the art itself. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="background-image: none; border: 0px; color: rgba(0,0,0,0.701961); font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 23px; margin: 0.5em 0px 1em; padding: 0px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">Surrealism
evolved out of the DADA art movement. During the war, André Breton, who
had trained in medicine and psychiatry, served in
a neurological hospital where he used Freud's psychoanalytic methods
with soldiers suffering from shell-shock. He met writer Jacques Vaché
and admired his anti-social attitude and disdain for established
artistic tradition.</span></div>
<div style="background-image: none; border: 0px; color: rgba(0,0,0,0.701961); font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 23px; margin: 0.5em 0px 1em; padding: 0px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">Back
in Paris, Breton joined in Dada activities and started the literary
journal Littérature. He began experimenting with automatic
writing- spontaneously writing without censoring the thoughts—and
published the writings, as well as accounts of dreams, in the magazine.</span></div>
<div style="background-image: none; border: 0px; color: rgba(0,0,0,0.701961); font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 23px; margin: 0.5em 0px 1em; padding: 0px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">With
two others he began to attract more artists and writers; they came to
believe that automatism was a better tactic for societal change than the
Dada attack on existing societal values. </span></div>
<div style="background-image: none; border: 0px; color: rgba(0,0,0,0.701961); font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 23px; margin: 0.5em 0px 1em; padding: 0px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">Freud's
work with free association, dream analysis, and the unconscious held
great importance to the Surrealists in developing methods to liberate
imagination. They embraced idiosyncrasy while rejecting the idea of an
underlying madness. Salvador Dali, arguably the most well known
surrealist, later proclaimed, "There is only one difference between a
madman and me. I am not mad." (A line that gets used in the movie btw).<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-lL3YGIpdEtc/VcLHhcnBXhI/AAAAAAAADG0/PTMysGazhL8/s1600/artdali.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="454" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-lL3YGIpdEtc/VcLHhcnBXhI/AAAAAAAADG0/PTMysGazhL8/s640/artdali.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Salvador Dali 'The Persistence of Memory' 1931</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">I
still think Dada is one of the more intellectually interesting art
movements. Dadaists called it anti-art because it represented the
opposite of everything which art stood for. Where art was concerned with
traditional aesthetics, Dada ignored aesthetics - it was intended to
offend. The movement was a protest against the bourgeois cultural and
intellectual conformity—in art and more broadly in society—that
surrounded the outbreak of WWI. </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">They expressed their rejection of that ideology in artistic expression that appeared to reject logic and embrace</span><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"> chaos </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">and</span><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"> <wbr></wbr>irrationality.</span></div>
<div style="background-image: none; border: 0px; color: rgba(0,0,0,0.701961); font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 23px; margin: 0.5em 0px 1em; padding: 0px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">Hugo
Ball - one of the Dadaists said "For us, art is not an end in itself
... but it is an opportunity for the true perception of the times we
live in'.</span></div>
<div style="background-image: none; border: 0px; color: rgba(0,0,0,0.701961); font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 23px; margin: 0.5em 0px 1em; padding: 0px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">A
reviewer from the American Arts Review journal said at the time that
"Dada philosophy is the sickest, most paralyzing and most destructive
thing that has ever originated from the brain of man." </span></div>
<div style="background-image: none; border: 0px; color: rgba(0,0,0,0.701961); font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 23px; margin: 0.5em 0px 1em; padding: 0px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">The
Dadaists would meet at soirées at a Zurich nightclub called Cabaret
Voltaire (the fantastic alternative band in the 80's was named after
this) where performances or 'happenings' of spoken word, dance and music
happened. These soirees were raucous forums for new forms of
performance, such as sound poetry and simultaneous poetry that mirrored
the maelstrom of World War I raging around it.</span></div>
<div style="background-image: none; border: 0px; color: rgba(0,0,0,0.701961); font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 23px; margin: 0.5em 0px 1em; padding: 0px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">I love the fact that one of Tzara's writings, a melody called bizarrely <i style="background-image: none; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Vaseline symphonique</i>, required ten or twenty people to shout "cra" and "cri" on a rising scale when it was performed. </span></div>
<div style="background-image: none; border: 0px; color: rgba(0,0,0,0.701961); font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 23px; margin: 0.5em 0px 1em; padding: 0px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">Tzara
was hilariously subversive in performing Kokoschka's short play 'The
Sphinx and Strohmann' . Performed in total darkness, the actors in masks
that covered their whole bodies and Tzara had the part of the parrot
and proceeded to ruin the performance by making thunder and lightning
sounds in all the wrong places and maintaining that this subversion was a
deliberate part of the Dada anti-establishment intent.I think we need more performance art that extends the dimensionality of static visual art and inspires us to feel on all levels.</span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-lwFHTdVIGdg/VcLHxrhk-WI/AAAAAAAADG8/zoTgQKs9LMY/s1600/artkok.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="516" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-lwFHTdVIGdg/VcLHxrhk-WI/AAAAAAAADG8/zoTgQKs9LMY/s640/artkok.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Oscar Kokoschka's 'The Bride of the Wind' 1914</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">Kokoschka
by the way painted the famous abstract expressionist painting 'The
Bride of the Wind' a self portrait with his lover Alma Mahler, wife of
Occy's favourite composer Gustav Mahler. By the way a film was made of
Alma's life called 'The Bride of the Wind' and check out the poster art
for it - they used Gustav Klimt artwork stylisation for it! The
inhumanity of it! </span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-QEZQRFHGY6g/VcLH61uYMfI/AAAAAAAADHI/ut2cjOHb6l0/s1600/artbride.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-QEZQRFHGY6g/VcLH61uYMfI/AAAAAAAADHI/ut2cjOHb6l0/s640/artbride.JPG" width="430" /></a></div>
<div style="background-image: none; border: 0px; color: rgba(0,0,0,0.701961); font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 23px; margin: 0.5em 0px 1em; padding: 0px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">In terms of painting art <span style="text-align: justify;">George
Grosz evolved from the nihilistic protest of Dada to a more focused
expression of his disgust at the cruelty and decadence of the
bourgeoisie. He exposed the hypocrisy of the politicians, the press, the
army, the ruling classes and their corrupt clergy that the DADAISTS
hated. Grosz wrote, </span><span style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;">"Man
has created an insidious system - a top and a bottom. A very few earn
millions, while thousands upon thousands are on the verge of starvation.
But what has this to do with art? Precisely this, that many painters
and writers, in a word, all the so-called 'intellectuals' still tolerate
this state of affairs without taking a stand against it......To help
shake this belief and to show the oppressed the true faces of their
masters is the purpose of my work".<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kDXNJd0FUY4/VcLIFlskrvI/AAAAAAAADHM/WPq8VPz_74g/s1600/artdada.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kDXNJd0FUY4/VcLIFlskrvI/AAAAAAAADHM/WPq8VPz_74g/s640/artdada.JPG" width="356" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">George Grosz 'The Pillars of Society' 1926</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<div style="color: rgba(0,0,0,0.701961); font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 23px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">
<span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"><span style="text-align: justify;">'The Pillars of Society' by George Grosz 1926 shows a group portrait that manages to portray</span><span style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"> 'all the true faces of their masters'</span><span style="text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="text-align: justify;">in one room. </span> </span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0,0,0,0.701961); font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 23px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">
<span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">The
German officer wearing a monocle and a swastika, duelling scars on his
cheek and a thin slit of a mouth aggressively exposing his teeth, the
glass of beer and sabre exposing him as a drunken warmonger. The
delusional thoughts coming out of his head show his lack of self
awareness.</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0,0,0,0.701961); font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 23px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">
<span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">Behind
him on the left is a portrait of press baron Alfred Hugenberg, wearing a
chamber pot engraved with an Iron Cross as a hat symbolising the bias
of his newspapers and Grosz's opinion of them. His blood stained palm is
the bloody consequences of his newspapers' propaganda (symbolized by
the pencil)</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0,0,0,0.701961); font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 23px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">
<span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">Behind
him on the right is a portrait of Friedrich Ebert, the leader of the
Social Democratic Party and the first President of Germany from
1919-1925. His leaflet reads, "Socialism is Working" and a flag of the
Weimar Republic. Grosz gives him a pile of steaming faeces for brains.</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0,0,0,0.701961); font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 23px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">
<span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">In
the background is a clergyman whose sanctimonious face is flushed with
the long term effects of alcohol. With closed eyes he preaches from the
safety of his room, blind to the reality of the burning city outside
his window and ignoring the brutality of the civil war that unfolds
behind his back.<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nO-ip3VaISY/VcLI1M--gHI/AAAAAAAADHc/pI8qOXhX9Kc/s1600/artsculp.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nO-ip3VaISY/VcLI1M--gHI/AAAAAAAADHc/pI8qOXhX9Kc/s640/artsculp.JPG" width="456" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Raoul Haussmann 'Spirit of Our Times' 1920</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0,0,0,0.701961); font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 23px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">
<span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">Early Dada anti-art is probably best portrayed in Raoul Haussmann's 1920 <span style="text-align: justify;">‘Spirit
of Our Time’. It is a satirical illustration for his statement that the
average supporter of what he considered to be a corrupt society </span><span style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;">“has no more capabilities than those which chance has glued to the outside of his skull; his brain remains empty”</span><span style="text-align: justify;">. </span></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0,0,0,0.701961); font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 23px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">
<span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"><span style="text-align: justify;">Maybe
we'd do well to reflect on this in today's society. Cat Girl's
housemates, Dutch, German and Japanese, recently commented that their
Australian workmates 'could be so draining sometimes - all they talk
about is the weather and trivial stuff' - how many people you know have
shut themselves off in the less dangerous position of intellectual
muteness? What gets sacrificed in this numb social mindsoup is
creativity and passion - is being safe because we fear embarrassment and
humiliation for standing out worth it?</span></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12110104320011408280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5192893530598681928.post-11904737747559729522015-01-19T14:38:00.001+08:002015-01-19T20:03:53.321+08:00False Vampires – Bats and Doctors: The Dirt on The Isa<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HIYivyU83AQ/VLyFHO4x1uI/AAAAAAAAC8U/7x7ke0XLk9E/s1600/aerialisa.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HIYivyU83AQ/VLyFHO4x1uI/AAAAAAAAC8U/7x7ke0XLk9E/s1600/aerialisa.JPG" height="480" title="Aerial view of Mt Isa Mines" width="640" /></a></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Aerial view of the Mt Isa Mines as we flew in.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Mission – two weeks in the outback at Mt Isa hospital
E.D.; side-kick – moi; code names <i>Doc</i> and <i>The Mrs</i>. Modus operandi, go
incognito: Doc - jeans and check shirts –check; moi- I think I<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>got away with the usual – red lipstick –
well, it’s kind of camouflage, there’s a lot of red dust here I’ll have you
know, therefore I’ll give that a check! We flew over the mine site, a massive
5km sprawl with a huge open cut scarring the surface and landed in what locals
affectionately call The Isa. Red dust, spinifex, tin roofs of mineside and
townside homes, separated by the Leichhardt River, the giant lead chimney stack
and the smaller red and white stripped copper stack that constantly spews forth
sulphur dioxide gas dominate the town from any aspect. Fork-tailed kites soar
the thermals and at night ghost gums are silhouetted in the moonlight. </span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dIEJAx94-pE/VLyIvAcCaZI/AAAAAAAAC8o/fDoHFC9pGuI/s1600/minetown.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dIEJAx94-pE/VLyIvAcCaZI/AAAAAAAAC8o/fDoHFC9pGuI/s1600/minetown.jpg" height="640" width="640" /></a></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7nkfNAjnrAY/VLyIVErITGI/AAAAAAAAC8g/gzAtfj2fu_E/s1600/mine.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7nkfNAjnrAY/VLyIVErITGI/AAAAAAAAC8g/gzAtfj2fu_E/s1600/mine.JPG" height="640" title="Mt Isa Mines" width="640" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">It
happened to be raining as we drove to our mineside house the hospital had given
us at Soldiers Hill and after a three year drought, nek minnit, the river was flooded
and all but one of the roads crossing into town and the hospital were impassable. <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-b0imJp7xndc/VLyf_9yooeI/AAAAAAAAC-o/VCNtiKHefW0/s1600/flood.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-b0imJp7xndc/VLyf_9yooeI/AAAAAAAAC-o/VCNtiKHefW0/s1600/flood.JPG" height="476" title="Road over the Leichhardt River flooded at sunset" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Road over the Leichhardt River flooded at sunset</td></tr>
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</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Bloody big road trains with not
just two, not three, but FOUR trailers thundered past us carrying goods to and
from the coast. At the house they had thoughtfully supplied us with fresh ground coffee but nothing to make it in. Luckily I had brought our trusty Vietnamese coffee filters - #1 travel tip, always travel with trusty Vietnamese coffee filters!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-r97eEMhq-II/VLyiSaQ_4YI/AAAAAAAAC-0/FDq_-iJWbCY/s1600/coofeetip.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-r97eEMhq-II/VLyiSaQ_4YI/AAAAAAAAC-0/FDq_-iJWbCY/s1600/coofeetip.JPG" height="640" width="480" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Overnight everything around us turned green. That wasn’t the only thing that was green. It turned out The Isa was a perfect location for viewing the
comet Lovejoy</span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"> as it continued on its trajectory north between Andromeda and Perseus</span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">.
