The Globetrotters e-newsletter has been following the case of Amina Lawal, the Nigerian woman who was convicted and sentenced to death by stoning in March 2002 after giving birth to a baby girl more than nine months after divorcing. We are pleased to say that she has had her death sentenced reversed.

The 31-year-old, has been appealing the death sentence for two years. She insists she did nothing wrong and that the man who fathered her child made a promise to marry her. He did not, leaving her pregnant and with no support. The man said he was not the father, and three male witnesses testified he did not have a sexual relationship with Lawal. The witnesses constituted sufficient corroboration of his version of events under Shariah law, and he was freed. Under Shariah law, pregnancy outside marriage constitutes sufficient evidence for a woman to be convicted of adultery. Shariah law also allows amputation as a possible punishment for convicted thieves and has recently caused much controversy in Nigeria between Muslims and Christians.

Amina Lawal is the second woman in Nigeria to be sentenced to death after bearing a child out of marriage since 2000, when more than a dozen states in the north adopted strict Islamic Shariah law. In March 2002, an appeal court reversed a similar sentence on Safiya Hussaini Tungar-Tudu after worldwide pleas for clemency and a warning from President Olusegun Obasanjo that Nigeria faced international isolation over the case. After the hearing, press reports say that Ms Lawal said “I am happy. God is great and he has made this possible. All I want is to go home, get married and live a normal life.”

Becky is a volunteer worker for Trade Aid and is working in Mikindani, Southern Tanzania. This story is a true account of how she experienced a narrow escape and could have been seriously injured in a bus accident travelling from Dar-es-Salaam to Mtwara in southern Tanzania – be warned!

The bus looked typically African; old, battered, dirty and rusting, with more luggage on top than was probably safe and as my brand new Chinese bike was strapped onto the back I sensed then that this was going to be an interesting trip.

I was privileged with a seat by the door where I got to enjoy the flirtations of the bus boys, who always loiter in the doorway, climbing on top of the roof and jumping on and off the bus at random intervals. For 12 hours we lumbered, creaked and bumped our way along and when the road particularly rutted we’d suddenly lunge and tilt precariously in one direction and then realign ourselves as the bus swung the other way I scanned the looks on the faces of the other passengers to search whether I needed to be fearful and not an eyelid was raised. One passenger caught my look of concern as we swayed onwards and I felt embarrassed that he’d witnessed the fear of a ‘mzungu’ travelling aboard an African bus. From that moment on I decided I had no need for fear as if they were happy and this were normal then I should be too!

When darkness fell we stopped off in a small village for a convenience stop. For some reason I will never be able to understand at this stage of the journey I decided to move and exchanged places with one of the bus boys so that I too could stand by the door and join in the degeneracy of the bus boy humour! ‘No I will not massage your leg!’ ‘No I will not marry you!’ – I can’t quite understand these men’s willingness to marry someone they’ve never even spoken to, maybe there’s hope for me yet! On the road once again it was approaching 8 pm and we were making our way to the top of a very long, steep hill, travelling very slowly as the engine roared and strained under our weight. We stopped for a second, I assumed to change gear and the bus slipped backwards, maybe a dodgy handbrake or the driver not as proficient as myself at hill starts. A couple of the bus boys jumped off to help but we continued moving backwards down the hill – I will never understand what caused me to do what I did next and I didn’t know I’d done it until afterwards but some super-instinct inside me alerted me in that instant I had to get off that bus. A bizarre instinctive force urged me as I threw myself off the steps of the moving bus.

My immediate thoughts after landing flat on my face (not very Bond like I’m afraid!) was that I really had proved how idiotic a race we Brits are! I assumed everyone had watched and would laugh on my cowering return. But it would appear that fate was with me that night and I will never doubt my instincts again. For as I stood and turned to look round the bus was continuing to move backwards, rapidly gathering speed as it headed back down the hill and very obviously out of control. It all happened incredibly quickly and in the dark I still am not certain of the chain of events, I just remember hearing the crunching of the sand under the wheels as they squeaked backwards and watched in amazement as the bus bowled backwards gathering speed veering towards the verge and onto the bank below. It was in that moment that I knew there was nothing we could do but hope and pray as I stood paralysed and helpless and watched as it creaked and wobbled off the road, turned over onto its side and banged to a halt as it slid down the bank, the brakes screeching and flying up sparks as it finally came to rest.

