Tag Archives: August 2003

An Appeal for Help in Rwanda by Michael Rakower

Here is an appeal by Michael on behalf of the American Friends for the Kigali Public Library (the AFKPL) for help creating Rwanda’s first public library. Michael is a regular contributor to the Globetrotters e-newsletter.

My wife and I recently returned to the United States from a one-year journey through Africa. During the last three months of the trip, we enjoyed the privilege of working in the Prosecutor’s Office of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. As part of the job, I poured through reams of scholarly texts, investigators’ reports and trial transcripts and interviewed witnesses during two trips to Rwanda. The more I learned, the more shocked and disgusted I became. The more I thought about the events that occurred, the more I questioned humankind’s decency, its purpose, and its future. In Rwanda, I met with a man who watched his mother bludgeoned to death, with a woman repeatedly raped and with a man who snuck his family across the Congolese border in oil drums. Even now, I sometimes lie awake wondering what is wrong with all of us. How can we allow these things to occur? Who among us is willing to participate in such acts? Who among us seeks to profit?

My understanding of the Rwandan genocide developed in stages. After reading about the country’s cultural history and the events that occurred leading up to and during the genocide, I finally started to comprehend what these murderers sought to accomplish. It may sound naïve and even a bit stupid, but until that point I never could comprehend one person’s desire to destroy another. Suddenly, the events of the Holocaust, which I had read about, spoken about and felt sorrow over for years, took on a cold reality. For the first time, my brain clicked into focus and I understood the mindset of a people that sought to destroy systematically the entire population of its self-defined enemy.

With this realization in mind, I visited Rwanda and saw a country devastated by its own havoc. Years after the tragedy, a palpable sense of ruin hangs in the air. Commerce functions at a virtual standstill. Street hawkers carry a threatening gleam in their eyes. Were they once machete-wielding murderers? You can’t help but wonder. Bullet-ridden, pock-marked homes and sidewalks with bullet casings protruding from the ground are common sightings. One senses that so many of Rwanda’s people fell so far below the edge of decency that they no longer know how to live without abuse. One wonders what will be the next phase in the struggle between the Rwandan people. Then one realizes that the simmering depravity that plagues Rwanda is not localized to that country. So much of Africa has endured horrific violence. Rwanda’s western neighbour, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is the inspiration for Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.

Having returned to the United States armed with little but a sense of helplessness and the desire to cause positive change, I teamed up with some dedicated people and joined the American Friends for the Kigali Public Library (the “AFKPL”). In connection with a Rwandan chapter of the Rotary Club, we are working to build Rwanda’s first public library. It is our hope that the library will serve as a place of solace for the wounded, a haven of intellectual growth for the curious and bedrock of enlightenment for all. We have already begun construction on the library, obtained commitments for book donations from publishers and we have raised approximately $750,000 of our $1,200,000 budget.

If anyone would like to donate his or her time, money or books to the cause, please do not hesitate to contact me at mrakower@hotmail.com.

We have more information about the AFKPL, which includes its contact information. If you would like to see this, please e-mail me. Also, for those of you living in England, an organization at the University of Oxford called the Marshall Scholars for the Kigali Public Library is contributing to the new library. Zachary Kaufman (zachary.kaufman@magdalen.oxford.ac.uk) is the contact there.

As a fellow Globie, I appreciate your support. Together we can cause positive change.

Sincerely, Michael Rakower


Padmassana Travels To Japan – Part 3

Padmassana went travelling around Kyushu in June/July time. Here is the final of three extracts from his travel journal.

From Kagoshima I went on a day trip on a small bus to Chiran. The bus took about an hour and a half and cost about £10 return. Chiran is famous for Samurai houses and the Kamikaze museum – very interesting but little information in English, most interesting part is the now de classified documents relating to the USS Curtis which took a direct hit from a kamikaze plane. Kagoshima has plenty of things to see including a superb aquarium with giant crabs that live at 300m at the bottom of the sea and a good jellyfish exhibition and good English signs.

From Kagoshima I travelled north to Kumamoto, which took about three and a half hours. I stayed in a beautiful Ryokan with tatami room, even if I did have to get a postman to show me where it was! Kumamoto is easy to get round with trams and busses, though most of it is walkable. Went to the super castle and a wonderful Japanese garden.