Well it would have to be wouldn’t it, being in the MFN (middle of f*cking
nowhere) and therefore having minimal light pollution. Occy captured the comet with
his camera.</span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8l2hJ2kkU1c/VLyKk_nVrTI/AAAAAAAAC80/E0V7DcaD-WU/s1600/cometlovejoy.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8l2hJ2kkU1c/VLyKk_nVrTI/AAAAAAAAC80/E0V7DcaD-WU/s1600/cometlovejoy.JPG" height="456" title="Comet Lovejoy" width="640" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The comet was discovered last August (2014) by</span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">
Australian amateur astronomer Terry Lovejoy – actually it’s his fifth discovery
so total brownie points to him. </span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Oh, and did I mention it’s
green? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The green glow comes from
molecules of diatomic carbon (C<sub>2</sub>) fluorescing in ultraviolet
sunlight in the near-vacuum of space. (Cyanogen (CN) can add some
violet to the green, but our eyes are fairly insensitive to violet light, which
is a shame because it makes it sound really exotic.) The gaseous </span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">tail of
the comet points directly away from the Sun and is tinted blue from fluorescing
carbon monoxide ions (CO<sup>+</sup>) but unfortunately we couldn’t see that
either which is a total poo!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Occy went off to work the next day and we regrouped in
the evening for a debriefing at ‘the Local’, the Barkly hotel, where they did a
very decent roast of the day for ten bucks. It was roast pork and veg. In fact
it turns out it was roast pork and veg <i>every day.</i> Occy asked for the crackling
and the cooky-boy said, ‘Sure, if the staff hasn’t eaten it all.’ </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I thought to
complete our incognito cover we should order beers, you know, when in Rome and
all that. I think I might have blown our cover though when Occy asked me at the
bar which one I’d like and I said, ‘Oooo, I’ll have the one with the cute Tasmanian
Devil on it?’ The barman asked me, ‘Would you like a pint or a schooner, luv?’
Schooner? I thought that was a ship!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘Just
a glass is fine,’ I replied.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">‘Well,’ I asked Occy over a mouthful of pork, ‘how was
the first day?’</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">He squirmed a bit in his seat and said ‘I felt like Frank
Abernathy in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">‘Catch me if you can’ </i>playing
Dr Conners.’</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">‘Really?’ I asked, ‘Why on earth was that?’</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">‘Well, you know how we thought there were only three
doctors here? Well there are only three <i>senior</i> doctors here, and there’s a
whole load of younger doctors – PHOs, registrars, interns and medical
students.’</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">‘Oh and what’s wrong with that?’</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">‘Well I’m one of the three senior doctors and I’ve got
this whole team of doctors (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">this said
with an almost horrified look on his face)</i> that have to report their cases
to me and check that they’re doing the correct treatments and so on so I really
had to step up and look like I knew what I was doing, which I did, it was fine,
but I almost felt like asking them ‘<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">So do
you concur?</i>’’</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I just laughed my head off! Yes, it’s a bit different to
being the sole doctor in the ED department of Manji, but to his credit it only
took a few days for him to slip quite comfortably into his new role and realise
that he did actually have quite a lot of experience and knowledge. </span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vaxiQtCMfHU/VLyMoXy4HwI/AAAAAAAAC9A/uEezVzpeF6c/s1600/hospital_mt_isa.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vaxiQtCMfHU/VLyMoXy4HwI/AAAAAAAAC9A/uEezVzpeF6c/s1600/hospital_mt_isa.JPG" height="430" width="640" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> At the back of the
hospital we discovered Australia’s only Underground Hospital<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">.</span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">
</b>The first hospital in
Mount Isa had been nothing more than a row of tents operated by the mining
company. In fact most of the early
houses in the Isa were tent houses and apparently they were far better that the tin
roofed houses that followed them because at least you could water the canvas
down and the tent would be cooled by evaporation. </span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KrOLh_nl9Bg/VLyZvCnz-sI/AAAAAAAAC-I/eTS57wfQb58/s1600/tent_houses_Mt_Isa.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KrOLh_nl9Bg/VLyZvCnz-sI/AAAAAAAAC-I/eTS57wfQb58/s1600/tent_houses_Mt_Isa.jpg" height="316" width="640" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Mount Isa Mines eventually opened
a 40 bed Community Hospital mineside in 1929 and that was latter replaced with
the current state hospital townside.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/u5e2QTD4uyE?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Actually
as it turns out the Isa is bit of a big sneaky because it was also the catalyst
for the Royal Flying Doctor Service being set up. What happened was, in 1927, one
Dr George Simpson accompanied a Qantas flight to transport an injured Mount Isa
miner to the hospital in Cloncurry. The dramatic rescue highlighted the dangers
and struggles faced by the pioneers of the outback who didn’t have sufficient
access to medical care, and clearly demonstrated the need for an urgent
response medical service that could access these remote regions of the west,
ergo the Australian Inland Mission’s Aerial Medical Service was set up</span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"> in 1928</span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">,
now known as the iconic Royal Flying Doctor Service. And, that’s not the only thing born
in the big sneaky Isa. Pat Rafter and Greg Norman were also born here, not to
mention my girlfriend Christina Callaghan!<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qlXBFfMmC2s/VLyNrrAEHJI/AAAAAAAAC9I/ssh1M2FC3R0/s1600/abyssinia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qlXBFfMmC2s/VLyNrrAEHJI/AAAAAAAAC9I/ssh1M2FC3R0/s1600/abyssinia.jpg" height="640" title="Abyssinia Cafe Mt Isa" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Abyssinia Cafe</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">By the
end of the week, having sampled a few of the local eating and watering holes, (the
strangest being the Abyssinian Café – I know right, who would have thought in
the middle of the outback you’d find an Ethiopian restaurant – but surprise,
surprise, they did a very good wat, the traditional Ethiopian curry) we took up
an invitation to dine at the Irish Club with one of the other SMO’s Peter, John
the anaesthetist and his wife Pam who were from Ireland/Scotland, and chief
medical director Uli and his wife Sabina who were from Germany and subsequently
ran the hospital like a jolly friendly but firm WWII U-boat captain – no mucking
around, initiate strategy to 4 hour end targets at all times or the
self-destruct and eject will be deployed, ja! At 8pm the glasses rattled as the
nightly scheduled mine detonation went off and no one batted an eyelid. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">The
following week we had dinner at ‘The Isa’ hotel with a bunch of nurses, doctors
and med students for one of the PHO’s who was leaving. (I asked Occy what that
stood for and he said ‘not sure what the P is, something House Officer, so I
decided it was ‘Pet House Officer’) Occy had studiously omitted to mention any
females whenever he recounted his work adventures so you can imagine I was
somewhat surprised to find myself surrounded by afore not mentioned females.
One of them, Sarah (who was not averse to telling a tall tale or two herself), expressed surprise that I followed Occy around (causing the
med students to glibly comment that that’s what <i>they</i> did all day too):</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><i>‘Because
a lot of the SMO’s that come out here don’t seem to have very happy home lives
or relationships, you know, they come in drenched in aftershave...</i>’ she explained as if
that was the marker for ‘I’m available’.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">I gave
Occy the death stare because he ALWAYS goes in drenched in aftershave! This of
course meant I immediately went into high alert status and hoped Occy would
enjoy his lunch the next day - and every other day we were in the Isa - lovingly
prepared by moi with a mother lode of vampire warding off garlic. You're welcome!<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HT6sY3kJQ9o/VLyPRe9rS0I/AAAAAAAAC9U/mGqElVg2iEs/s1600/minetour.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HT6sY3kJQ9o/VLyPRe9rS0I/AAAAAAAAC9U/mGqElVg2iEs/s1600/minetour.JPG" height="640" title="Mt Isa underground mine tour" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Me with Bowie about to get all down in our crib an' all</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Anyways, when I wasn’t studying I spent my time romping around
the town digging up the dirt on the Isa. I went on an underground tour of the
mine, into the belly of the beast so to speak, which was hot, noisy and interesting. Our guide Bowie had worked the mine
for 36 years, was partially deaf as a result, but full of amusing tales. I can
actually say, in my best black gangster voice of course, that ‘I got all up in
ma crib an’ all!” because we finished off in the ‘Crib Room’ where we had
coffee & biscuits, watched over by a vintage poster board of the Phantom
reminding miners to turn on switch #247, whatever that was. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-__TmlVZnBx4/VLzyeVaoAVI/AAAAAAAAC_E/EknY5NyO6hM/s1600/crib.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-__TmlVZnBx4/VLzyeVaoAVI/AAAAAAAAC_E/EknY5NyO6hM/s1600/crib.JPG" height="482" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The 'Crib'</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-YEZDkTwzzPM/VLyTcVLj2MI/AAAAAAAAC9g/q3-Abnl7mK8/s1600/batscarnivorous.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="False vampire bats ghost bats" border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-YEZDkTwzzPM/VLyTcVLj2MI/AAAAAAAAC9g/q3-Abnl7mK8/s1600/batscarnivorous.JPG" height="640" title="Carnivorous bats" width="529" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Carnivorous bats of the Riversleigh area</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In one of my romps I stumbled across
some fascinating information on my favourite thing – bats, and not just any
bats, CARNIVOROUS BATS!! Not that far away from here lie the Riversleigh fossil
deposits and you’ll absolutely never guess what they found there! The <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">false vampire bat</b> from the Middle
Miocene <b>Gotham City </b>site <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">(how
Batman is that!). These prehistoric bats </span>were about the same size as the
living Ghost Bat found in caves around here today. The Gotham City deposit
appears to have been the floor of an ancient cave. The remains of their prey have been found in the limestone of the cave
floor - frogs, fish, skinks, birds, bandicoots, and a very small koala – wholly
crap man, these bats were totally carnivorous! What’s more, the modern day ghost
bats that we thought only ate insects? Wrongo! They are also totally
carnivorous as in a big way. In fact, one was found dead with the remains of
a cane toad in its guts and scientists are now speculating that it’s this habit
of snacking on the old toxic toad that could be leading to a decline in their
numbers!</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Of course there were other weird fossils also discovered,
dating back 25 million years, like giant, toothed platypuses, leopard-sized
carnivorous lions that looked a bit like over-sized wombats, giant plant-eating
marsupials as big as a rhinoceros, a couple of mammals SO bizarre that no
existing names could be applied to them and they became known among the
researchers as <i>Thingodonta</i>
and <i>Weirdodonta, </i>giant
long-armed flesh-eating kangaroos dubbed "Fangaroo" (<i>Ekaltadeta ima</i>), who came
equipped with a set of dagger-like canines. Its skull was found in the
imaginatively-named “Camel Sputum” rock - how did they think that one up? Imagine if town planners cottoned on to that, then we might be sayig 'Oh yes, I live in Rhinoceros Rectum Road!' I mean seriusly?! They also found a giant sperm of some
mollusc thing and the sperm was longer than the male’s entire body, but tightly
coiled up inside the sexual organs, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and
kindly preserved by the droppings of thousands of my Gotham city bat friends.
