The Art of sweating

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With each week seems to come a new tweak or ache somewhere up and down my body. 

Ankles and heels are the target areas at the moment, and I cut a pathetic figure at 5:30am each morning as I limp across the kitchen, hand flailing out to switch on the kettle, as Florence is pulling at my leg and demanding a DVD be fired up.  

Despite our attempts at negotiating with Flo about the somewhat unruly hour at which she springs into life each day – which on some mornings simply involves the inevitably futile command of: “It’s still dark, it’s not time to wake up, go back to sleep!” – she often, literally, jumps out of bed with energy levels pulsating through her to the extent that walking is enthusiastically replaced by a combination of breathless skipping, pirouetting and running. Continue reading →

A message to all humans: a blog from CARE Pakistan staff

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In Bangkok today a 5 day public holiday begins as the city takes down some of its flood defences in an attempt to ease the mounting pressure on the capital from the trillions of tonnes of water surrounding it, mainly from the north of the country.

Many residents cannot simply leave, and are hunkering down for a weekend of major flooding as a result.

This news has made UK media front pages (online at least) today, and may well keep its prominence in the next 48 hours. 

We have friends in Bangkok, who recently left Saigon to have a baby in one of the hospitals there, and who seemed to be in good spirits this afternoon when they texted us, but who are of course keeping their hopes up that the situation is not as dire as forecast over the coming days. Continue reading →

October journal

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Lou has started a photography course (some first creations to be found below) and is fast becoming our family expert in everything you ever needed to know about digital SLR cameras but were afraid to ask.

I am delighted at the prospect of future blog posts now being adorned with colourful photos of Vietnam, providing readers with the more preferable option of not having to read my accompanying narrative…

Anyway, in the previous and more general updates about life out in SE Asia, the tone of things has been a combination of first impressions, acclimatising and adjusting to new routines, and ultimately making sense of it all.

We’re now about to start month 9 and are feeling really settled on all fronts.  I have been travelling heaps over the past 2 months and Lou has been juggling a variety of things (including keeping the children fed, watered and happy) and generally performing Super Mum impersonations in the meantime. Continue reading →

Cup of tea anyone?

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I’m at the Galleface hotel in Colombo, Sri Lanka’s capital, and halfway through my latest work trip.  Various meetings and seminars brought me out here, but I was lucky enough yesterday to be taken “up country” to visit some of CARE Sri Lanka’s project work in the country’s tea plantations. 

I have stayed at the Galleface before, and find myself again fascinated by its heritage.  Built in the 1860’s there are many original features, including one of the doormen, called Kuttan, who is one of the longest serving employees – possibly in the world.  The first car Prince Philip bought sits in the hotel’s museum.  The Prince was a young midshipman serving in the Royal Navy in what was known then as Ceylon, in 1940, at the time he bought the car, a 1935 model Standard Nine.  The car cost £12, which is about the price you’ll pay in new money for a meal for 2 in the hotel’s restaurant, 71 years later.  

The signage here is particularly good.  Inside the bathrooms: “Guests are asked not to bathe outside the bathroom”, and at the top of the stairs: “Galleface respects your decision not to smoke in the hotel.  Why not take the healthy option of the stairs, it’s only two floors down.” Continue reading →

Food glorious food

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Dark green forests and plantations, rolling hillsides dotted with the metallic roof tops of local sugar cane farms and homesteads.  Uneven tarmac, and battered shop awnings displaying adverts from bygone eras for hot chocolate, soap powders and cigarette brands.  School children, immaculately dressed, walking hand in hand along the roadside, taxis, bicycles and spluttering trucks whirling inches past them.

I could be back in Uganda 15 years ago, but in fact am in the Philippines city of Davao.  

It is the largest city in the world in terms of sheer geography, but where I am, more towards the outskirts, you do not feel much of the effects of urban sprawl, and the comparables here with the sights and sounds recalled from time spent in Africa are striking.  

The tropical latitude shared by the Philippines and the part of East Africa that I know best, mean that from the moment you step off the plane in Davao (located in the south of the country, an hour and a half flight from its capital, Manila, in the north) you experience the uplifting smell of equatorial life, its warmth, moisture and its connections with nature.  A permanent background noise of birdsong and grasshopper symphony follow you about, day and night. Continue reading →

Incredible India

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There is nowhere quite like India to make you appreciate living life in the present tense.  Cherishing the moment, and worrying not what tomorrow might bring.

This appears to be the case at all levels of Indian society (in general, sweeping terms) and plays out 1.2 billion times a day in the words, actions and exploits of the second most populated country on the planet.  It is also why writing this post whilst I am still in India seems apt.

It is currently Tuesday 13th September, and I am at Chennai airport awaiting my flight to Bangkok.  My mission here for the past 9 days has been to partake in discussions about CARE’s future role in India, and to visit CARE projects in rural communities.

On this very same day, 5 years ago, I walked into CARE’s offices in London and started work that would take me to various countries in Asia, but none so bombarding on the senses, and so dichotomous in every aspect, as India. Continue reading →

lendwithcare

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I read that, on average, adults in the UK will make over 90 visits per year to a cash point machine, withdrawing an annual total of £2250 and spending around 6 hours (including waiting time) for the privilege of doing so.

No doubt if you drilled beneath the surface of this you would find plenty of people who never require a hole-in-the-wall experience, save for the occasional domestic emergency (in my case this used to be at 2am when the Colonel’s credit card machine had stopped working at my local KFC), and then there will exist a whole swathe of the public who frequent them on a daily basis, and are prepared to endure the ritualistic queuing part of the whole process.

As with other equivalent queuing experiences, it was usually me – impatient and late for my train – who ended up stood behind someone from this second group of people, who was intent not, it would appear, on using their debit card and the cash point for their primary purposes (as indicated by their names) instead using every other option available, vacantly tapping away at the keypad, and finally withdrawing their card and no money, only to summon another one from their pocket, and start the process all over again. Continue reading →

August journal

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We’ve been living in Saigon for very nearly half a year now. 

It’s hard to imagine that the school summer holidays are coming to an end, we’re back into a new term and new class for Florence tomorrow, and fast kicking at the heels of September.

Living where we do in District 2, a heavily concentrated area for foreigners, there has been noticeably more ex-pats moving around over the past fortnight, as a new influx of residents arrives, and those overseas from their summer vacations return. 

In the local supermarket yesterday we saw a couple piling high their trolley with mops, buckets, coat hangers and many other tell-tale signs that they were obviously fresh on the scene, and kitting out an empty apartment. Continue reading →