Kumamoto is a very nice city, it has some Suizenn-ji gardens, which were built by a Shogun in the 16th century for him to have tea, as there is a spring there perfect for making good tea. Around this he built fabulous Japanese gardens complete with koi carp ponds. This is a very popular destination with Japanese tourists who go there to have their pictures taken with Mt Fuji in the background. Around the edge of the gardens are little stalls, which sell the locally famous “fish on wheels” and spinning tops, great souvenirs. Kumamoto-Jo or castle is largely new and inside apart from a bit of armour there's not much to see, outside is a little more interesting and again there are signs in English explaining what you are seeing.

From Kumamoto, I went to Mt Aso. To get to Mt Aso, you have to take a local train from Kumamoto, then a small bus up the side of the mountain and then take a cable car to see the inside of the volcano crater. But I was unable to do this, as it was active! A little while ago, the volcano started spewing poisonous gas and lumps of rock, and as a woman was killed so the authorities put a 1km exclusion zone round it. Went instead to the museum, which is not bad, although there was not much signage in English but it does have the feedback from 2 live video links from inside the crater. Today’s pictures were pretty good – a shame that there was no lava, although I suspect that the locals are relieved.

Next, I took the train from Kumamoto to Nagasaki, a nice city, it’s quite industrial, and obviously new. Went to the temples and went to the A-Bomb museum, the No. 1 tourist attraction, full of Japanese school children but also has a scenic river that has stone bridges that used to lead up to a stone temple but this is not there any more. There is another temple with a roof shaped like a tortoise, which is a really nice place to visit. Inside this, it has a Foucault’s pendulum that shows the earth’s rotation – one of only three in the world, the other 2 being in Paris and Leningrad. Nagasaki's “temple row” is quite interesting, many of the temples have started to produce little leaflets in English as the west’s interest in the east and Buddhism has grown in the last few years.

I went up the Nagasaki cable car to get a view over the city yesterday before getting the train back to Hakata/Fukuoka. The train took about 2 hours and was included in my two 5 day passes. The city has two names if you didn’t realise: the airport is called Fukuoka, but the train station is called Hakata. Was going to go up the Fukuoka tower but despite being 80 degrees it was very hot and sticky with low cloud, so did what the Beetle would have done and went shopping! Bought myself a little Japanese garden that you build yourself, saw one in a Ryokan and have been looking ever since, would you believe I found one in the basement shopping area of Hakata station at 7.30pm on my last night. And then ready to come home back to the UK.

A note on Japanese train passes: Japanese train passes are only available to foreigners and must be bought outside Japan. Once you start a pass you have to travel from that day onwards. Passes come in 5, 10, 14 and 21 days. This works out much cheaper than buying train passes as you go. Some ferries and buses are included in the passes.

If you would like to contact Padmassana to ask him about his time in Japan, he can be e-mailed on: padmassana@globetrotters.co.uk


Woman killed by Shark

A woman was killed by a great white shark while swimming with sea lions at Avala Beach, between Los Angeles and San Francisco in California. This is the first attack in almost ten years. Four lifeguards tried to save her life, but the 50-year-old was declared dead upon reaching the shore. The shark had bitten her left leg, severing her femoral artery. The area is known to be populated by sharks but they usually only attack humans if confused, said a shark specialist interviewed by the San Francisco Chronicle. 'If you are wearing a wetsuit and fins and you are swimming with sea lions you are doing a clumsy job of imitating shark food,' he said.


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Fave Website: worldpress

A great website, spotted by our webmaster Paul. It contains articles from the press and magazines around the world and also headlines from events around the world. So, if you ever wondered what the headlines were in Yemen or Serbia, here’s your chance to find out. Each country’s newspaper is listed so you can select a newspaper of your choice to see that country’s news stories. The site also tells you which language the newspaper is in. Click on: worldpress


New UN Heritage Sites

This is the third of three descriptions of the 24 sites of “outstanding universal value”, that have been designated world heritage sites by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

These are as follows:

