Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Photo of the week May 29th, 2013
Once again the weather is in the news. Floods, people killed by lightning strikes, tornadoes and related damage. Climate change is REAL, it is happening, and has been happening for thousands of years - it is just that it appears to be becoming more extreme. The Cumulonimbus cloud, as shown here, is a rain bearing cloud of great vertical extent, with extremely fast moving air, and is generally associated with thunderstorms and heavy rain. Do not let its beauty deceive you, for this cloud carries greater destructive potential than you would at first imagine. Not only can such clouds drop over a million tons of water in a single storm, updraughts inside the clouds move at speeds in the tens of thousands of feet pre minute and the transient temperature of the lightening bolt is greater than the surface of our sun! (the surface of the sun is around 6,000C and yet a lightening bolts plasma core reaches around 30,000C albeit for a fraction of a second). Never underestimate the power of the weather, and be ever vigilant, as it is currently changing the way we go about many of our activities, from farming to flying, building to sailing. Watch the sky, it is beautiful and powerful. Photo courtesy of WAASPS Ltd. changing lives one flight at a time, and teaching aviation meteorology as part of flight training programmes. www.waasps.com
Monday, May 27, 2013
May 27th, 2013
Continuing from last week: With passports, visas and tickets in hand, you would think that travelling with young rural folks would be easy… well…
Even at the airport, and ready to travel, the airline can still refuse travel if they don’t like your paperwork – so make sure it is right before you go to check in. Assuming your baggage is reasonable in size and mass, you will soon be issued your boarding passes and on your way to the start of a string of new experiences…
The escalator ride to the first floor may well be the first escalator that our traveller will encounter, and it needs a safety briefing! Immigration will look at paperwork, for the first time traveller this is getting old – how many times in twenty minutes will somebody check their papers! The security screening and pat-down can cause quite a stir, even if you have warned before-hand. Such activities are not normal in the rural parts. A request to remove shoes, run hands over your body and look inside personal belongings is a NEW experience to the first time traveller, and one that can feel very invasive, especially to a young woman who has never experienced this before.
After a seemingly endless wait, one is invited to board the aircraft, but first there is the bus ride. The final cramming of the bus ride to the plane, the fight for seats and a place to lodge the luggage aboard feels totally normal – that makes everybody feel at home! It is just like a tro-tro!
Imagine you have never been on an airliner. Accompaniers will have to explain the inflight entertainment. A personal TV and personal food table, not sharing space with others is very new… Then, there is the looking out of the window - there is so much to see – for the first ten minutes. Airliners fly above the clouds – and for extended, boring, periods.
The time taken to reach the destination is long and it requires a great deal of attention to the enquiring minds of first time travellers. With luck they will sleep – but then there is the food and drink. The food is presented in a new way. It offers international flavours and ‘lacks spice’. The in-flight catering is not aimed at young people from rural places.
As we drop through the clouds to land there is a renewed excitement – things to see – and that renews the vigour of the day. Touchdown, and the disembarkation is smooth. Travellers are tired, and HUNGRY. The luggage has to be delivered on a conveyer belt – and it appears as if the luggage is never going to show. Impatience and complaints about the bitter cold, even inside the terminal building and wearing the ‘free’ blankets from the aircraft, pulls the spirits down. Finally, baggage arrives and spirits are lifted, until outside. HOW COLD it is… and the shivers start (it is 15C).
Our first time travellers will have to wear layers of clothes to sleep in. They will discover the duvet cover and look for all the world like fat caterpillars waiting to transform into chrysalises. Little forlorn faces pleading for more heat in the world, and resisting leaving the bed, disembodied by the masses of clothes and covers used to preserve precious heat.
Bathing is also a challenge. In Ghana we are used to just one tap – a cold tap – but not cold like in Europe! Ghana’s water runs from the tap a pleasant luke-warm, a refreshing temperature!
The two taps of Europe must be managed together to avoid cryogenic storage or lobster boiling moments. Be ready for the travellers legs. ‘Our legs look like old lady’s legs’ will be the comment. The lack of warmth and low humidity leave’s the skin looking wrinkled and dry. Thermal leggings are a good solution.