You're welcome!</span></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody></tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6bzq2z3MPrk/VLyVzbVhcZI/AAAAAAAAC9w/A-seKRqoXvM/s1600/Finnish_in_Mt_Isa.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6bzq2z3MPrk/VLyVzbVhcZI/AAAAAAAAC9w/A-seKRqoXvM/s1600/Finnish_in_Mt_Isa.jpg" height="640" width="640" /></a></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Top: Finnish grave at the Sunset cemetery. Bottom: Traditional Finnish wedding circa 1930</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody></tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"> We had
promised one of the lovely nurses in Manjimup, Karen, that we would visit the cemetery and try
to locate the graves of her grandparents who were tragically killed in the
early 70’s travelling thru the Isa when their caravan caught fire. Walking into the cemetry between an avenue of tall tress I was delighted to find them full of roosting flying foxes - my favourite bats! The hunt for the graves proved an impossible feat. Even
though we scoured all the headstones they must have been laid to rest in
unmarked graves, of which there were A LOT! We noticed that many of the headstones
belonged to Fins and this was because of the influx of post-war immigrants, in
particular a very large Irish and Finnish contingency, in the early 50s. Today
their descendants, Pekkas and Paddys, compete in their iconic Akubra hats at
the annual infamous rodeo. The main street, Rodeo Drive, which boasts a
monument to old Milesy who founded Mt Isa (his ashes are buried under it), has
plaques in the pavement, Hollywood style, commemorating rodeo greats through
the years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody></tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0IzKMu-Vn40/VLyYZglzivI/AAAAAAAAC98/58kBQ_YTpvI/s1600/milesrodeo.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0IzKMu-Vn40/VLyYZglzivI/AAAAAAAAC98/58kBQ_YTpvI/s1600/milesrodeo.JPG" height="640" width="640" /></a></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Left: John Campbell Miles monument. Top: Rodeo Drive plaques. Bottom: Locals in their Akubra hats</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody></tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So how did the Isa come to be
here? Well as usual there’s a nice story mixed in with a dirty tale of sordid
and violent colonialism. In 1923, lone prospector John Campbell Miles, while
travelling on a gold prospecting trip to the Northern Territory with his trusty
steed Hard Times, that the mine was first named after, camped by the banks of the
Leichhardt River. Sampling a nearby rock outcrop, he realised that it was
heavily mineralised – well this is the brochure story anyways. What <i>really</i>
happened was that he was taken to the deposits by a young aboriginal man by the
name of Kabalulumana of the local Kalkadoon tribe.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Anyways, on with the story –
turns out old Milesy had stumbled on to one of the world's richest copper,
silver, lead and zinc ore bodies. In a fit of great imaginative creativity (<i>I am being sarcastic here</i>) he decided
to call his discovery "Mount <b>Isa</b>" after the stories he’d heard of the
Mount <b>Ida</b> goldfield in Western Australia and the mine was born.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody></tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zAKkGcehmsI/VLyaezebyjI/AAAAAAAAC-Q/eK5_BoWE1io/s1600/John_Campbell_%2BMiles.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zAKkGcehmsI/VLyaezebyjI/AAAAAAAAC-Q/eK5_BoWE1io/s1600/John_Campbell_%2BMiles.jpg" height="316" title="On the left: John Campbell Miles with the first staff of the Mt Isa Mines" width="640" /></a></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">On the left: John Campbell Miles with the first staff of the Mt Isa Mines</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody></tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"> All very
nice you might say. Well it was particularly nice of Kabalulumana because he
could have quite righteously ignored old Milesy after what the whites had done
to his people back in 1883. You see all of this land belonged to the Kalkadoons
but of course that wasn’t acknowledged back then, or today really. So as it
transpires there was this new hotshot Sub-Inspector of Native Police that had
been appointed in nearby Cloncurry; twenty-five year old Frederick Charles
Urquhart. The power obviously went to the little shit’s head because the first
thing he did was round up all the scattered horses in the area and buy or
commandeer (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">read steal)</i> more. He
drilled the Native Police troopers ‘with all the vehemence of a Prussian
Sergeant-Major’, moving their camp twenty-five miles out of town to maintain
discipline. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Kalkadoon leader Mahoni
made the mistake of challenging him to come out into the hills, saying they
would finish him off. Urquhart wasn’t going to let his ultimate authorita be
questioned and was obviously just waiting for an excuse to get down and nasty,
because when James Powell, was speared to death while mustering cattle on his
station, co-owner Alexander Kennedy joined forces with Urquhart and trapped the Kalkadoon war party who had gotten wind of Urquharts intentions in a gorge. The Kalkadoons fought hard but seriously, when you’re
facing a carbine and all you've got is your best boomerang and spear, you really don’t have a
hope in hell do you? One eyewitness said that ‘<i>men, women and children were
killed, but mainly men</i>’. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="3"></a><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">The event
which led to the final battle of the Kalkadoons was the murder of a Chinese
shepherd on the Granada Station. Worried about his stock, the station's owner,
Hopkins, gathered a large body of men to augment Urquhart's Native Police.
Pastoralists and </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">farmhands
came from all over the surrounding area to take part in the in what became
known as the Battle Mountain massacre. Observing this large body of whites
gathering, messages quickly went through the Kalkadoon network for the warriors
to assemble.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Urquhart
tracked the Kalkadoons, now 600 strong and led by a man wearing a headdress of
white down, and a ‘<i>thick possum-string hanging around his neck and attached to
another string passing around his waist</i>’ to a spot atop a boulder-studded hill.
It was an excellent tactical manoeuvre, overlooking the plain below and the
Kalkadoons had laid in large stocks of spears and boomerangs for just such a
siege. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Sub-Inspector
Urquhart started the battle in typical ‘the sun never sets on the British
Empire’ fashion by ordering the assembled warriors to ‘Stand in the Queen's
name’. The Kalkadoons, who probably didn’t give a hoot about the lady in the
funny headdress, replied with a hail of rocks and missiles and a ‘<i>roar of
defiance</i>’. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Urquhart
then ordered the now famous cavalry charge that finally led to the deaths of
200 of the finest Kalkadoon warriors. Not happy with the slaughter - well they didn't get all 600 did they! - Urquhart and
his troopers, who would have been right at home with the KKK, continued their
‘cleaning up’ operations for several days. <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-w6_-lVBJ4vA/VLydnBdO_dI/AAAAAAAAC-c/1gE1CRTBxXk/s1600/Kalkadoons.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-w6_-lVBJ4vA/VLydnBdO_dI/AAAAAAAAC-c/1gE1CRTBxXk/s1600/Kalkadoons.jpg" height="640" title="Top: Kalkadoon tribe Bottom left: Kalkadoons were famous for their stone axes which were traded all over the country Bottom right: Cave paintings at the intitiation site at Sun Rock for Kalkadoon boys" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Top: Kalkadoon tribe Bottom left: Kalkadoons were famous for their stone axes which were traded all over the country Bottom right: Cave paintings at the intitiation site at Sun Rock for Kalkadoon boys</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Even in
1960 it was noted that ‘<i>for decades, the hill was littered with the bleached
bones of </i></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><i>warriors,
gins and piccaninnies</i>’. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An
anthropologist in 1890 <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>said of the
Kalkadoons in the area ‘<i>I saw men and women, their faces sunken in, their
bodies so shrunken, and eyes so small and far back in their heads that at first
sight they appeared like mummies of centuries</i></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><i>gone by
walking about the camps.... Lake Nash has some bad cases and white travellers
do their very best to disease the black gins. I saw one poor child not 12 years
that had syphilis for 12 months or more, can anything be more horrible than
this, it is bad enough to know how they have been shot down without allowing
these things to continue'</i>.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">But
things did continue like this for a long time, look at this excerpt by </span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">the American birth
control campaigner </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Sanger" title="Margaret Sanger"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Margaret
Sanger</span></a><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">
who quite casually wrote in her papers <i>What Every Girl Should Know (1920)</i>:
"<i>The aboriginal Australian, the lowest known species of the human family,
just a step higher than the chimpanzee in brain development, has so little
sexual control that police authority alone prevents him from obtaining sexual
satisfaction on the streets</i>". </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">So, what did I learn from this jaunt to 'The Isa"?</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span><br />
<ol>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Always travel with #1 travel tip, Vietnamese coffee filters</span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Buy plenty of garlic to ward of potential vampires #1 WAGs tip</span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">A schooner is not necessarily a ship! </span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">A crib is a tea room - next time I hear some homie rapping about 'gettin' all up in ma crib' I'll know he's talking about having a nice cup of tea </span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Gotham City is real and if I ever see a bat from there I can get out my best Twilight line and say <i>'I see you brought a little snack!'</i> </span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Terrorism isn't just a modern issue</span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Margaret Sanger was a bitch!</span></span></li>
</ol>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12110104320011408280noreply@blogger.com1Mount Isa QLD 4825, Australia-20.7247053 139.49746159999995-20.8435223 139.33610009999995 -20.6058883 139.65882309999995tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5192893530598681928.post-55437497623651093132014-06-23T11:30:00.000+08:002014-06-24T16:51:32.720+08:00The Long Way to the Fistula Hospital<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DAIEv-WG9M8/U6d2O6omcXI/AAAAAAAAC1s/EpqgrXKJYPo/s1600/aagirls.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a></div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_9FIMc1FfNw/U6d3XSMJ6II/AAAAAAAAC18/O1hmzjyihPk/s1600/afistula.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_9FIMc1FfNw/U6d3XSMJ6II/AAAAAAAAC18/O1hmzjyihPk/s1600/afistula.jpg" height="545" title="d'Scarlett family outside the Hamlin Fistula Hospital Addis Ababa Ethiopia" width="640" /></a></div>