  • Franciscan Missions in the Sierra Gorda of Querétaro, Mexico: Built during the last phase of the conversion to Christianity of the interior of Mexico in the mid-18th Century. The richly decorated church façades are of special interest as they represent an example of the joint creative efforts of the missionaries and the Indios.
  • Wooden Churches of Southern Little Poland, Poland: The churches represent outstanding examples of the different aspects of medieval church-building traditions in Roman Catholic culture.
  • Citadel, Ancient City and Fortress Buildings of Derbent, Russian Federation: Part of the northern limits of the Sassanian Persian Empire, which extended east and west of the Caspian Sea. The town of Derbent has retained part of its medieval fabric.
  • Mapungubwe Cultural Landscape, South Africa: An open, expansive savannah landscape situated on the northern border of South Africa joining Zimbabwe and Botswana. Mapungubwe developed into the largest kingdom in the sub-continent before it was abandoned in the 14th Century. The almost untouched remains of the palace sites, a settlement area and two earlier capital sites survive.
  • Ubeda-Baeza: Urban duality, cultural unity, Spain: The urban morphology of the two small cities of Ubeda and Baeza in southern Spain dates back to the Moorish 9th Century and to the Reconquista in the 13th Century. In the 16th Century, the cities were renovated along the lines of the emerging Renaissance.
  • Gebel Barkal and the Sites of the Napatan Region, Sudan: Includes several archaeological sites, over more than 60 km (37 miles) in the Nile Valley, of the Napatan (900 to 270 BC) and Meroitic (270 BC to 350 AD) cultures, of the second kingdom of Kush. Tombs, with and without pyramids, temples, living complexes and palaces are also found on the site.
  • Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, United Kingdom: The historic landscape garden illustrates the art of gardens from the 18th to the 20th Centuries. The gardens house botanic collections (conserved plants, living plants and documents) that have been considerably enriched through the centuries.
  • Matobo Hills, Zimbabwe: Distinctive rock land forms associated with human occupation from the early Stone Age to early historical times, and intermittently since. They also feature an outstanding collection of rock paintings.
  • Central Amazon Conservation Complex, Brazil: Comprises the largest protected area in the Amazon Basin and one of the planet's richest regions in terms of biodiversity.
  • Imperial Tombs of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, China: These tombs were inscribed on the World Heritage List in 2000. The property inscribed this year as an extension consists of two distinct burial sites of the Ming Dynasty emperors. Xiaoling, the first emperor of that dynasty is buried there, as are 13 others.
  • Archaeological Site of Panama Viejo and the Historic District of Panama, Panama: Panama Viejo covers the location and ruins of the first European settlement on the American mainland and pre-Hispanic remains. It features impressive ruins. Moreover, older remains, dating to up to 1,000 years before the arrival of the Europeans, were excavated on this site.

Source: BBC News


So You Think You’re Well Travelled?

Here’s a little Beetle quiz based on capital cities. See how many you get right! Go on, have a guess!

What is the capital city of the following countries:

  1. Angola
  2. Cyprus
  3. Laos
  4. Nepal
  5. South Korea

For the answers, see at the end of the e-newsletter.


Being Careful

The Australian High Commission currently advises that there is currently an epidemic of the mosquito-borne disease Dengue Fever in Tonga on the main island of Tongatapu. Anyone visiting Tonga is strongly advised to protect themselves from mosquito bites at all times.

You do not want to catch Dengue Fever – see Ingrid Style’s article in this e-newsletter about her Dengue Fever in Thailand.


Human Shield Woman in Trouble

A retired Florida schoolteacher who went to Iraq to serve as a “human shield” is facing hefty fines, which she is refusing to pay. The US Treasury said that Faith Fippinger, 62, broke the law by crossing the Iraqi border before the war. Her travel to Iraq violated U.S. sanctions that prohibited American citizens from engaging in “virtually all direct or indirect commercial, financial or trade transactions with Iraq.” The government also has asked Fippinger, 62, to detail her travels to Iraq and any financial transactions she made. In her response, Fippinger wrote that the only money she spent was on food and emergency supplies and that “if it comes to fines or imprisonment, “please be aware that I will not contribute money to the United States government to continue the build-up of its arsenal of weapons.” Since she won't pay, she said, “perhaps the alternative should be considered.”


Have you got a tale to tell?

If you have a travellers tale that your aching to tell. Then why not visit the “Travel Sized Bites” section of the Website and share it with the world. Travel Sized Bites


I Want That Holiday – TV Show

Are you a UK resident, going on holiday in October or November, but haven't decided where? Do you fancy letting us plan it for you?

If you want a holiday with a difference then call us on 023 80 712568 or email us at iwthol@granadamedia.com for an application form.


MEETING NEWS

Meeting news from our branches around the world.


Pilot Shenanigans

Southwest Airlines, the highly successful US low cost airline – the one that Ryanair is modelled on, has fired two pilots (both men) for allegedly taking off their clothes whilst in the cockpit, in flight.

