Why is that the low cost airlines don’t offer frequent flier awards? It seems that unlike the US, none of the European low cost carriers have frequent-flier programs. Southwest Airlines, the model for low-cost carriers, including our friends Ryanair, gave away 2.3 million free tickets last year – more than United Airlines – with its online “double bonus” promotion, which means that with four trips you get one free when you reserve on the Web. Is this something we should be demanding?

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Our webmaster noticed that Ryanair offer a telephone service called Ryanair telecom. As we are usually unkind about Ryanair, we thought this month we’d try and find something kind to say about them, so here are the details on their latest special offer. We have not used it and can’t say if it is any good, but were bemused that this was another one of their activities. This is what they say:

We have an offer on at the moment giving away 1,000,000 FREE calls in the form of 50,000 x 20 minute calls. To get your free calls, call+353 1 246 23 33and we will call you back within 15 seconds! You must call from your fixed line phone and register with a Visa or MasterCard credit card. Once you register, you will then receive a free call from your mobile or fixed line phone. You will get a 20 minutes FREE talk time if you call from your fixed line phone to any fixed line phone (premium rate calls excluded) in Europe, Australia, China, North America, South Africa or Russia when you successfully register. This offer applies to touch tone phones and excludes calls made from payphones, switchboard phones or Internet phones. If the call exceeds 20 minutes, you will be charged at prevailing rates. Ryanair Telecom reserves the right to refuse to supply this service and may discontinue this offer or service at anytime. This offer is also subject to our normal terms and conditions .

Iris takes part in a barbecue in Brazil.

We went to a little town called Ouro Preto, in Brazil, which is in the centre of a mining area, which produced gem stones. We visited the museum which shows all the different metals and minerals mined and they have an impressive display of what they produce, including polished stones, although I am convinced the diamonds on display must be paste because they are so big and there are only teenage boys guarding them!!!

After Ouro Preto we did a bit of travelling with a one night stand at a place called Jacaraipe, which was by the coast and was the first of many camp sites which, although not on the beach, were full of sand. (How I have got to hate sand since I’ve been on this last stretch of the trip! It gets everywhere and one seems totally unable to get rid of it entirely and it turns up afterwards in my day sack, in my socks, in my shoes, in my hair, for days on end!)

Then we headed for Itaunas where we spent a couple of nights, arriving at about mid-afternoon and immediately arranging for a barbecue for the evening . We’d bought some pork and beef, and lots of potatoes so that we could roast them in the oven. We had been assured by our leaders that the Brazilians were a barbecue nation, they knew all about barbecuing, so when the owner of the camp site told our revered leader, Heather, that it would be better done on the beach as there weren’t the facilities at the camp site, she readily agreed and at the appointed hour, we packed up the food and also the ingredients for what was going to be a rather lethal vodka punch and headed for the beach.

Itaunas is an unspoilt little village at the edge of the sea, there is no real tourism there and it made me laugh to see those little village shops with their “Visa” and “Mastercard” signs in the window as they weren’t selling anything that would cost more than the odd pound or two! We trekked all the way down the main street, which is really a mud track, over the bridge, and along the track for some 500 metres, and then we had to turn off and start climbing – yes some really big sand dunes with sand that literally could come up to your neck if you trod in the wrong place! The path was marked by the odd rubbish bin and it was quite free of trees (this is important for later) but it was still at least another 300 metres from the beach and the bar we were heading for, but eventually after a half hour walk we were there.

The beach was very narrow and the sea was in. It was also getting dusk by the time we arrived and then Heather had the news – the owner had not yet located the barbecue! Still, we lived in hope. I was part of the cook team for the evening, our actual cook being Alex, a really tall well-built Chinese gentleman who was born in Hong Kong but arrived in England in 1967 to take up a nursing career and now at the age of 55 has retired from nursing (he ended up in an important administrative post in the hospital equivalent to the old matrons) and he is an accomplished chef who thoroughly enjoys cooking and turns out some really tasty meals. He has also a wicked sense of humour and keeps us all amused with his wry remarks.