In which we make our way to the Fistula Hospital with a suitcase full of bras:-<br />
Having had many previous experiences with shipping packages to Mother Teresa’s Leprosarium on the outskirts of Calcutta (Kolkata) and mysteriously disappearing to line the pockets of customs officials, I thought I would employ a strategic move and bring my ‘package’ with me for the Fistula Hospital in Addis Ababa. The ‘package’ consisted of a suitcase full of bras kindly donated by the lovely women of Cairns for the wondeful women attending the Fistula Hospital. Bras you might ask? Isn’t that the wrong end of the body? Well, after the women afflicted with a fistula have been successfully operated on and recovered they are usually able to return to their villages and take up normal lives and relationships. The Fistula Hospital encourages these women to return to the hospital if and when they are ready to give birth to their first child in order to be safely delivered and avoid any risk of a second fistula through obstructed labour. These women will sometimes have breast/nipple issues that require dressings and hence the need for bras to keep them in place easily.<br />
Anyways, Occy and I had arrived in Addis on a cold afternoon and managed to nearly get ourselves evicted before even stepping foot outside the airport. At the security screening we put our suitcases and bags thru the x-ray machine and the heavily armed security officer started gesticulating wildly to Occy and demanding to see inside his camera bag. Occy unzipped the bag and the officer said, ‘What is this? What is this?’ pointing to his super doper telescopic lens – you know, the sort men get when they reach a mid-life crisis but are in denial about it, yet you can tell because they start buying stuff that symbolises the enormity of their penises.<br />
‘Well that’s just my camera gear, you know for photographs,’ says Occy to the officer. The officer points an accusing finger at him and states, doesn’t suggest or ask mind you, but states as if it’s an obvious known fact, ‘You are a photojournalist, this is not allowed to come in, I must take this!’ Uh oh! This could end badly, I was thinking to myself – I’ve seen Occy in challenging confrontations with pseudo-authority figures before and he doesn’t take too well to it. To my utter astonishment in a rare turn of events Occy actually decided to try being diplomatic instead of incensed. ‘No, no, no,’ he said to the officer, ‘I’m not a photojournalist, I’m a doctor, this is just for taking holiday photos!’<br />
‘Doctor?’ the officer asks, ‘Which hospital are you working at, where is your work visa?’<br />
Oh dear! ‘No, no, no,’ replies Occy, ‘I am not working here, I work in Australia, I am just here for a holiday.’ ‘Huh!’ the officer grunted then rounded on me. ‘This is your suitcase?’ he asked me, pointing to a large red suitcase.<br />
‘Yes,’ I replied.<br />
‘There are many things in here shaped like this,’ he said, drawing a U-shaped curve in the air with his finger. ‘What are they?’<br />
‘Oh, they’re bras for the Fistula Hospital,’ I replied.<br />
‘Bras? What is ‘bras’,’ he asked in a voice that implied that it was clear to him that we were both up to no good and I was probably carrying a shipment of secret weapons. I cupped my breasts with my hands and jiggled them up and down at which I’m sad to report that he got completely the wrong idea and eyes nearly popping out of his head, screamed, ‘What! What is this you do?’<br />
I quickly flicked the bra strap out from under my shirt and showed him that instead, repeating, ‘Bra!’<br />
Recognition finally dawned on him and he looked at both of us disgustedly and waved his hands, shooing us away with a ‘Go, just go!’ We scampered out of there as fast as we could, astonished that we had managed to retain both the camera equipment and the offending suitcase full of bras.<br />
On the appointed day that we were to visit the Fistula Hospital we lugged the suitcase full of bras into our 4WD and directed the driver to proceed to the Fistula Hospital. <br />
‘First I must show you something,’ he cried, ‘then we will go to the Fistula Hospital!’ The something turned out to be Emperor Haile Selassie’s cathedral and tomb which Lion-boy was keen to see. Having travelled thru many Muslim countries, we had heard what we took to be the usual call to prayer by the muezzin, but it in fact turned out to be the call to prayer for the Christian church, the method of worship blurring the lines between the two distinct religions. Magnificent stained glass windows depict scenes from the Old and New Testament. - an Adam and Eve stand under an apple tree accompanied by an ostrich and a lion – how quintessentially African!<br />
<br />
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-XZtAX3SXQ_c/U6d4SKp5FvI/AAAAAAAAC2E/q553QioCQpo/s1600/aglass.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Adam & Eve with a lion and ostrich" border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-XZtAX3SXQ_c/U6d4SKp5FvI/AAAAAAAAC2E/q553QioCQpo/s1600/aglass.jpg" height="628" title="Stained glass window in Haile Selassie cathedral Addis Ababa" width="640" /></a>Women in white muslin dresses and shawls floated in through the
‘women’s’ door like so many ethereal beings in search of a pew from
which to worship.<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-oczcNXj4y4s/U6d66CGoszI/AAAAAAAAC2g/m1g2h2M51Ck/s1600/acathedral.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-oczcNXj4y4s/U6d66CGoszI/AAAAAAAAC2g/m1g2h2M51Ck/s1600/acathedral.jpg" height="640" width="468" /></a></div>
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9Xqp9RHlYIg/U6d62uz90EI/AAAAAAAAC2Y/BEL5CS99BVo/s1600/aapriest.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9Xqp9RHlYIg/U6d62uz90EI/AAAAAAAAC2Y/BEL5CS99BVo/s1600/aapriest.jpg" height="640" width="426" /></a><br />
A black garbed Coptic priest presented himself to us,
offering for us to take his photo then promptly presented his hand for
payment. Outside in the sunshine men kneel and pray, then rise and kiss
the wall of the cathedral before prostrating themselves again. A mention
of the Rastafarians triggers my memory – there was a connection with
Emperor Haile Selassie but I couldn’t quite remember what it was. Later
Indil-cat recounted that the Rastafari movement had started in Jamaica
in the 1930’s revering Haile Selassie as the returned messiah largely
due to the fact that he was crowned Emperor shortly after Marcus
Garvey’s prophecy <i>‘Look to Africa where a black king shall be crowned,
he shall be the redeemer.’</i> The Rastafarians believed that God himself
was black as stated in Jeremiah 8:21 <i>‘For the hurt of the daughter of my
people am I hurt; I am black; as astonishment hath taken hold of me.’</i><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4Kx3y4wQbG8/U6d6IgyvvsI/AAAAAAAAC2Q/40aWcWnOKks/s1600/ahaile.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Portrait" border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4Kx3y4wQbG8/U6d6IgyvvsI/AAAAAAAAC2Q/40aWcWnOKks/s1600/ahaile.jpg" height="640" title="Emperor Haile Selassie" width="452" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Emperor Haile Selassie</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mlz2LZpJWOk/U6d843llYTI/AAAAAAAAC2s/fFemdrl7Mbg/s1600/acollage.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mlz2LZpJWOk/U6d843llYTI/AAAAAAAAC2s/fFemdrl7Mbg/s1600/acollage.jpg" height="588" width="640" /></a> Haile Selassie’s lineage can be traced back to King Solomon and the
Queen of Sheba. When he was crowned, the King of England, considered by
many to be the most powerful and important man in the world, could not
attend but sent instead the Duke of Gloucester who, upon meeting the
emperor bowed to him revealing that the new emperor was more important
than the most important man in the world!We finally left the historic cathedral and thought we would now proceed to the hospital. Well, that’s what thought did! Our driver had other ideas and insisted he take us to the National Museum where an anthropologist took it upon himself to show us through to the archaeological digs section and where the original ‘Lucy’ bones discovered by Leakey are housed. A collection of skulls dating back some 5 million years revealed excessively flat molars, the reason? Even back then they chewed chat or khat! I’d recently watched the film Captain Phillips so I knew that khat was a flowering plant native to the Horn of Africa that was chewed by the Somali pirates. Khat causes excitement, loss of appetite (god, I should have been chewing it!) and euphoria and gives the pirates false courage for a raid. We did later manage to get hold of some for curiosity’s sake as we descended into the Omo Valley and it was being sold by the roadside but can’t really say we noticed much of anything, probably due to the fact that it tends to work on a slightly cumulative basis. By the time we were finished with our anthropology lessons at the National Museum we were starting to wonder whether we’d ever get to Fistula Hospital and we were in fact getting quite desperate and paranoid even. Did the driver have something against the Fistula Hospital? Did he know something we didn’t? Was he deliberately trying to keep us away from the hospital? In the end it turned out that he just didn’t know where the Fistula Hospital was and was embarrassed to say! We wound our way up and down cobbled streets, in and out of the merkato thru goats and donkeys and people and back around the way we’d come until eventually we arrived at the gates of the Fistula Hospital. We almost cried with relief we were so happy to see it. Big signs and the presence of security officers at the gate warned that the taking of photos was strictly prohibited so there would only be verbal documentation of our visit. It also stated visiting hours were strictly Tuesdays and Saturday 1-2pm only with no exceptions! It was a Friday. Undeterred Occy put on his best ‘doctor persona’ (you know, the one where they exhibit signs of a God-complex and act all omniscient & omnipotent and basically bluff their way into getting whatever they want) He wound down his window and said imperiously to the security as if he would brook no argument, ‘I’m Doctor Russell d’Scarlett, this is my family, we have come all the way from Australia and we are carrying supplies for the hospital’ – thankfully failing to mention the ‘supplies’ were a suitcase full of bras! Nek Minnit we were issued security lanyards and ushered through to see matron. We had missed Catherine Hamlin by a few days; she had had to go to England on family matters so we had an appointment with the 2CEO. The grounds were beautiful, most of the gardens having been planted by
Catherine Hamlin herself over the years, they were lush and green and
cool. <br />
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DAIEv-WG9M8/U6d2O6omcXI/AAAAAAAAC1s/EpqgrXKJYPo/s1600/aagirls.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DAIEv-WG9M8/U6d2O6omcXI/AAAAAAAAC1s/EpqgrXKJYPo/s1600/aagirls.jpg" height="436" width="640" /></a> <a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-BKJMvev69fU/U6d2qKBc0lI/AAAAAAAAC10/snNstY3xk-4/s1600/aagardens.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-BKJMvev69fU/U6d2qKBc0lI/AAAAAAAAC10/snNstY3xk-4/s1600/aagardens.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a> We passed a group of women waiting outside a clinic and even though we had spoken to the children about fistulas and what the consequences of a fistula was (leaking urine and or faces uncontrollably) Lion-boy suddenly gasped at the strong odour and exclaimed, ‘What’s that smell?!’ Horrified, both Occy and I squeaked out, ‘Shhh! It’s the smell of urine because the poor girls have no control over their urine leaking – they are probably waiting to be assessed for operations to fix that.’<br />