Despite the shivers, the happy moments will exceed the challenges. Seeing new things, discovering new ideas, witnessing smooth roads and well maintained cars. Then there are the little things: the cows are bigger and fatter; the corn is all the same height; there is order; there is rarely rubbish on the streets; the sheep have their coats shaved off to make warm clothes for humans; the sky is a different colour; the clouds different; people dress using less colourful cloth; that is a train; that is an old person with an electric buggy going shopping - the list is interminable, and the enquiring minds must be satisfied. You must remember that almost everything is new. The information flow is constant…
All of this experiential knowledge is being poured onto the young person’s brain, via eyes, ears, nose, skin and tongue – and some of it seeps in. The information overload is so great, yet the information continues to pour over them. In all of this they cannot change a thing.
There is the comfort of ‘food’. Food that reminds us of home, can trigger a comfort reflex in our whole body. When we cannot find something to satisfy our ‘conditioned since birth to a particular type of food’ tummies, we become grouchy. Very grouchy. No matter how magnificent the food on offer is, when we overload our ‘sensory systems’, we need to latch onto something that is solid.
Food is important for young travellers. Everything is out of their control. The temperature, where they go, how they go there, what they see, even their clothes are not their regular ones. Food is a place of solace.
In European restaurants the food is generally designed to please the tongue more than fill the tummy. Flavours are more important than quantities. Freshness more important than stodginess. For young travellers I find that the company canteen is always a winner, ‘working man’s food’. A big chunk of fish with a thick sauce and a bundle of rice, accompanied by a spicy soup that hits the ‘bingo’ mark of food memories. Number two is the ‘pub grub’, again the large plate of meaty chunks with lots of sauce! Number three is the Turkish Donna Kebab joint – meat with spicy sauce!
Bottom of the ‘yummy’ list for those I have travelled with is ‘the posh restaurants’, regardless of the asparagus’ tender attempts at savoury seduction, it is too far from home. The small portions, and the meat that still has a little pink in the middle, is outside of the ‘acceptable’ zone for somebody on their first trip. A sharp tasting vegetable such as rocket can trigger a loud ‘yuuuuuuk that tastes like neem tree’ response.
The most common complaints we have encountered are FOOD, COLD and TIREDNESS (mainly from learning so much in such a short time).
Being aware of these things can help to smooth such a trip. Despite all the challenges, it really is worth it. Knowing that they will now have the ability to speak with confidence and conviction about ‘how it is outside’. They are empowered – and that was always the aim of travel exposure. If you get the chance to accompany young people on a first trip abroad, embrace the moments – and enjoy being a part of the change in thinking that such a trip will make.
Capt. Yaw is Chief Flying Instructor and Chief Engineer at WAASPS, and lead Pilot with Medicine on the Move, Humanitarian Aviation Logistics (www.waasps.com www.medicineonthemove.org e-mail capt.yaw@gmail.com )
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Photo of the week May 22nd, 2013
As the farming season gets under-way, we continue to notice from the air the lack of coordinated efforts in land use. All over the country we see 'strip farming' and often see the same tractor returning a few days apart to plough adjacent lands. The 'strip and plot' activities are often counter-productive and more costly than a unified, team effort to clear, plough, plant and harvest crops. Sadly, such cooperation is often lacking, and the end result is a lower return on investment than would be achieved by working together for a common goal. This same challenges are encountered in offices, where duplication of efforts occur through lack of collaboration and cooperation - and even in aspects related to National Development. Team work, cooperation, collaboration and sharing of good practice has transformed agriculture and industry in other parts of the world - hopefully we will start to see more positive evidence of the same in the coming years as we fly over the wonderful landscapes of Ghana. Photo courtesy of Medicine on the Move www.medicineonthemove.org
Monday, May 20, 2013
May 20th, 2013
Over the past few years I have been able to take several young people on the their first international travel tour. I have learned a lot. Perhaps the distinct difference of my experiences to most peoples is that the young people I have travelled with, would not have normally had the resources or opportunities to travel had it not been for the projects I was involved in.