Anyway, we got on with making the vodka punch (I didn’t participate because I’m not a spirits drinker and so stuck to beer and the odd soft drink) but just about everything was going into the punch. Then came the news, the barbecue had arrived. There were 22 hungry mouths waiting for that food and so you can imagine how many steaks, pork chops and fish steaks we had to cook. The bad news was that our barbecuing host provide us with a little grill which would take 2 steaks at a time!

Out the back of the bar there was a bonfire (burning rubbish) and so it was decided to improvise (it was quite dark by now) and see if the bonfire could be utilised, but the problem was we had no grills to put across it. So our host got his workers to dig a pit and transfer some of the bonfire into it and plus our barbecue coals it seemed that was the way to go, except the only grill they could come up with was the grill which would normally go across the top of a 4-ring gas cooker! Of course it was totally inadequate as well as being totally unsuitable and in the end we had to abandon the idea of a barbecue altogether.

We just used the small barbecue to cook the fish steaks (four) and then Alex set to in the kitchen and with the aid of two big frying pans cooked the pork chops first (which were delicious and so tender – I’ve never tasted such succulent pork chops in my life before), but unfortunately when the beef was cooked it turned out to have died of old age and the cooking just made it tougher and no-one ate the beef!

So what did most people do? They got drunk on the vodka punch! Judith and I decided to leave quite early (around 2200) and so set out with three of the men who were also fed up with the barbecue and just wanted to get back into town and do a bit of drinking there, so we headed off up the sand dunes – but it is surprising how different they looked at night in the pitch dark with no lights to guide us except the odd torch!

We were first of all walking, then scrambling almost on hands and knees up and down steep sand dunes, and continually ending up at dead ends because the other side of the sand dunes there was scrubland and water, lots of it! Judith and I were often left far behind by the men, would lose sight of them and start yelling and then see their lights heading back our way because they’d had to do a U-turn! Eventually we found the right path, more by luck than judgement, and found we had walked a considerable way in the wrong direction which put at least twenty minutes on our journey back to town. On the way we encountered the odd car and van luckily displaying headlights, but then we found we were among a whole crowd of cyclists with no lights at all! It was pretty hairy trying to see and avoid them! All those people in Itaunas must have cats’ eyes!

When we arrived in town, we thanked our men friends for looking after us so well – it was sarcasm really as they had left us way behind once we were on the right path and we only saw them again when we got into town and found them sitting at a bar and one of them, a Korean gentleman we call Young, and who speaks very little English, insisted we join them and have a beer before retiring.

But although we thought we had had an adventure it was nothing that happened to all our friends who had stayed behind to finish off the Vodka punch and other spirits and beer. They all got plastered and every single one of them got lost on the way back with varying effects. One of our leaders, a chap called Martin, got himself steaming drunk, convinced Alex he knew the way home, and promptly led him a merry dance in the pitch dark without torches through scrubland and bushes, so that Alex ended up losing his shoes, his T-shirt and his truck keys, and getting his back and arms and legs scratched by every conceivable thorn and twig. Next day, Heather asked what on earth made them head that way when they knew there were no trees on the path we had originally taken! There was no answer except to admit they were too drunk to know what they were doing! Another of our number lost his trousers and his T-shirt and his camera, and another of us, a lady called Alison, got a badly grazed knee and bruised hip falling about in an unladylike manner!

So in one way it was good we’d had the barbecue on the day of our arrival because we only planned to stay two nights before moving on so everyone had a day to recover from their excesses and attempt to find their lost possessions, but all searches were fruitless as all those possessions were gone the next day (although it is more than probable they were lost on the way home and therefore extremely difficult to find) The most serious loss was of Alex’s truck keys because they open all the padlocks on the truck and we each are issued with a set at the start of the trip and are told to guard them with our lives! Unfortunately also, just prior to Itaunas we had all been issued with new keys as the old padlocks were at the end of their life and so all new padlocks had recently been fitted! I dare say Alex had to pay a fine for losing his and extra to get a new set!

