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