Monthly Archive: April 2018

We took a bus and then a hike to the Cape of Good Hope. They used to say this is where the Indian Ocean collides with the Atlantic Ocean but it has now been determined its about 40 km to the southeast.

Early in March, I enjoyed a nice week in Cape Town with Blair. We both needed a break. We were there during some newsworthy events. Cape Town is facing the prospect of being the first major city in the world to run out of water. The city is taking extraordinary measures to conserve. Of course, besides the climate change at the root of it, there are some political reasons how this has happened. Taps in public bathrooms were off and we were urged to use the wall-mounted hand sanitizers. I showered with very little water, which is not too different from how I bucket bathe now.

Also, South Africa’s ruling party had just dumped its longstanding President and now he is charged with corruption. Nelson Mandela saved South Africa from civil war, but, as a recent New York Times article points out:

…. the deal was reached on what many South Africans today consider Pyrrhic terms: The black majority was allowed to control politics, but much of the country’s economic resources, including land, has remained in the hands of white South Africans and a small group of other elites.

Sadly, Mandela’s legacy is the endemic corruption of the party he founded, as co-opted by those business elites.

Parliament is also starting the process to appropriate land from whites “without compensation”. Initially this seems disturbing because Robert Mugrabe destroyed the economy of Zimbabwe by mass evictions of white farmers. The South African newspapers and my discussions with many people indicate the process in South Africa will be more deliberate with smaller parcels, and it doesn’t appear there will be mass evictions. And Zimbabwe, after recently disposing of Mugrabe, is actually starting to invite some farmers to return.
More than 20 years after the end of Apartheid however, whites still control over 75% of the land. But fixing past land injustices is embedded in the South African constitution. There has been foot-dragging.

Needless to say, this land was originally taken by force by the whites without compensation. And not just in the distant past. A few blocks from our Airbnb in Cape Town is the District 6 Museum. It preserves the memory of District 6, established in 1867 as a mixed community of freed slaves, merchants, artisans, laborers and immigrants. In 1966, the government declared the land would be redeveloped into a “White Only” community. From then until 1982, 60,000 people were forcibly evicted, sometimes with only an hour’s notice. Survivors of that dark time are available at the museum to talk about it.

We also visited the Slaves’ Lodge and its adjoining museum detailing the slave trade in Cape Town. The slaves temporarily imprisoned in the Lodge were either sold for use in South Africa, or sent to the east, including Asia. American slaves did not come through here. Certainly the most distressing depictions shown at the Slaves Lodge were the forceful separation of children from their parents, and husbands from their wives. I’ll be honest; I didn’t know slave families were broken up until I saw “Roots” as an adult. Today, Americans supposedly aspire to be more supportive of family values.  Of course, besides the history lessons, and water scarcity, Cape Town is an entertaining city with fine beaches and other tourist activities, although, as the article I cited above points out, segregation has survived in a more informal way.,

On the way to the Cape of Good Hope we passed the area of District 6. There was such backlash, it never got developed. The whole eviction process was a waste.

We stopped to observe a colony of Penguins, the only one outside of Antarctica.

Cute little guys and gals

Every afternoon, clouds creep over Table Mountain, which surrounds Cape Town. But it never rained. You can hike or take a gondola to the top.

View of Cape Town from the top of Table Mountain.

Night time view of Cape Town. One building has a lighted outline of the Cape

Not sure what I thought of these “souvenirs”.

Blair has developed an interest in herbs and gardens, so we went to couple of nice botanical gardens.

CARE is building over 800 semi-permanent shelters with funding from the European Union, Norway and Austria. I spent a day with two of our shelter officers assessing construction progress. CARE’s shelters are being given to our most vulnerable beneficiary refugees.  CARE builds for refugees certified by the International Red Cross and the Office of Prime Minister as “Persons with Special Needs” (PSNs), which include female heads of households, the elderly, disabled, and even unaccompanied children.Unfortunately, those with PSN status number in the tens of thousands just in the small areas of the settlements covered by CARE. The demand is heavy for these semi-permanent shelters. It is considered a huge improvement over the white UNHCR tarps and poles, which are designed to last less than a year. These should last several years, with one or two partitions inside for more privacy. They are either 5 meters (16 feet) by 3.5 meters (11 feet) with one partition for 4-5 people, or 8 meters by 3.5 meters with two partitions for 6-8 people. They are entirely made with mud bricks, which are not burned in a kiln, and mud grout, with iron sheet roofs. How many Americans would view such a home as a major upgrade? I wonder what my old HOA would have said if I tried to build one for a backyard storage shed?The construction projects have gotten off to a late start, and the rainy season is complicating the construction.