Meeting news from our branches around the world.

What is Chagas disease? Also called American trypanosomiasis, Chagas disease is an infection caused by the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi. Chagas disease primarily affects low income people living in rural areas. It is estimated that 16-18 million people are infected with Chagas disease; of those infected, 50,000 will die each year. Chagas disease is locally transmitted in Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, French Guiana, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay, and Venezuela.

How do I get it? Small critters called “kissing bugs” that live in cracks and holes of substandard housing primarily found in South and Central America. Insects become infected after biting an animal or person who already has Chagas disease. Infection is spread to humans when an infected bug deposits feces on a person’s skin, usually while the person is sleeping at night. The person often accidently rubs the feces into the bite wound, an open cut, the eyes, or mouth.

How do I know if I have it? There are three stages of infection with Chagas disease; each stage has different symptoms. Some people may be infected and never develop symptoms. Acute symptoms only occur in about 1% of cases and most people infected do not seek medical attention. The most recognized symptom of acute Chagas infection is the Romaña’s sign, or swelling of the eye on one side of the face, usually at the bite wound or where feces were rubbed into the eye. Other symptoms are usually not specific for Chagas infection. These symptoms may include fatigue, fever, enlarged liver or spleen, and swollen lymph glands. Sometimes, a rash, loss of appetite, diarrhea, and vomiting occur. In infants and in very young children with acute Chagas disease, swelling of the brain can develop in acute Chagas disease, and this can cause death. In general, symptoms last for 4-8 weeks and then they go away, even without treatment.

What should I do if I have Chagas disease? See your doctor for a blood tests to determine whether there are parasite or antibodies in your blood. Medication for Chagas disease is usually effective when given during the acute stage of infection. Once the disease has progressed to later stages, medication may be less effective. In the chronic stage, treatment involves managing symptoms associated with the disease.

How can I prevent Chagas disease? Avoid sleeping in thatch, mud, or adobe houses, and use insecticides to kill insects and reduce the risk of transmission. There is neither a vaccine nor recommended drug available to prevent Chagas disease.

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

U. S. Soldiers Home, Washington: during a century of travel (well 78 years!) both in and out of service I have travelled to over 150 countries (I count both North and South Dakota as countries) and for some reason have jotted signs and happenings that I thought funny at the time (and now wonder why). So here is the perfect opportunity to share some of my anecdotes.

In the New Delhi, India YMCA (takes men, women, children etc) a group of travellers travelling together from many different countries arrived. They were part of a project to show different nationalities could travel in peace and work and travel together. There were people from Hawaii, the States, Europe, Philippines etc. By the time they got to India they had formed into cliques and some were not talking to others, and some wanted to share room only with their own nationality etc. None of them trusted the Indian personnel at the front desk and when they found out I had been in India for awhile they came to me with their questions. They asked me if it was safe to drink the water from faucet in courtyard. I had been drinking it with no ill effects and there was a contraption on it that I thought purified the water so I foolishly assured them it was safe. They all got sick. I had been eating with the dining room with them but from them on walked several blocks to the YWCA to avoid their dirty looks!

A friend of mine at the Soldiers Home used to collect business cards so I would try to collect them from all around the world for him. I went into a gift shop in a hotel in New Delhi, India. They had a particularly nice card and so I told a white lie and told them I was a director of a tour group and could I have more than one to give to my clients. I forgot I was going to be in that hotel five days. The next day I was asked when is your tour group arriving? I said “What tour group” I then recovered my self and announced that I had been fired.

An English girl who claimed she had become a Hindu in England told me some of the Hindu temples that required you to be a Hindu (not all) would not let her in as they did not believe her. How do you prove you are a Hindu?

Armd Reg. In prayer that God may bless the souls of those who laid down their lives during India Pakistan War Dec 1971.