Normally, international travel from a developing nation is made possible for those from the higher reaches of society – generally those from the cities and well-paid jobs. Those with prior experience of eating in restaurants and visiting hotels. In my line of work, the empowerment of the rural dweller is key, and with it new challenges have become standard in the mission to travel internationally.
I will share with you some of the challenges experienced, and hope that some of you will gain a greater understanding of the issues involved – and embark on similar projects!
First of all there is the birth certificate. It appears that many of the young people in rural Ghana are not in possession of a birth certificate. The chances are that their very birth was never registered. Obtaining such a document takes time, effort and, of course, money. It is important that the birth certificate matches the name and date of birth that may occur on other documents already in the system, such as school certificates. Let us complicate the matter further by needing the details of parents, and at times Grandparents details get asked for! Many older people in Ghana seem to have several names, dates of birth, and documents with conflicting information – it seems that there age oscillates depending on the needs of the moment!. Getting a ‘clear and consistent’ set of information to complete a birth certificate for a young person is just the first step on the ladder. It will require several visits to the registrar’s office and of course several ‘administration fees’. Of course, it is not unusual to require some legal statements, especially in relation to parents’ names that do not match and an affidavit here and there! Clearly, each item needs ‘administration fees’ and takes transport to and from the city –with an accompanier to ensure that the right things are accomplished the first time.
Next our young person needs a passport. The birth certificate is needed as part of that application. Now, you are up against a bureaucratic system that appears, from how I perceive it, to be determined to place multiple obstacles along the path towards the issue of a passport. It is not as if you can just send off for one. No, you must pay for the forms from a bank, then take the filled in forms to the passport centre – on the specific day of the week, in a limited time frame, depending on where you are from, and which may well have such a long queue that you take several visits to finally get your passport interview. If you are unlucky you may have to pay ‘administration fees’ too. If they agree to issue you a passport you will need to return a few weeks later – again several times before you finally take possession of the required travel document. All of this takes time, effort, funds and wears the patience down.
Next, our intended to travel youngster will need an international yellow fever card to show on the way back into the country, and perhaps for their visa application too. Not as easy as you think! This is the experience we had for the last card issue:
- Go and get the injection at your local hospital. They will then take an ‘administration fee’ for the FREE jab.
- Travel to the regional capital to submit that you have had the injection and then pay an ‘administration fee’ for them to process the international traveller’s card.
- Return to collect the card a few days later… if it is ready.
The interview process itself is harrowing, especially for somebody from a rural area who finds themselves in a different environment and with a different level of English to what they are accustomed to. The interviewee must go in alone, and must be fully able to respond to the questions asked. This takes some time to learn new words such as names of the towns to be visited; ‘Friedrichshafen’, ‘Frankfurt’; ‘Gunskirchen’ in Germany, ‘Aberystwyth’ in Wales or ‘Ashby-de-la-Zouch’ in England (yes, it is!). The interviewee must be fully conversant with the trip details and able to explain who all the different people listed in the itinerary are. This is a challenge; it requires a lot of ‘pre-interview’ preparation by the young person. Of course, it is easy to get towns confused – especially on a complicated trip to several locations. The young person will want to focus on the part that interests them most, such as a visit to museum, and that in itself can cause confusion and the subsequent refusal of a visa. Any unintentional statement that sounds like they want to remain in the country of visit can result in an immediate refusal of visa – even if it is just a conversational comment such as ‘I think it would be wonderful to live in your country’! It is not easy-oo, and nor should it be, since there have been many abuses in the past.
Our intrepid young person will need to travel back to the city to collect their passport, generally in person, to discover if they have been successful.
Next week, we will look at the trip itself!
Capt. Yaw is Chief Flying Instructor and Chief Engineer at WAASPS, and lead Pilot with Medicine on the Move, Humanitarian Aviation Logistics (www.waasps.com www.medicineonthemove.org e-mail capt.yaw@gmail.com )
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