We eventually found our way into matron’s office and spent the rest of the afternoon at the hospital with her discussing the success, evolution and current needs of the hospital. It now had a staff of 500 that included 5 outreach hospitals each with 5 satellite clinics lying close to the Ethiopian borders. Each clinic had a trained fistula midwife excepting 8 of the clinics that were still waiting for specialised midwives to be trained. Because of the difficulties caused by having 83 different languages spoken within Ethiopia, midwives were chosen from the region in which they would be deployed to in the future. The hospital trains many doctors from all around the world in the fistula repair techniques developed by the Hamlin’s and the matron offered for Occy to return in some years and be trained so he could do voluntary work in the outlying hospitals where they were short-staffed. We agreed this would be a splendid idea.<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0F8jyM2FpfA/U6d11AbMx1I/AAAAAAAAC1k/qneygo6D8bY/s1600/aaward.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0F8jyM2FpfA/U6d11AbMx1I/AAAAAAAAC1k/qneygo6D8bY/s1600/aaward.jpg" height="428" width="640" /></a><br />
Matron took us on a tour of the surgical ward where 4 surgeries can be performed simultaneously in an open operating theatre. The recovery ward was full of women recovering from their surgeries. The hospital had relied heavily on funding from AusAid but with the new Abbott government, AusAid had been disbanded and funding to the hospital downsized. I would really urge you to help the women of the Fistula Hospital by heading directly to the hospitals official <a href="https://hamlin.org.au/how-to-help/" target="_blank">donation page</a> where you can also purchase gifts, many of them made by the women themselves, the proceeds going to fund the hospitals surgical, rehabilitation, midwifery and maternity programmes.<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12110104320011408280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5192893530598681928.post-81614053685251880842014-05-27T08:55:00.001+08:002014-05-27T08:55:27.082+08:00Into the Wild Omo Valley<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-DyWca-Ncq7A/U4PR-1qnKdI/AAAAAAAACvc/MpEwU1X5Rpg/s1600/aarus+lake.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-DyWca-Ncq7A/U4PR-1qnKdI/AAAAAAAACvc/MpEwU1X5Rpg/s1600/aarus+lake.jpg" height="425" width="640" /></a></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6QkmVhGMcxI/U4PSS_mwThI/AAAAAAAACvk/4lCF-CsDELI/s1600/aasav+chamo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6QkmVhGMcxI/U4PSS_mwThI/AAAAAAAACvk/4lCF-CsDELI/s1600/aasav+chamo.jpg" height="480" title="Sunrise over Lake Chomo" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sunrise over Lake Chomo</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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We rose early in our tukuls (huts)
so we could observe the sun rising over the Rift Valley. Golden fingers of
light broached the mountain top across the valley floor in front of us as we
sipped on steaming cups of Ethiopian coffee, gradually bringing the dark green
floor of the valley to life. Baboons screeched nearby and a few eagles soared,
catching thermals in ever decreasing circles as they descended over the valley.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The girls and I had to pee so we walked into a
natural circle formed by some trees. As we squatted there I suddenly had the
feeling someone was watching us. ‘Look up in the trees – baboons!’ </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kPxz2Vk-jOw/U4PT_V7t7nI/AAAAAAAACvw/nSWoCqoydh4/s1600/ababoon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kPxz2Vk-jOw/U4PT_V7t7nI/AAAAAAAACvw/nSWoCqoydh4/s1600/ababoon.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
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Monkeybuns
said. These baboons had the most astonishing blue balls and peered at us
maliciously. We scampered out of there as soon as we were finished our business
to find a few military police in their blue camo grinning at us. They were
there to patrol the shore perimeter and clearly took their job quite seriously,
sitting in the shade of an Acacia tree with their AK-47’s resting across their
laps, smoking.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Fvg11vSROQs/U4PZuYTKbiI/AAAAAAAACwA/WoLTzTdaUPg/s1600/IMG_2172+russell+E.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Fvg11vSROQs/U4PZuYTKbiI/AAAAAAAACwA/WoLTzTdaUPg/s1600/IMG_2172+russell+E.JPG" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />We bolted down some hot omelette and drove down to the shore of Lake Chomo. <br />
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A rickety tin boat with an outboard took us onto the lake to
spot its famous array of birdlife, crocodiles and hippos. Enormous herons,
pelicans and fish eagles were everywhere. The pelicans worked in teams forming
a circle in which they could herd the fish. India was particularly delighted at
the ‘pink’ hippos. Local fisherman calmly stood waist deep water fishing,
paying no mind to the potential dangers of the enormous crocs and wandering
hippos. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-H1W6ZIsOY1Q/U4PafK4swdI/AAAAAAAACwI/2CzgWCmzyZU/s1600/aman+fishing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-H1W6ZIsOY1Q/U4PafK4swdI/AAAAAAAACwI/2CzgWCmzyZU/s1600/aman+fishing.jpg" height="404" title="A man fishing on Lake Chomo" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4sPTQrcwhR4/U4Paix4FIYI/AAAAAAAACwQ/KrihurqYKoQ/s1600/aman+chomo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4sPTQrcwhR4/U4Paix4FIYI/AAAAAAAACwQ/KrihurqYKoQ/s1600/aman+chomo.jpg" height="382" title="A man spear fishing on Lake Chomo" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GPf1rvoYFa4/U4PassWrTkI/AAAAAAAACwY/Gjwx7rIhk-c/s1600/abird.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GPf1rvoYFa4/U4PassWrTkI/AAAAAAAACwY/Gjwx7rIhk-c/s1600/abird.jpg" height="426" title="Heron in flight Lake Chomo" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zcShSt2a0_Y/U4PawP9c-II/AAAAAAAACwg/ASrPC6y7Pvs/s1600/acroc.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zcShSt2a0_Y/U4PawP9c-II/AAAAAAAACwg/ASrPC6y7Pvs/s1600/acroc.jpg" height="426" title="enormous croc Lake Chomo" width="640" /></a></div>
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We drove on to the town of Konso where the women’s skirts
took on an unusual peplum design. We stopped to take lunch of wat and injera at
a lookout over another section of the Rift Valley. There were a few Italian
travellers here and everyone, even the twins partook of the strong black
Ethiopian coffee.</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-NESvU43B2j4/U4Pd3ctmu3I/AAAAAAAACws/xE50jIw0DNc/s1600/IMG_0725+(3)+russell+E.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-NESvU43B2j4/U4Pd3ctmu3I/AAAAAAAACws/xE50jIw0DNc/s1600/IMG_0725+(3)+russell+E.JPG" height="320" title="Eating injera and wat" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Occy & India eating injera & wat</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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After lunch we drove on til we hit dirt – 83kms of hell to
get to Turmi, the Hamer tribe town sitting close to the border with the Sudan. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The closer we got the redder the earth, the
more naked the people, carrying machetes, Kalashnikovs, spears and always their
headrests that doubled as stools. Their distinctive red coloured hair was
braided and dressed with a combination of animal fat and red mud. </div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kjnDSOdSTP0/U4PeUXp9bCI/AAAAAAAACw0/cKdRjkJPwx8/s1600/ahamer+man.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kjnDSOdSTP0/U4PeUXp9bCI/AAAAAAAACw0/cKdRjkJPwx8/s1600/ahamer+man.jpg" height="402" title="A Hamer man with headrest" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A Hamer man holding a headrest</td></tr>
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<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Jllj1A8o2dc/U4PedD80_SI/AAAAAAAACw8/p38i3ISiOfU/s1600/ahamer+on+road.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Jllj1A8o2dc/U4PedD80_SI/AAAAAAAACw8/p38i3ISiOfU/s1600/ahamer+on+road.jpg" height="426" title="Hamer woman along road with yellow water container" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hamer woman along road with yellow water container</td></tr>
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We eventually turned into our lodge not long before sunset.
It was literally in the MFN as my dad would say – the ‘middle of fuckin’
nowhere’! Small rooms built by the tribe to accommodate curious travellers such
as ourselves. We left our gear and walked a kilometre up a track toward a kopi
(small collection of boulders forming a hillock) where the ‘restaurant’ was. We
found our dinner companions were half a dozen shirtless Russian men, having
already noted the presence of a ‘bar’ with a selection of about 5 different
Russian vodkas and various Ethiopian beers. This Hamer tribe was quite
enterprising then!</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Lb4-Lk6h_Jo/U4PhfvP19tI/AAAAAAAACxI/77Qr-tIP2PM/s1600/afunny+sign.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Lb4-Lk6h_Jo/U4PhfvP19tI/AAAAAAAACxI/77Qr-tIP2PM/s1600/afunny+sign.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Room sign</td></tr>
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<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PqpSMTbSsNg/U4Phj0SsCUI/AAAAAAAACxQ/JsVFoL0LivM/s1600/alodge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PqpSMTbSsNg/U4Phj0SsCUI/AAAAAAAACxQ/JsVFoL0LivM/s1600/alodge.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lion boys photo of India taking a photo of Monkeybuns on the walk up to the restaurant hidden by the kopi </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12110104320011408280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5192893530598681928.post-18294993302273717242014-05-15T10:47:00.000+08:002014-05-15T10:47:44.550+08:00A Dangerous Expedition to Arba Minch<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-olWX9MXvgzw/U3Qkz0AAX8I/AAAAAAAACtI/-DEO_wVK_2I/s1600/atorsten+me.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-olWX9MXvgzw/U3Qkz0AAX8I/AAAAAAAACtI/-DEO_wVK_2I/s1600/atorsten+me.jpg" height="480" title="Lion-boy & Princess Snapperhead at Paradise Lodge looking over the valley with Lake Chamo in the background" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lion-boy & Princess Snapperhead at Paradise Lodge looking over the valley with Lake Chamo in the background</td></tr>
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<br /></div>
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Ethiopian drivers have to pass ‘levels’. A driver classed to
drive foreigners around in a 4WD must be a ‘level 3’. From my penetrating
observations after many hours traversing Ethiopia I have come to the following
conclusions:</div>
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A ‘level 1’ driver knows how to start a car, drive the car
and possibly when the thought occurs to him remember that there might be road
rules, such as the suggestion of driving on the right hand side of the road. He
may also, at any old time that he feels like it, drive on the left hand side of
the road. Intersection right of ways are determined by whoever has the greater
will power. </div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-1ooqbFHrXKE/U3Qk2TXP37I/AAAAAAAACtQ/G5rtDtBON2s/s1600/athe+road.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-1ooqbFHrXKE/U3Qk2TXP37I/AAAAAAAACtQ/G5rtDtBON2s/s1600/athe+road.jpg" height="318" title="Traffic on the road to Arba Minch" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Traffic on the road to Arba Minch</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A ‘level 2’ driver knows that the road actually belongs to
the goats, donkey and people and he is skilled in negotiating James Bond type
manoeuvres around them. He acknowledges that the roads were actually built not for
ease of travel of vehicles but aforementioned goats, donkeys and people.