We advise the contractors to build only a few bricks height at a time, let them start to dry, and move to the next shelter, rotating until they are all built. But the crews hate to move, and keep building in one location, which makes the walls less stable and crooked.

A wall collapsed by rain. Inventories of mud bricks get ruined too, it they are not covered.

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Wind was driving the rain straight into this wall.

To make the shelters last longer, we tell the beneficiaries they need to smear mud on the walls’ surface, covering the bricks. This shelter is almost fished with smearing.

The same semi-permanent shelter as the previous photo, next to the temporary shelter it is replacing.

On the way home from a meeting, we were picking up some staff finishing a training . To pass the time, I played goalie while kids took turns taking shots at me. The guy who took this photo said “Look at Grandpa playing with the kids.”

Explaining that VHF is line of sight, unless there is a repeater tower in between. And he taught this sideways.

A representative from the UN had a training in the use of hand-held radios.  He explained that about 15 years ago, with fewer cell towers, CARE would always carry these radios. These days, however, you often lose the network up north in the settlements, so there is going to be a new gradual roll-out of radios.  Typical uses are in vehicle accidents, or other emergencies, and to communicate between short areas within the settlements. We learned about the difference between VHF and HF frequencies.  UN Vehicles have both types and its own dedicated channel.  I learned the distance to the horizon is 8 km (almost 5 miles). They passed around ten radios and we practiced using them. CARE’s chosen identifier in the settlements is “Whiskey Charlie” which was chosen for West Nile, CARE. But of course there was some mirth as I practiced with it: “Whiskey Charlie 1, this is Whiskey Charlie 3, and it’s Charley”. Now a few people call me Whiskey Charlie. Its getting old.

The tourniquets in the First Aid kits are a hard to describe, but they are pretty nifty. The word “Time” is on there to remind you to note the time, as a tourniquet shouldn’t be on for more than 3 hours.

I also participated in some first aid training, learning mainly how to stop bleeding, including use of a tourniquet, and giving CPR.

There are some crazy things that happen here. Last week in Yumbe, a town near the border in which CARE has an office, Uganda Government officials were seizing motorcycles which had been illegally smuggled over the border. Somehow a Boda Boda driver was hit and killed by a government vehicle. Soon the boda drivers were rioting and burned a vehicle.

Rioting boda drivers burn a vehicle

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My Arua supervisor Julias recently attended some training with other leaders near Nairobi. It required him to sleep in barracks on a single bed which is kind of hard on a big guy.  He had hostage training, which I was curious about.  Some of the main points: Stay as calm as possible, no sudden movements, be compliant, and always let them see your hands. Keep repeating that you are humanitarian aid workers.     Prepare yourself mentally for the idea you might be taken away for a while.  Have a grab bag with your medications.

We speculated about how Trump would handle American hostage situations. It has always been American policy not to pay ransoms. Then I asked Julias about strategies if abducted by ISIS or other radical Islamic outfit. They allegedly separate “true believers” of Islam from others.  They might quiz people claiming to be Muslims about their knowledge of the Koran. (I have no idea about the reality of this scenario)  Julias, who is a Christian, showed off a great deal of knowledge about Muslim doctrine and could speak some important Koranic verses in Arabic.  I asked,  “So If you were abducted, would you try to pass yourself off as a Muslim, or stay with the Christian group?” Julias replied, with a hearty laugh, “Well, you know, even Peter disowned Jesus!”

This guy was under my table during lunch the other day.

On Good Friday we were stopped four times on the way to the settlement by community processions.

A good turnout for a community parliament to discuss the prevention of Gender Based Violence

Then rains blew in from the side