I approached the vehicle hesitatingly, legs wobbling beneath me expecting it to burst into flames. There were no flames and I’m sure there were screams and shouts but I certainly didn’t hear them at first as I just stood and stared at the wreckage in the moonlight. One by one people started emerging out of windows and the victims made their way towards the road. I wanted to help but couldn’t cope with seeing mangled bodies and people crying out in pain knowing full well there was no hospitals or emergency services within a four hour drive and knowing they would have to probably suffer in silence was more than I could think about. There were women, children of all ages, pregnant women and families. I took the pastoral role of helping people to the road and holding people as they came off the bus – I doubt my reassurances helped but I had to do something. People kept on appearing and eventually I saw bags passed out, radios, loaves of bread, individual flip flops….selfishly I thought about my luggage and wandered over to have a look and there was my bag, and the books that I’d left at my feet on the bus, and my football? I started asking whether anyone was hurt.

Not one person died nor one person was injured which I still cannot fathom. For that first twenty minutes we all wandered around in the dark grabbing those who had sat near us and hugging each other muttering murmurs of thanks. It was 8.30pm in the middle of the forest and hours away from the nearest town or help. Within an hour it seemed amazing to me, that women were settling down their children to sleep, campfires were lit and people sat talking, laughter emerged and I couldn’t help questioning whether I’d invented the whole accident. The scene was one of calm and order? It just pays witness to the hardship and pragmatism of these people as this was all taken calmly in one big stride. We tried to sleep on the dusty road, which was uncomfortable but warm by our fire.

Activity recommenced at first light at 5.30am after an hours sleep, unloading all of the luggage which had been on the roof of the bus. Bag by bag, piece by piece, mattresses, pillows, bags, construction materials were unloaded – my huge basket of shopping, intact. I was trying to ignore my worries of my bike which had I assumed become mangled amongst the wreckage. However my brand new bike was wheeled over to me still in one piece with just a small scratch on the shiny bell to tell the tale. I was called in to administer first aid, which involved giving the last few painkillers I could find, binding aching joints and dabbing calamine lotion on anyone who had pain.

We eventually left the roadside 18 hours later at 3pm the following afternoon, the remaining 40 of the passengers crammed in with all our luggage on the back of an open truck. When I alighted in Mikindani at midnight I was grateful to see the sandy track leading to my home and I pushed my new bike and its contents to the safety of Base House.

Although I was able to find humour in the fact that I had rolled from a moving bus and the fact that there really is no transport comparable to that of the African Bus Journey – it took a number of days to absorb what had happened. Only yesterday a bus from Dar-es-Salaam, on the same road, overturned and 18 people died on the spot. Everyone here has a tale to tell relating to either family or friends who have been involved in a road accident. Lucky does not begin to describe the out come of this accident.

For more information on the work carried out by Trade Aid in Tanzania, see their website www.mikindani.com

Busby tells us some brief travel facts about Phnom Penh, Siem Reap and Cambodia in general from her recent trip there. She says: “Phnom Penh is not a very safe place after the sunset. The staple diet of rice, chicken and the greens is a bit of a joke. The ‘green bits’ are often boiled marihuana leaves – not over potent, but they have a noticeable effect in hot temperatures.

“There is a game of ‘saving a turtle’. In front of King Sihanouk’s palace by the river, there are women with kids selling turtles. For $1 you buy a turtle and set it free wherever you want. Of course the women and children caught the turtles and sold them again. Not great, but I didn’t think there was any harm done to the turtles in the process.

“The major thing that bothered me in Siam Reap was the licences to the Angkor area. Not a cent goes to preservation of the area, rather, it is used to pay the Malaysian Government for their supply of oil. Not quite right is it?”

Have you visited Cambodia recently? Would you like to share your travel experiences with the Beetle? We’d like to hear from you.

If you enjoy writing, enjoy travelling, why not write for the free monthly Globetrotters e-newsletter! The Beetle would love to hear from you: your travel stories, anecdotes, jokes, questions, hints and tips, or your hometown or somewhere of special interest to you. Over 8,000 people currently subscribe to the Globetrotter e-news.

To see your story in cyber print, e-mail the Beetle with your travel experiences, hints and tips or questions up to 750 words, together with a couple of sentences about yourself and a contact e-mail address to Beetle@globetrotters.co.uk

Globetrotters meeting on Saturday November 8^th.