Southwest is famous for being offbeat. When they started flying in 1971, flight attendants wore hot pants (one assumes the female ones) and were chosen for sex appeal and they are known even today for making funny in-flight announcements, sometimes even in song.

This is not the first time that pilots have behaved badly – America West fired a pair of pilots last year for being under the influence of alcohol in the cockpit after running up a $142 tab at a Miami bar the night before. A Northwest Airlines pilot was arrested in January, after a loaded gun was found in his carry-on.


The World’s Top 5 Cleanest Countries

The World’s Top 5 Cleanest Countries

  1. Finland
  2. Norway
  3. Canada
  4. Sweden
  5. Switzerland

New Zealand comes 6th, Australia 7th, the US 11th, the UK 16th.

Source: http://www.aneki.com/lists.html


Travel Quiz

Win a Frommer’s guidebook on Amsterdam 2003. See www.frommers.com for info on Frommer’s guidebooks.

Some people have said the quiz is difficult, we say do some research; try google.com or Ask Jeeves, if you need help with the answers.

The winner of last month's Moon Guide on Fiji is Eileen Hobson.

1. A beer has the same name as the river that gave its name to Amsterdam – what is it?

2. What is the currency used in Amsterdam?

3. What is the name of Amsterdam’s airport?

4. What is the first name of the young girl who hid from Nazis during WW2 and wrote a diary?

5. Which Dutch painter committed suicide in 1890 at the age of 37 and has a museum named after him in Amsterdam?

Your Name:

Your e-mail address:


Free London Museums: Theatre Museum

Five galleries illustrate the history of the performing arts in the UK. The collection includes displays on theatre, ballet, dance, circus, puppetry, opera, musicals, rock and pop. There's usually a daily workshop on performing arts subjects, such as pantomime and making a play.

The museum is found in Russell Street, Covent Garden.
Open: Tue-Sun, 10:00-18:00.
Tube: Covent Garden
Enquiries: 020 7943 4700
Entrance: FREE admission for individuals.


Meeting News from London

After our usual gap of one month, London Globetrotters meetings are back at 2.30pm on Saturday 6th September.

John Gimilette will talk about Paraguay – The Island surrounded by Land. Award-winning writer, John, takes us round a country that has emerged from centuries of isolation. As one of the most beguiling and eccentric places there is, we visit a vast lost ocean, the battlefields of the bloodiest war man has known, picked Victorian warships, cannibals, a highland ball and plenty more. John's book “At the Tomb of the inflatable Pig.”

Richard Snailham, Globetrotters Vice President will give a talk: On Reed Boats down rivers in Bolivia and Paraguay. Following a hunch that cocaine and nicotine might have reached the Old World from the New in very early times, John Blashford-Snell had three reed boats built on Lake Titicaca and tested them out on the Desaquadero river and subsequently reaching Buenos Aires and Belem in similar craft.

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


Airline News

In a bid to step up flight security, China plans to use policemen disguised as crew members. The undercover police, who may be armed, are undergoing training and are likely to be deployed in October this year.

British Airways has suspended all flights to Saudi Arabia after receiving evidence of a planned attack on a UK jet at Riyadh airport.

Expect to get some good fares between New Zealand and Tasmania: Air New Zealand (ANZ) is to launch a low cost service Tasman Express on October 29th on its trans Tasman route. There is already an Emirates service across the Tasman Sea and Virgin Blue has said it intends to start flights between the two countries later this year.

ANZ also plans to cut the price of fares from Auckland to Sydney by 45 percent to NZD$189 (USD$111) one way, while the total reductions would average about 20 percent.

India's first budget airline, Air Deccan has just started with flights from the southern city of Bangalore. Air Deccan aims to undercut other carriers' fares by 50 percent, will start with one daily service to Hubli and Mangalore, but plans to expand quickly to 20 flights per day to destinations in the south of the country. India's civil aviation minister, Rajav Prat Rudy said: “The days of flying being a symbol of only maharajas or the rich are over.”

Pilots in the US are pressing the government to train more cockpit crews in the use of guns after new warnings about possible terrorist hijack attempts.

The US government has put out a worldwide alert that terrorists may be plotting more hijack attempts on commercial airliners this summer. According to a report from CNN the targets could include Australia, Italy, the UK or the eastern United States. However, the intelligence is still being evaluated and some doubts have been cast on its reliability.