Further proof of this is provided by the fact that, and I kid you not, the road
is also routinely used by the intended road users for afternoon naps – smack
bang in the middle of the road.</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-irqFNCMSChY/U3Qkg7FjSuI/AAAAAAAACs4/JKfA_l0aRsA/s1600/a4wd.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-irqFNCMSChY/U3Qkg7FjSuI/AAAAAAAACs4/JKfA_l0aRsA/s1600/a4wd.jpg" height="480" title="Outside of the towns the road becomes rough" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Outside of the towns the road becomes rough</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A ‘level 3’ driver knows all this and is still allowed to
drive foreigners through the deepest, darkest roads of the interior! These
elite drivers are also certified cattle whisperers and are born with an
additional feature - they possess an echolocation mutation that allows them
detect and avoid potholes in the dark! In addition, the level 3 driver must
above all possess the ability to multi-task – that is to say that he must be
able to simultaneously steer the car on a pothole avoidance course whilst
waving at rock throwing locals in an attempt to engage them in the same
activity – in Ethiopia the custom prevails that if someone waves at you, you
MUST wave back – hence causing them to desist in their previously gleeful and
potentially life threatening rock throwing. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PfMRceQ6tR0/U3Qm4gxUpcI/AAAAAAAACt4/IhAggxSQO5k/s1600/afield.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PfMRceQ6tR0/U3Qm4gxUpcI/AAAAAAAACt4/IhAggxSQO5k/s1600/afield.jpg" height="480" title="Fields to Arba Minch " width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Having driven through a lot of Asia I would have to say that
thing that really sets the Ethiopian driver apart from any comparison to his
Asian counterparts is his complete and utter calm, courtesy and lack of any
aggressive honking. These guys are not horn blowers!</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_k7UO3yFuY8/U3QloCXOwOI/AAAAAAAACto/jDfLnspn9UA/s1600/entoto+tukul.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_k7UO3yFuY8/U3QloCXOwOI/AAAAAAAACto/jDfLnspn9UA/s1600/entoto+tukul.jpg" height="472" title="Tukul with Entoto mountains in the background" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tukul with Entoto mountains in the background</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As we wound our way arduously over the Entoto Mountains out
of Addis Ababa into a gruelling 9 hour drive to Arba Minch, the landscape gave
way to swathes of golden fields and green forested hillsides. Round tukuls
(huts) appeared and the number of people carrying machetes increased to include
even 6 & 7 year olds the closer we got to Arba Minch. ‘They carry the machetes
to harvest in the fields and to protect themselves from snakes,’ our guide told
us. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We drove along a dusty potholed side road on the top of an escarpment
at twilight until we came to a uniformed guard standing duty with an AK-47
under a rusty sign swinging in the breeze. I eyed the sign sceptically - ‘Paradise
Lodge’ it announced. The guard swept the bottom of our vehicles with a bomb
detector and waved us on. A small group of tukuls clustered at the very
precipice of the drop into the Greater Rift Valley with sweeping views over
Lake Chamo to the right and Lake<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Abaya </span>to the
left. Paradise after all! </div>
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</div>
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</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EI2Ww6zF2j4/U3QlqH-4_VI/AAAAAAAACts/eJ1K1pTwmLQ/s1600/entrance+paradise.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EI2Ww6zF2j4/U3QlqH-4_VI/AAAAAAAACts/eJ1K1pTwmLQ/s1600/entrance+paradise.jpg" height="427" title="Entrance to Paradise Lodge Arba Minch" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Entrance to Paradise Lodge Arba Minch</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SbEQpBp4acU/U3QlUES1uiI/AAAAAAAACtg/QYPKSklHBI4/s1600/security+paradise.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SbEQpBp4acU/U3QlUES1uiI/AAAAAAAACtg/QYPKSklHBI4/s1600/security+paradise.jpg" height="480" title="Security at the entrance to Paradise Lodge" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Security at the entrance to Paradise Lodge</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6U-FPU0YpVo/U3QkUyFNrHI/AAAAAAAACsw/RV3wuGMrD1A/s1600/ame+tukul.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6U-FPU0YpVo/U3QkUyFNrHI/AAAAAAAACsw/RV3wuGMrD1A/s1600/ame+tukul.jpg" height="425" title="Princess Snapperhead at our Tukul" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Princess Snapperhead at our Tukul</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4bJVdoOqDVU/U3QkoQWuqXI/AAAAAAAACtA/UZCio-vZOao/s1600/ainside+tukul.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4bJVdoOqDVU/U3QkoQWuqXI/AAAAAAAACtA/UZCio-vZOao/s1600/ainside+tukul.jpg" height="480" title="Inside the kids tukul" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Inside the kids tukul</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hAhVhLOIB6Y/U3QoSYRTAwI/AAAAAAAACt8/_b8AeebffSE/s1600/honey+at+tukul.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hAhVhLOIB6Y/U3QoSYRTAwI/AAAAAAAACt8/_b8AeebffSE/s1600/honey+at+tukul.jpg" height="480" title="Occy at the back of the tukul" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Occy at the back of the tukul</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> </td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> </td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12110104320011408280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5192893530598681928.post-91671535048162572692014-05-04T12:36:00.001+08:002014-05-05T08:17:07.420+08:00Time Travelling to the Karo Tribe<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-1aa5aGmTDhI/U2W-iG06O5I/AAAAAAAACqs/aqDmAdpgZHw/s1600/karo+huts.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-1aa5aGmTDhI/U2W-iG06O5I/AAAAAAAACqs/aqDmAdpgZHw/s1600/karo+huts.jpg" height="300" title="Typical Conical Shaped Karo Huts" width="400" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Typical Conical Shaped Karo Huts</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In Ethiopia
they use a calendar based on the Coptic Egyptian calendar rather than the
Gregorian calendar that we in the west use. This calendar moves slightly slower than the Gregorian and
allows for 13 months in the year – the 13<sup>th</sup> month having only 5 or 6
days in it, but nonetheless allowing the Ethiopian tourism industry to advertise
’Come to Ethiopia where we have 13 months of sunshine’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I call this calendar the antiageing calendar
because it is also seven years slower. This technically makes me 43 not 50,
therefore NOT middle-aged and Not eligible for any, oh so considerate, ‘seniors’
benefits! They exploit this well with the slogan – ‘Seven years younger in
Ethiopia!’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Technically this means you
can leave your home town on the 3<sup>rd</sup> of December 2013 and arrive in
Addis Ababa on the 4<sup>th</sup> of December 2006, having effectively travelled
back in time! </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">If this hasn’t amazed you enough you can be further astounded by
the fact that in Ethiopia they tell time differently! We have Orop time (Europe time) and Ethiopia
has Habbishat time. It’s quite logical really - the clock, which is a 12 hour clock,
starts at sunrise (this varies little in timing during the year and is usually at 6am, sunset being at 6pm). Therefore, logically, the first hour of the ‘day’ –
our 6am- is 12 o’clock, 7am is 1 o’clock and so on until it gets to 6pm when
its 12 o’clock again. Why do we start our day at midnight anyway? Next time you
want to ‘miss’ an appointment with a less than desirable friend at say 1pm,
just send them a text at 7pm and say, ‘I’m here, its 1pm Habbishat time, where
r u?’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Anyways, having
confirmed with our guide that we would be leaving at 7 the next day and was
that 7 in the morning or 1 or really 1 in the afternoon which was 7? – we set
out to find the Karo tribe. We had already been travelling for 3 days and this
day was another road from hell. 65km’s across three river beds later, we finally
arrived at the Karo village, perched on an escarpment overlooking the
serpentine Omo river. This river irrigates crops of maize and sorghum planted
close to its banks. </span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WUhP--hD2Wc/U2XDNUar-QI/AAAAAAAACrg/VzICYynVmbY/s1600/karo+russell.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WUhP--hD2Wc/U2XDNUar-QI/AAAAAAAACrg/VzICYynVmbY/s1600/karo+russell.jpg" height="266" title="Occy with Karo man" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Grass conical shaped huts lay sprinkled across
the dry, red earth. A group of five or six men stood under a singular acacia
tree awaiting our arrival with Kalashnikovs slung casually over their
shoulders. We pulled our two 4WDs up in a cloud of dust and got out to greet
them. The men have a unique way of greeting whereby they shake hands whilst
simultaneously bumping opposite shoulders together. Indil-cat declared she felt
faint as soon as she got out of the vehicle, so we left her under the shade of
the acacia tree and went off to explore the village, meeting the
individual members of the tribe. It was incredibly hot and it wasn’t too long
before one of the men came up to tell us the Cat had fainted. We rushed back to
the acacia tree to find her laid out flat with a woman cooling her down by
splashing water over her face. After she’d downed a litre of water she felt
better and got up to shoot Polaroids of the children. She gave them their photos and watched their amazed little faces as they looked upon their image captured on a piece of paper. <br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-UpShAuKueYA/U2W9316yHFI/AAAAAAAACqk/kZOseut14xs/s1600/india+karo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-UpShAuKueYA/U2W9316yHFI/AAAAAAAACqk/kZOseut14xs/s1600/india+karo.jpg" height="235" title="Indil-cat showing Karo children their polaroid photo" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Indil-cat showing Karo children their polaroid photo</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Every Karo
family owns two houses: the Ono, the principal living room of the family, and
the Gappa, the centre of several household activities. The Karo are renowned
for their elaborate hairstyles of red ochre and animal fat, similar to the
Hamer tribe who they share lineage with and intermarry, put together in
elaborate styles. Body paint is drawn with ochre, white chalk, yellow mineral
rock, charcoal, and red iron ore. The men make a part from one ear to the
other, pulling the front section into braids, framing the forehead. The rest of
the hair is drawn back into a bun and held firmly by a colourful cap of glazed
earth that can take three days to construct. This can be painted in various
colours or into which pieces of bark and <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>ostrich feathers are attached. A man wearing a
grey and red-ochre clay hair bun with an Ostrich feather indicates that he has
bravely killed an enemy from another tribe or a dangerous animal, such as a
lion or a leopard. It is usually remade every three to six months, and can be
worn for a period of up to one year after the kill.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kOU6c-Ip4gw/U2W-trxcitI/AAAAAAAACq4/uf_SW21Fgnw/s1600/karo+man.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kOU6c-Ip4gw/U2W-trxcitI/AAAAAAAACq4/uf_SW21Fgnw/s1600/karo+man.jpg" height="425" width="640" /></a></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-A5GmP78A4NU/U2W-_Z2tcnI/AAAAAAAACrA/0gdauc9jbY0/s1600/karo+girls.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-A5GmP78A4NU/U2W-_Z2tcnI/AAAAAAAACrA/0gdauc9jbY0/s1600/karo+girls.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fZpKFmVqQjI/U2W_iMheRlI/AAAAAAAACrQ/E1oaQPAR8S8/s1600/karo+boys.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fZpKFmVqQjI/U2W_iMheRlI/AAAAAAAACrQ/E1oaQPAR8S8/s1600/karo+boys.jpg" height="400" width="260" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-DD8XmeKN8Fw/U2W_ROY34GI/AAAAAAAACrI/l5orgg6qP-g/s1600/karo+duo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-DD8XmeKN8Fw/U2W_ROY34GI/AAAAAAAACrI/l5orgg6qP-g/s1600/karo+duo.jpg" height="400" width="266" /></a></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">They wear
goatskin loincloths decorated with elaborate beads and sometimes tiny shells
they have traded for and the women are considered particularly beautiful the
deeper their chest scarification's are. Some of the men had painted their bodies
white which made them look fierce. The Karo men cover their body and face with
ashes mixed with fat as a symbol of virility. Scars across their chests are a
symbol of having performed a major kill, either of an enemy from another tribe
or of a large animal. They offered Occy 100 goats and 1 Kalashnikov (this is
more valuable than the 100 goats and is also worth one leopard skin) for
Monkeybuns which he politely declined saying she was already promised to
another who had offered 200 camels and 2 Kalashnikovs! They sagely nodded their
heads in acquiescence of this greater offer. A man in the tribe can have as
many wives as he wants, but must be able to afford them. Most men will
only marry two or three. The end of the Mengistu reign in the 1990s and ongoing
conflict in Sudan and Somalia means there has been an influx of left over AK-47′s,
Kalashnikovs and G-3 rifles. Look at this photo of us (minus the Cat who was still under the acacia tree feeling dodgy) with some of the Karo men - don't we look like white worms that haven't ever seen the sun!</span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GqZAIjj_M7E/U2W_zpMwDjI/AAAAAAAACrY/i__MZYHff5o/s1600/karo+tribe.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GqZAIjj_M7E/U2W_zpMwDjI/AAAAAAAACrY/i__MZYHff5o/s1600/karo+tribe.jpg" height="417" width="640" /></a></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12110104320011408280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5192893530598681928.post-30880820245686634662014-04-16T16:42:00.000+08:002014-04-16T16:42:15.129+08:00The Ensete Eating Dorze People of Ethiopia in Their 'Beehive Huts'<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">‘The tribal warfare
amongst the d’Scarlett clan teenagers seems to be dissipating, though the Monkey
still suffers from conversation interruptus, much to her extreme annoyance</i>.<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> Yesterday, Occy declared it was Day 4 with
no internet and a meltdown was imminent.</i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">As the sun rises over
the mountains surrounding Lake Chamo, bathing the Monty Pythonesque sweeping
plains below in golden sunlight, the animals begin their morning rituals. The
Monkey cries for food, the Pindl-cat photographs the surrounds and the Occy writes
the words that will go down in family history.’</i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ge3s0efFHMs/U049AA7lMkI/AAAAAAAACpA/-bD2Py8m3U4/s1600/ahutdorze.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ge3s0efFHMs/U049AA7lMkI/AAAAAAAACpA/-bD2Py8m3U4/s1600/ahutdorze.jpg" height="266" title="Beehive or Elephant shaped Dorze hut" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Characteristic Dorze Hut</i></td></tr>
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So began my journal on the morning we left Arba Minch, Ethiopia
and set out to visit the Dorze tribe. This tribe is characterised by their tall
Beehive shaped huts – this of course is our western interpretation as you have
seen in my previous posts the Ethiopian beehive looks nothing like our beehives!