Mahatma (Soul) Gandhi is one of my heroes. Mother Teresa is another one (she visited the Soldiers Home. She asked that no collection be taken for her but I think one was.) Gandhi is one of the few lawyers I respect. When he travelled throughout India he often stayed in friend’s homes. In the one he often stayed in Bombay (now called Mumbai) the house has been made into a museum. Along with some of his stuff they have a lending library where you can check out some of the books he wrote. The sign on the desk reads: “Please return out books after reading. For we observe that though people may be very poor accountants they are very good bookkeepers”. At the Jain Temple there was a sign: “Women in menstrual period may not enter”. Our guide says that Jains wear a gauze mask over face so they will not kill any flies or insects accidentally. At the hanging garden the guide explained that Parsees instead of burying dead put them in a Tower of Silence and the vultures eat the meat off the corpse. It takes about twenty minutes. (Unless a fat actor.) Indians like their actors fat so they will look prosperous. (I look very prosperous!) They sometimes make American actors’ pictures on billboards fatter than they are. Paul Newman in one poster looked more like Orson Wells. Back to the Tower of Silence and the vultures. The bones then fall into a pit where lime and charcoal turns them into ashes. I asked how often they do this and was told: “Whenever they die” The Indians are so logical. It was explained to me that there are so few Parsees left that they had to feed the vultures meat in the meanwhile and she looked directly at me or they would become a nuisance in the neighbourhood. There is a water reservoir next door the droppings from the vultures would fall in the water so they covered the top of reservoir and made a hanging garden there. The soil is not deep enough for trees, just bushes and flowers. The Jain religion uses a swastika (a Nazi symbol, only Indians had it first, and the Nazi reversed the symbol) and rice in their ceremony. I will now take up a collection for the vultures.

A rickshaw driver is trying to fix me up with a prostitute. He said she is in the untouchable class. An untouchable prostitute??

Another time I went into a temple and the people went out of the way to welcome me. I asked what kind of temple is was and was told A temple for untouchables, (although I think this was outlawed.)

The other day in India I realized all my coats were missing. My raincoat, nylon jacket, sweater etc. I thought maybe I had left them on the airplane. Then when I went to look for my shoes under the bed and there they all were. My room was so small that I had put them under my bed to get them out of the way.

Some Indians after talking to you when they get ready to leave will say “May I leave now?” I always graciously give them permission

Next month, Mac discusses India again.

If you would like to contact Mac, he can be e-mailed on: macsan400@yahoo.com

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 .

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.

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

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.

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

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.”

A big thank you for all your comments and thoughts sent to the Beetle. We had two votes for visiting Burma and one against visiting. What do you think?

London based Globetrotters member Steve wrote in to ask people not to go to Burma and this is why:

Dear Beetle, I totally concur with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and applaud Rough Guide’s ethical stance. As a Buddhist, I would dearly love to visit Burma and its beautiful temples but so long as the brutal regime are still in power and deny democracy and enslave their own people and worse still, the ethnic groups who live there, I will not go. What’s more, I will not buy any more Lonely Planet guidebooks or anything from any other company that I am aware profit from trade in Burma.

I have met many Burmese and Karen, Karenni, Mon and other ethnic groups from Burma and most of them have been very kind and gentle and urged me not to go there. Some years ago, I was taken over the border to Karen State to see the conditions they were living in for myself. I met many people who had been injured by shells and shooting from the Burmese army. At Dr Cynthia’s clinic in Mae Sot, on the Thai side of the Burmese border, I met many more with injuries from torture, malaria and other illnesses from escaping through the jungle to Thailand.

If you’d like to meet some lovely people from Burma who welcome outside contact, then go visit the refugee camps along the Thai-Burmese border. It’s difficult to find a country that does not have some policies or practices that do not suit our ethical viewpoint but Burma is exceptionally bad, so please do not go there.

Pam from Chicago wrote in to say:

I did visit Burma for 3 weeks in about ’96. The visa had just been lengthened. We hooked up with 2 Burmese men in the airport who acted as our driver, guide and interrupters. We couldn’t stray too far off the beaten path as far as to which towns we went or what hotels we stayed in but their sympathies were very, very against the government and we didn’t stick to the tourist route or rules farther than that. They were invaluable to us and enabled us to see behind the government curtain, into the conditions in the country and speak with “real” people. It was they that thought it was important for foreigners to visit their country. At least someone will be there to see first hand and carry the message out to the outside world. It also gave them, private citizens, an income. Sure, they weren’t legal guides and we didn’t eat in proscribed restaurants but how many independent travelers stick to legal guides, official exchange rates and sanctioned restaurants when we travel anywhere?