Dengue Who? By Ingrid Styles

You know when you’ve been Dengued. Or do you’

After spending two weeks in the south of Thailand, I caught an over night bus from Sarat Thani back to Bangkok. That morning, to my surprise I managed to reschedule my flight due out the following day to Australia. Delighted that I had extended my stay in Thailand I went out that night and celebrated.

After sleeping for four hours, I woke with a rumbling stomach. I tried to ignore it. Dozing in and out of consciousness, my bowels decided that I needed to perch on the toilet. In Thailand, this seemed hardly unusual and I was not alarmed until daylight appeared: I realized I had been decorating the toilet at least ten times in three hours. Was I glad not to be on that fourteen-hour flight to Australia!

I had a persistent headache throughout the day and I noticed a pain in my lower back had become worse. That afternoon I went to the cinema. While seated the pain in my back spread down into my legs. Constantly fidgeting, I struggled to concentrate on the movie. The walk back to the house was exhausting so I went straight to bed.

OK so every one has been ill or felt pain at some point in life. Independent self-diagnosis of symptoms overrides concern about our well being and we often think nothing of it. Let’s look at the symptoms:

Diarrhoea – Is that not compulsory when travelling abroad?

Back pain – My backpack, one week sleeping in a wooden hut and then the overnight bus …..

Fever – What fever? It was the beginning of May – 40 degrees centigrade plus – Thailand's hottest time of year. The rainy season was building up and the air was extremely close.

Headache – Not much sleep recently, possible dehydration from the heat and, … erm …. hangover.

Leg ache – Did I drink any cheap Thai whiskey last night?

The next morning, I was no better. Noi, my host, took me to the doctor. Once inside the hospital, the nurse routinely took my blood pressure before seeing the doctor. I recounted my symptoms and he suggested I have a blood test. OK, so I hate needles! It’s not so much that I hate injections – they just jab into you and then that is it over and done. No, it’s the searching for a suitable vein first (can understand that, Beetle!).

The nurse hunted up and down my arms and around my hands for ages. Hurry up, I thought. I started to hyperventilate. Failing on the first vein, the nurse got some blood on the second. Then another needle appeared with a clear bag of liquid attached to it. I became nervous again. “What's it for?” I asked Noi. 'It is to make you strong” she said. “OK but what is it?” I asked. “Water. Don’t worry. It is OK” Noi tried to reassure me. “I will come back in six hours when it is finished.”

Six hours! Now lets slow down a minute. If I go to the doctor back home, I do not get put on a drip of water for six hours. Promising to drink plenty of mineral water, and with a recommendation to return in three days, I left the hospital.

Two days passed and I still felt unwell. I decided to have a flick through my travel health book. OK, what am I looking for here? I started with back pain. Sprains. Slipped discs… other types of back pain: Dengue Fever. What is that, I had never heard of it before. I read the symptoms. Hang on a minute – back pain yep, fever yep, diarrhoea yep, banging headaches yep. Oh no! Please don't tell me, I have this …… wait for it … tropical disease!

I realised it was quite possible. The white-backed mosquito carries Dengue Fever and outbreaks are particularly common in South East Asia – where I had been. They generally bite in the daytime. On reflection, I had fallen asleep in my hut one afternoon and woke up to find a circle of mosquito bites on my left leg.

I read on: although the symptoms are similar to that of Malaria, I discovered there is nothing you can do to prevent catching it, except slap on lots of insect repellent. A vaccine is still in the process of being developed. The good news is that you cannot catch it from another person. The bad news is that it is serious. There are four different strains of Dengue fever. Catching one kind only gives immunity to that strain. There is also the far more serious Dengue Haemorrhagic Fever, which causes the sufferer to bleed to death without immediate medical attention. This usually only occurs in children under fifteen.

Gulp…what if I am infected, am I going to die or be permanently affected by it?

It was now day three and I was feeling worse than ever. For the first time in my life, when a doctor has told me to return, I had to obey.

In part 2, Ingrid tells us of her stay in a Thai hospital, visits from ants and priests and how she recovered!

If you would like to contact Ingrid, who is currently in Chile, you can e-mail her on:gr.ing.a.rid@latinmail.com


Answers to: So You Think You’re Well Travelled?

1. Angola: Luanda

2. Cyprus: Nicosia

3. Laos: Vientiane

4. Nepal: Kathmandu

5. South Korea: Seoul

· 0 out of 5 – you need to get out more!

· 1-3 – not bad

· 4 – very good! You are a Globetrotter!

· 5 – are you sure you didn’t sneak a look?