The huts actually have two windows set high and a doorway placed to emulate the
elephants that used to roam the area.</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-jeAfL3cuUA4/U049bUruevI/AAAAAAAACpI/-qQmQHk0e40/s1600/ahutin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-jeAfL3cuUA4/U049bUruevI/AAAAAAAACpI/-qQmQHk0e40/s1600/ahutin.jpg" height="240" title="Inside a Dorze hut with a cow peeping - half of the hut is for the animals at night" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Inside the hut with a cow peeping - half of the hut is for the animals at night</td></tr>
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We climb the side of the Guge Mountains in our four wheel
drives til we reach the Dorze village. It is significantly cooler up here,
especially compared to the searing of the Omo Valley plains below. We leave our
vehicles at the edge of the village and follow a winding path through false
banana plants and other flowering bushes til we come to the first
characteristically shaped hut. The hut stands at 12 m high, it is constructed
with vertical hardwood poles and woven bamboo (this bamboo is for some
mysterious reason cut in the moonlight only!) and it’s topped with a thatched
roof of ensete leaves. Over time termites eat away at the base and the hut
gradually gets lower and lower until eventually a new hut is needed but this
process usually takes about 80 years. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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A Dorze woman sits outside scrapping <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">‘Ensete’</i> the false banana plant – the pulp is fermented for three
months under bananas leaves in the ground in an anaerobic process that
produces, when finally baked, the most delicious tasting flat bread called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">kocho</i> I’ve ever eaten. It is typically
eaten with a spicy paste of chilli and oil or fresh honey. While ensete is
extremely valuable for food security, it is used for more than just food – the
fibrous leaves and stalks are used for production of clothing, shelter, and
baskets, as well as for ceremonial practices. Parts of the plant are also used
to promote maternal health by aiding in stimulating placental discharge, and
traditional practitioners use it to help heal broken bones and reduce swelling
of joints in both livestock and humans. </div>
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When I was a teenager I owned an Ashford spinning wheel and
regularly spun wool. I thought I’d give the hand held spindle the local ladies
were using a twirl and spin out some cotton yarn – um, not so easy! I felt like
a retarded Klutz-bum!</div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-WyqPEEQjnYY/U05BR62QI5I/AAAAAAAACpU/7puwHFkqzdo/s1600/aaraki.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-WyqPEEQjnYY/U05BR62QI5I/AAAAAAAACpU/7puwHFkqzdo/s1600/aaraki.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The Dorze also make a liquor called Araki similar to the
spirit the Ari tribe produce only the Dorze version is flavoured with garlic
(which makes it oily and disgusting and it being terribly strong I proceeded to
get quite tipsy on the three traditional welcome shots which had the added effect
that I then proceeded to try and buy everything in the village!) The Dorze
people are famous for the traditional 100% Ethiopian cotton cloth called a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Netele</i> or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Gabi, </i>usually with the colourful border called a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Tibeb </i>and of course I have to have one. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Most of the huts have their own gardens containing ensete, vegetables,
spices & tobacco. We leave the Dorze to visit with a much poorer tribe in the lowlands - next blog post. </div>
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<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12110104320011408280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5192893530598681928.post-63831289635378903782014-04-04T12:16:00.000+08:002014-04-16T16:50:54.582+08:00Konso Tribe of Ethiopia - Two peoples perspective<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kr-A3fSOWZw/Uz4dznaQHJI/AAAAAAAACdw/UoxUOEUedFw/s1600/writing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kr-A3fSOWZw/Uz4dznaQHJI/AAAAAAAACdw/UoxUOEUedFw/s1600/writing.jpg" height="320" title="Diary writing in Ethiopia" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Diary writing in Ethiopia</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<i>' Ethiopia gets under your skin ...'</i> I wrote in day 10 of my diary. Occy started his with '<i>Before leaving Jinka we had picked up two boxes of 50 pens...'. </i>I found it completely fascinating to compare diaries for the same day amongst us and find quite different observations. Indi-pinds had kept her diary in point form with drawings; Monkeybuns had kept a video diary; Lionboy kept a photographic diary & the Goddess prefered to live in the moment.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Qh07tyYg57A/Uz4Q8mwN6pI/AAAAAAAACdc/JnXFu1PTLqM/s1600/my+diary.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Qh07tyYg57A/Uz4Q8mwN6pI/AAAAAAAACdc/JnXFu1PTLqM/s1600/my+diary.JPG" height="320" title="Page from my diary Day 10 Ethiopia" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Page from my diary Day 10 Ethiopia</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<i>'At first it's so like outback Australia it seems familiar with it's eucalypt scents. Then it becomes too hot in the arid Omo Vally to be bearable for more than short stretches of time. Next minute you're driving past the endless red and green landscape dotted with those incredible termite chimneys, acacia trees decorated with oblong beehives, majestic mountains sweeping over te rivers and plains below, reaching up to vast, intense blue of the cloudless Ethiopian sky.'</i><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-FQu6VpNM7uU/Uz4l4BHLd2I/AAAAAAAACeg/CVacIkPg1iQ/s1600/beehives+R.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-FQu6VpNM7uU/Uz4l4BHLd2I/AAAAAAAACeg/CVacIkPg1iQ/s1600/beehives+R.jpg" height="213" title="Beehives in the trees Ethiopia" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Beehives in the trees Ethiopia</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<i><br /></i>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-w0IMcI5QHZw/Uz4mcJVnnfI/AAAAAAAACeo/OX2QD0__4NU/s1600/termite+D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-w0IMcI5QHZw/Uz4mcJVnnfI/AAAAAAAACeo/OX2QD0__4NU/s1600/termite+D.jpg" height="320" title="Termite empire Ethiopia photo by Russell d'Scarlett" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Termite empire Ethiopia</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<i>Another day of driving over dusty rods with the inevitable flat tyre, past women carrying the ubiquitous yellow water containers in the goatsin backpacks or huge loads of wood or hay. India had bought a hundred pens, some for the Aari tribe children and some for the Konso village school children we were yet to visit. The Konso have managed to get their land listed with UNESCO as world heritage due to impressive stonework fortification in a terraced system dividing the village.'</i><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-z-YXtGYGeUo/Uz4vM0IMzcI/AAAAAAAACfc/nQUcGcu5Oss/s1600/konso+skirt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-z-YXtGYGeUo/Uz4vM0IMzcI/AAAAAAAACfc/nQUcGcu5Oss/s1600/konso+skirt.jpg" height="320" title="Konso woman wearing a typical Konso skirt design and carrying a goatskin back packpack with yellow plastic water container" width="221" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Konso woman wearing a typical Konso skirt design and carrying a goatskin back packpack with yellow plastic water container</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GGlstfPkB_I/Uz4Q25odtDI/AAAAAAAACdY/ukczv4LopnE/s1600/Russell+diary.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GGlstfPkB_I/Uz4Q25odtDI/AAAAAAAACdY/ukczv4LopnE/s1600/Russell+diary.JPG" height="320" title="Pages from Occy's diary Ethiopia Day 10" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pages from Occy's diary Ethiopia Day 10</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<i>'Back the way we came,' </i>wrote Occy, <i>'Down and across the huge fertile valley where it was 5-7 degrees hotter (30-32 degrees). Passing many herds of goats and cattle. The standard yellow water bottles or bundles of sticks.Wherever we had been I had noticed there was electricity cables. In fact, all of their electricity comes from hydroelectricity generation and there is an excess, sold to neighbouring countries. Also ever present were mobile phone towers and although uptae was not high, there was signal almost everywhere we went.'</i><br />
<i> 'At the Konso village it was acomplete contrast to previous villages that we had seen. Built up over several generations it was an incredible ants nest of stone walls, pathways and thatched huts.'</i><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-TeKxq-n72bY/Uz4fqHLnqYI/AAAAAAAACd8/khIOhLOG3Jo/s1600/konso+village+walk.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-TeKxq-n72bY/Uz4fqHLnqYI/AAAAAAAACd8/khIOhLOG3Jo/s1600/konso+village+walk.jpg" height="213" title="Stone fortified pathway into the Konso village photo by Russell d'Scarlett" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stone fortified pathway into the Konso village</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-a3Fz7bKOMe0/Uz4geLUOMcI/AAAAAAAACeA/44tDmEMZ2t0/s1600/konso+hutsR.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-a3Fz7bKOMe0/Uz4geLUOMcI/AAAAAAAACeA/44tDmEMZ2t0/s1600/konso+hutsR.jpg" height="213" title="Konso Village Huts" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Konso Village Huts</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ahNc-LISP7w/Uz4g31Db8KI/AAAAAAAACeI/Me41AZ6TTnM/s1600/konso+steps+torsten.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ahNc-LISP7w/Uz4g31Db8KI/AAAAAAAACeI/Me41AZ6TTnM/s1600/konso+steps+torsten.jpg" height="240" title="Konso Village steps to ceremonial meeting area" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Konso Village steps to ceremonial meeting area with 'wagas' or statues commemorating chiefs that have died as heros killing men or
animals. The Konso had an interesting tradition of taking the tibia of
the dead enemy, burning it to ashes and dancing around it.</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_JW4VbWkD8s/Uz4h1T-hbzI/AAAAAAAACeU/xA-AoiEmQak/s1600/geberation+ladder.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_JW4VbWkD8s/Uz4h1T-hbzI/AAAAAAAACeU/xA-AoiEmQak/s1600/geberation+ladder.jpg" height="213" title="Generation Ladder of the Konso Tribe" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Generation Ladder of the Konso Tribe</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<i>'Every 18 years they add a large log to the generation totem. There was a large stone also to be lifted and thrown over a males head three times when he had reached manhood.' </i>Occy wrote.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_xsAaiVJ4Mo/Uz4rjVcu3xI/AAAAAAAACe4/TdhCuJ_odK4/s1600/torsten+lifting+stone.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_xsAaiVJ4Mo/Uz4rjVcu3xI/AAAAAAAACe4/TdhCuJ_odK4/s1600/torsten+lifting+stone.jpg" height="320" title="Lionboy Torsten lifting the manhood stone" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lionboy lifting the manhood stone</td></tr>