A tour group sees only what’s on the agenda which is what’s proscribed. Globetrotters independent travelers, by definition, find their own way and learn about the country below the skin. I guess it’s the same argument that is made for Zoos. How many people can really get to see most of the Zoo animals in their natural homes? If no one sees the animals or knows anything about them, who will care if they live or die? How can we know how to help them if we don’t see and learn about them?

I was in Tibet in Sept. / Oct. of ’87 when the Chinese shot the Monks and some Tibetan people disappeared from Lhasa. If foreigners hadn’t been there to carry the news and pictures, the word would not have reached the rest of the world so soon.

Michael Rakower, our lawyer regular contributor from New York wrote in to add his views on visiting Burma:

This is a very difficult question. I think the right answer must lie in the individual’s choice. We independent travellers have a firebrand spirit. We seek to learn and question where others don’t dare. We see beauty and opportunity where others see a wasteland of underdevelopment and lost causes. Additionally, most travellers are also highly sensitive to the circumstances of the lives of others. This puts us in a difficult position. On the one hand, we rage against the confines of established society. On the other hand, we can’t help but appreciate the level of fairness and quality of protection we in the developed world enjoy. Clearly, certain very important things are being done right for us.

In 1996 I went to Burma during a lengthy trip through Asia. I considered the same issues back then, and chose to go. This issue boils down to a moral one. To me, the most moral thing one can do is to recognize that fact. By doing so, one recognizes that his/her actions have a moral effect on the world. Some will choose not to go to Burma, choosing to pad the pockets of governments more worthy. But the issue does not have to be so simple. There are other choices that lie between going forward blindly and not going at all. For example, one can go but sneak away from changing money at the government institutions (as I did).

In retrospect, I am very glad I went. First of all, I am more aware of the plight of the Burmese now that I have gone. I watched a speech Aung San Suu Kyi gave in front of her home, along with hundreds (perhaps thousands) of Burmese waving their walkmen in the air so that they could tape her speech for the edification of their families. She spoke of freedom, liberty and resistance, and I’m glad I was there to attend. On another day, I met a local man who slapped me on the arm while we were walking alone on a desolete street merely for asking a question in public about the government. In the privacy of his home, he told me that informants lurk everywhere in his village. The impoverished Burmese, he told me, are quick to turn on their neighbors if they can do so secretly.

But then there is another side to this struggle. I stopped by an open-air shop one afternoon that sold an alcoholic beverage tapped from a tree. I befriended the shopkeeper and his family. Before I knew it, we were all taking pictures of each other. Without question, I believed these people to be warm and decent. Yet, while taking pictures, I noticed a military jacket behind the counter. The eldest son owned it. I have thought about that scene for a long time. This was a poor and decent family. In a land of poverty, where almost no opportunity exists, even those families who despise the government may wish their children good fortune within it. This poor shopkeeper wanted more for his son than he could give him.

So, from a moral point of view, what is one supposed to do? As I said, I think the solution lies in recognizing that one’s actions carry a moral play on the world. While Rough Guides may believe that the statement it can make to the world by refusing to publish information about Burma is the most effective measure it can take against a repressive regime, Lonely Planet may feel equally strongly that its position will have an influential effect toward positive change. In truth, they are probably both right. To turn the tide of repressive forces, creative and noble people must act in the manner they deem most effective. Raising public awareness, getting everyone to consider the issues and act according to his conscience, will, in time, have the most positive effect.

MTV and the Burma Campaign UK are running a joint campaign calling for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi. In the last month over 40,000 people have visited www.mtvburmaaction.com and emailed Kofi Annan and the five permanent members of the security council, demanding the UN take action.