If you like independent, adventuresome, fun, daring, exciting, “off the beaten path” travel, this club is for you. Our meeting begins at 2 P.M. Come early so you won’t be late! Enjoy handouts, travel talk time, and door prizes!

Date of future meetings: Saturday January 10^th 2004

Mark your calendars.

For more information about the Texas Branch: please contact texas@globetrotters.co.uk or register for email updates at our website (click here) or call Christina at 830-620-5482

If anybody would like to enquire about meetings or help Christina, please contact her on: texas@globetrotters.co.uk

For information on Ontario meetings, please contact Svatka Hermanek: shermanek@schulich.yorku.ca or Bruce Weber: tel. 416-203-0911 or Paul Webb: tel. 416-694-8259.

Meetings are held on the third Friday of January, March, May, September and November. Usually at the Woodsworth Co-op, Penthouse, 133, Wilton Street in downtown Toronto at 8.00 p.m.

Michael Rakower, an attorney in New York with long-standing wanderlust gave a talk on November 1^st about his latest trip in which he and his wife (also a lawyer) left the comfortable confines of law jobs in exchange for a one-way ticket to Cape Town in March 2002. They bought a car, some camping equipment and drove around, over and through South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania and Rwanda. Along the way, they encountered fascinating people, went on several safaris, worked for three months in the Prosecutor’s Office of the United Nation’s International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and even learned a little about auto mechanics. After a year-long journey, Michael and his wife returned to New York with newfound inspiration and a lifetime of memories. Michael’s latest passion is working with the American Friends for the Kigali Public Library to build Rwanda’s first-ever public library. Michael is also a regular contributor to our very own Globetrotters e-newsletter.

For details of forthcoming meetings email newyork@globetrotters.co.uk or register for email updates, click here at our website.

New York meetings are held at The Wings Theatre, 154 Christopher Street (btw Greenwich St and Washington St ), to the right of Crunch Fitness, in the Archive on the first Saturday of each month at 4 pm .

On October Saturday 4^th, our first speaker was Globie member Roger Widdecombe who showed us what a Raleigh International expedition is really like. Roger’s project was in the west African country of Ghana. These trips are no holiday: participants undergo assessment and rigorous training in orienteering and crossing rivers, first aid etc. Once in Ghana, there were many projects for Roger and his group to take part in, including building a school in a remote village, health programmes dealing with blindness caused by cataracts and for those who wanted to work nights, working on a project monitoring turtles as they came in each night to lay their eggs on the beach. Roger assured us that although the participants do work hard, they also have a lot of fun, including playing football in forty degree heat with the local people and enjoying canoe expeditions on Lake Volta.

Whilst our first speaker had talked of travelling and doing good, our second speaker Juliet Coombes’ theme was travelling and having fun! Juliet’s talk was about the festivals around the world. She showed us colourful photos of the bulls at Pamplona, mad water festivals in Thailand, The Full Moon festival in Laos, and the colourful Venice festival held in the weeks leading up to Lent. The Venetian festival involves lots of dressing up, particularly in masks and in previous centuries was an excuse for much debauchery, sorry Globies, you are 200 years too late! There are thousands of festival around the world each year, too many for Juliet to show us, but she did tell us about boat festivals in Cambodia and Elf festivals in Iceland, before winding up her talk by looking at London’s own Notting Hill carnival.

Next month, on Saturday 1^st November, Amar Grover will talk about India – The “Hindustan Tibet” road and on to Ladakh in which Amar looks at India’s National Highway 22 “The Hindustan-Tibet” Road, an old trading route that exited the Raj but never quite took off. His talk includes the Tibetan regions of India, Spiti and Ladakh.

After Amar and the break, Tom Freemantle will be talking about Mexico to Manhattan with a Pack Mule, a 2,600 mile walk retracing the footsteps of his ancestor, Colonel Arthur Fremantle, who travelled from North Mexico to New York at the height of the American Civil War in 1863. The swashbuckling colonel used stage coaches, paddle steamers and steam trains to get around but nearly 140 years later his great-great nephew used a cantankerous but heroic mule called “Brown”

London meetings are held at The Church of Scotland, Crown Court, behind the Fortune Theatre in Covent Garden at 2.30pm the first Saturday of each month. There is no London meeting in August, but we will be back in September. For more information, you can contact the Globetrotters Info line on +44 (0) 20 8674 6229, or visit the website: www.globetrotters.co.uk

Meeting news from our branches around the world.