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<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-YuKW18qFoqs/Uz4rmxK0nCI/AAAAAAAACfA/HuTDjUpmaXA/s1600/R+lifting+stone.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-YuKW18qFoqs/Uz4rmxK0nCI/AAAAAAAACfA/HuTDjUpmaXA/s1600/R+lifting+stone.jpg" height="213" title="Occy about to throw the stone over his head" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Occy about to throw the stone over his head</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<i> </i>I had drawn a picture of the village with notes to remind myself that they grew sorghum, maize, moringa leaf, corn & sunflowers. I noted <i>'The initiation into manhood rock - pick it up and throw it over head behind you - very heavy - Occy was trembling and turning red with the effort.'</i><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ELNR3oVco-8/Uz4tPjvcV2I/AAAAAAAACfM/25LNzlx_OT4/s1600/pic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ELNR3oVco-8/Uz4tPjvcV2I/AAAAAAAACfM/25LNzlx_OT4/s1600/pic.jpg" height="105" width="200" /></a></div>
<i> </i>I then went on to note that to be called 'a clitoris' is the ultimate insult because all respectable women have been circumcised.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>by Dorit d'Scarlett</i> </div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12110104320011408280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5192893530598681928.post-53973963161024105382014-03-18T12:20:00.000+08:002014-03-21T07:32:02.849+08:00Lucid dreaming - Counting Fingers- four, five or six?<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-XUpxrQXQm6o/UyfzRUpSzHI/AAAAAAAACcE/_i8TkjvkWQs/s1600/gloves.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Four fingers or five?" border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-XUpxrQXQm6o/UyfzRUpSzHI/AAAAAAAACcE/_i8TkjvkWQs/s1600/gloves.JPG" title="Princess Snapperhead with red gloves" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Four fingers or five?</td></tr>
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I had the strangest lucid dream the other night. It reminded me of my post <a href="http://bit.ly/1fUKjn3" target="_blank">'Counting Your Fingers in Dreams'</a><br />
In this dream I was somewhere in Russia, standing by an icy lake. Snow swirled around rendering everything into shades of black and white. My friend <a href="http://www.princesssnapperhead.com/2012/12/the-person-who-has-most-influenced-me_14.html#.UyfFBYXZXhk" target="_blank">Deb</a> was standing in front of me, wrapped up in a huge black coat, showing me her red gloves.<br />
'I decided to get the operation!', she told me excitedly.<br />
'What operation?' I asked cautiously.<br />
'I decided to have my sixth finger removed so I had it done yesterday, but then I thought - <i>You know what? If your going to do it you might as well do it properly!</i> So I had two fingers removed. Now I've just got four fingers and nothing gets in the way anymore - plus it makes shopping so much easier, I don't have to get my gloves tailor made. It's sooo much better like this!'<br />
At which she held up her gloved hands and wiggled her fingers in the air at me.<br />
'But Deb,' I said, counting her fingers, 'You've still got five fingers'.<br />
I counted five.<br />
'No I don't,' she said and wiggled her fingers again and counted them. 'One, two, three, four! See!'<br />
I quickly recounted her fingers.<br />
"No Deb, you definitely have five fingers!'<br />
No matter how many times we both counted her fingers, she counted four and I counted five. The really weird thing was that when I then looked at her red gloves and counted the number of fingers I counted six!<br />
I woke up, distressed because I knew that you aren't supposed to be able to count five fingers properly in dreams. And what was the meaning of the red gloves with six fingers? I was terribly confused! Please let me know if you've had any dreams where you've tried to count fingers. Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12110104320011408280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5192893530598681928.post-27611383264795468262014-03-10T12:23:00.001+08:002014-03-10T12:23:16.658+08:00The Zanzibar Experience<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-VW5mGjXsJDw/Ux002lQXjBI/AAAAAAAACaY/owrlRwznLWA/s1600/boatsw.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-VW5mGjXsJDw/Ux002lQXjBI/AAAAAAAACaY/owrlRwznLWA/s1600/boatsw.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
For this post the thought occurred to me that I might try something different - I am retyping <i><u>exactly</u></i> what I wrote in my travel journal, so here goes:-<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-XdFiZ-JTj6c/Ux01yU_HvDI/AAAAAAAACag/nMvtpWtnX14/s1600/IMG_0865+(2).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-XdFiZ-JTj6c/Ux01yU_HvDI/AAAAAAAACag/nMvtpWtnX14/s1600/IMG_0865+(2).JPG" height="150" title="The entourage waiting, waiting... in Addis" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The entourage waiting, waiting... in Addis</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<i>Saturday 14/12/13 </i><br />
<i>In which we leave Ethiopia for the island paradise of Zanzibar.</i><br />
<i>It is freezing cold as we exit the lobby of our hotel to catch our ride to the airport. We have so much luggage. I am seriously worried how we are going to manage camping in 2 man tents with it. We were supposed to be travelling lite this time and we have hardly any clothes so it's a mystery yet to be revealed as to what all these 'essential' camping items are that we have and apparently can't live without. </i><br />
<i>At the airport we have to remove our hiking boots for the security</i> <i>xray which we haven't had to do anywhere else. Frickin' laces! We check in to Ethiopian Airlines and are given 6 seats completely <b>not</b> together</i> <i>even though we are early.</i><br />
<i>The sub-adults find Ethiopia badges to sew onto their rucksacks. Finally the flight boards late and they have managed to rearrange our seats so we are at least seated in 2's. We are served a delicious hot meal of spiced rice and chicken Ethiopian style. I have a Carlsberg beer which, even though it's traitorous as a Dane to say so, is nowhere near as good as the Ethiopian Bedele or Meta!</i><br />
<i>Flight 815 was supposed to stop at Kilimanjaro airport but they have managed to make that flight disappear altogether and have put us on flight 805 via Dar Es Salaam instead. For the hour stop in Dar we are not allowed off the plane and there are only a dozen of us continuing on to Zanzibar - strange as it is, no one else boards the plane, so why we had to stop in Dar at all is a mystery. I suspect the pilot of getting off for a quick shag. The plane takes off with suspiciously renewed vigour and Nek Minnut we are landing - a 15 minute flight lands us into a wall of heat - I feel like fainting it's so hot. Definitely should have flown in bikinis.</i><br />
<i>We walk the tarmac to the immigration shed (how quaint, a shed!) and fill out visa forms. It's the first time I've been asked nationality at birth (which was German) as well as current nationality (which is Danish) in all my years of travel. For US$50 we get our visas and proceed through to collect our luggage and change money (one of the few places in the world where it's actually cheaper to exchange money at the airport Bureau de Change!) <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rtMFN87UuYs/Ux02QemNjOI/AAAAAAAACas/2Cau8FJsI4U/s1600/masaiw.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rtMFN87UuYs/Ux02QemNjOI/AAAAAAAACas/2Cau8FJsI4U/s1600/masaiw.JPG" height="213" title="Masai with his characteristic stick - all the guards tend to be Masai" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Masai with his characteristic stick - all the guards tend to be Masai</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</i><br />
<i>A friendly Masai man greets us and transports us an hour to the northern most tip of the island, Nungwi, where we have booked 3 double rooms at the moderate rate Smiles Beach Resort ($90 per night - though the term 'resort' might be stretching it a bit far) </i><br />
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<i><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zGvj6pzQ-WE/Ux05nAjKHgI/AAAAAAAACbc/GG0_z5Exl2g/s1600/smilesw.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zGvj6pzQ-WE/Ux05nAjKHgI/AAAAAAAACbc/GG0_z5Exl2g/s1600/smilesw.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></i></div>
<i>It's 4 little double storey houses with 4 rooms in each, arranged in a semi-circle facing the beach. Thatch covered beach huts shade lounges and the houses sit in sand running all the way to the shore. It's perfect! Palm trees sway in the breeze, the water is an iridescent blue with a tide that varies hugely. At low tide the coral reef is completely exposed, numerous native dhows list on their sides and locals comb it picking edibles and shells from it. </i><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IA9cNEcLwM0/Ux03al3JHxI/AAAAAAAACbE/4QTsJ9jAhWk/s1600/starw.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IA9cNEcLwM0/Ux03al3JHxI/AAAAAAAACbE/4QTsJ9jAhWk/s1600/starw.JPG" height="200" title="India - there were so many starfish in the water" width="150" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">India - there were so many starfish in the water</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-f-rEdfmyQqw/Ux03edFSVlI/AAAAAAAACbM/ohqjJKlZNTQ/s1600/vsw.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-f-rEdfmyQqw/Ux03edFSVlI/AAAAAAAACbM/ohqjJKlZNTQ/s1600/vsw.JPG" height="150" title="Monkeybuns & Venus" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Monkeybuns & Venus</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
<i>We dump our luggage and tear off for a swim in the warm water.<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xHovz5rKzYU/Ux03YmxqUpI/AAAAAAAACa8/1tI8tg34wlw/s1600/girlsw.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xHovz5rKzYU/Ux03YmxqUpI/AAAAAAAACa8/1tI8tg34wlw/s1600/girlsw.JPG" height="184" title="Local muslim girls play on the beach" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Local muslim girls play on the beach</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</i><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-sy-FUYYrQwo/Ux056rc_RyI/AAAAAAAACbk/ReTewleOpQA/s1600/hammockw.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-sy-FUYYrQwo/Ux056rc_RyI/AAAAAAAACbk/ReTewleOpQA/s1600/hammockw.JPG" height="200" title="Lion-boy & the Indil-poodlecat" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lion-boy & the Indil-poodlecat</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<i>Later we wander down the beach to a local bar and have a wonderful but expensive meal - 15,000 shillings (US$10) for a meal - though we were slightly appeased by the free vodka shots, even if they were served in some sickly sweet strawberry syrup. Tomorrow we are definitely finding out where the locals eat! </i>(And THAT is a tale of woeful toilet experiences to add to the 'worst toilets in the world' list)Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12110104320011408280noreply@blogger.com0