Qat got my toungue

If anyone had told me In 1986, when Live Aid was in full swing and I was doing a sponsored maggot race to propell Bob Geldof to knighthood, that twenty years later I'd be sitting in central Ethiopia complaining that the white wine was too sweet, I'd have thrown my Raleigh Bianca at your head.

But its funny how times change. The maggot racing, btw, was not a success. They kept sticking to the sellotape I'd used to make the race track, the smell of them made me want to puke, and I dropped a box of them on the floor causing grade 3 to be plagued by bluebottles for the next 4 months.

Yet another example of my creativity far exceeding my ability. Anyway I digress.

So Yemen was fantastic, mad, full of men chewing qat and brandishing Kalashnikovs. Barren brown mountains and maze like cities.

Qat is a green leaf, rather similar looking to privet leaves. You stick the soft bits in your mouth and chew slightly. Apparently it makes you high. I ate a bloody bushell of the stuff and failed to get even the mildest buzz. What a bunch of wusses. I presume its because they can't drink. There was no alcohol in yemen except at the sheraton hotel, where one bottle of crap cheap Turkish wine will set you back 90 dollars. A glass cost me 30, and it was foul. We did find a metal hut in the middle of a mountain pass where a man sold us a warm can of heiniken for 5 dollars though.

Qat I can only liken to tabacco. It has no significant benefit. People claim that it calms them down. They also claim that it helps them concentrate (the exact opposites - sound like smokers?). The reason they seem to want it is to relieve the discomfort felt by not having it. It also gives you some pretty nasty mouth cancers (although that is mainly attributed to the modern use of pesticides). Qat has been around for some 3000 years.

Yemen used to be a land rich in fruit, now all the land is used to grow Qat. Qat hibernates when conditions are not favourable and it takes just a drop of water and three days to get a harvestable crop.

Yemen is also one of the poorest countries in the world with a population of 20 million. It has the highest deathrate during childbirth. Its no wonder that people are dependent on this plant for a living, and to make life a little more bearable.

The Yemenese are really friendly. I spent many a fine afternoon drinking caj and chewing the qat with them. But honestly I got more effect off the caj. They tell me the qat in Ethiopia is much stronger. I will report back.

Anyway the internet connection here is too ropey to post pictures right now but I will when I can. I've been in Addis Ababa for one evening already. Tomorrow we are heading south to Arba Minch where I hope to see hippos and elephants and Lord knows what else.The beer here is good. The food is fekking fantastic and really spicey.

The wine, however, sucks. Its sweet, cheap and nasty and you can see the granules of sugar sticking to the side of the bottle. Even I can't drink it, and I can drink Czech wine.

I haven't had a fag since I got here. Pity my poor travelling companions who have had to bear the brunt of a wineless, smoke free maie. Another 3 weeks in Ethiopia, land of crap wine, and then to Kuwait, land of NO wine. Can't wait for that. No seriously we will go and camp in the desert and pavel has some home made stuff.

I probably won't be able to speak to any of you when I get back to Prague, I will have been arrested and escorted off the plane for being drunk and disorderly.

Creeping countries

You wouldn't think that Africa would be able to creep up on you... what with being so fucking huge and all. But creep it has. One minute I just had an email in my hand indicating that something might happen this year, the next I find I only have one working day to arrange travel insurance and buy a mosquito net.

Finally today, I believe, I shrugged off the shackles of Ogilvy. I hope I never have to set foot in the damn place again. They have kept me pretty busy this last week, working on some project which will never probably be realised. Just when it was almost finished, and the guys in suits were quite pleased with it, along came a new creative director and wanted to rip it to pieces and for me to write the whole thing over again. I smiled sweetly, gave him my usb stick, said 'enjoy, I'm outta here'. I have far more important things to concern myself with.

Take the serendipitous occurrence this weekend. After being harangued into going out because 'you haven't been out in Prague in ages Maie, lets have a large one' I found myself pretty much abandoned on a boat at 1am as everyone wimped out and slunk home to be with their respective partners. Luckily I am unfazed by such things and I merrily went about doing my impression of an epileptic camel on the dance floor. It was there I met the most extraordinary Czech/Slovak chap who, after we talked for nearly 6 hours solid, invited me to dinner. It's not often that something like that happens.

So tomorrow there is some running around to do. Then I have to start the task of packing. Tough because at least half of my bag will be filled with 'make your own beer powder' and czech hockey shirts that dear Pavel in dry old Kuwait has demanded.


Had a load of vaccinations today, feel a bit sick, but never mind, will wrap myself in a blanket and watch DVD's in readiness for the hectic day tomorrow. A friend from Budapest is supposed to be staying at my house for two days as of tonight... and I haven't heard hide nor hair of him today. hmmm.

Anyway, probably won't have much internet access in Ethiopia but will try and post when I can.

TTFN

Brittle Britain rant

At about 3pm this afternoon I officially turned into an old woman. Either that or I reverted back to being a proper 'Yorkshire lass'.
I'm not sure there are many differentials between the two. They both involve a large amount of moaning.

The swathes of columns in every English newspaper about the inches in height of snow, are as almost as depressing as the columns dedicated to the absence of inches of C list celebrities' skirts. It's bloody snow. It happens. They're starlets, they happen - and then they go to rehab - bloody lightweights.

I remember as a child, one bleak and bitter winter, in Denholme, Bradford, where all the men of the village had to come and dig tunnels between the houses so that we could eat and get to the road and stuff because the snow was so deep. I remember the snow was higher than my head (okay I was only 4 feet tall). I remember ice on the inside of my bedroom window and being told that was okay because 'Jack Frost' had come to decorate. I remember being scooped up every morning and run into the living room wrapped in blankets because it contained the only heating source in the house (a 3 ring gas fire).

I remember in Leeds one year a large snowfall was so unexpected and fierce that people froze to death in their cars because they couldn't get out of them in time once the blizzard started.

One time my sister and I, had to make our way across a field (which contained two football and two rugby pitches) in sleet so blinding we couldn't see. By the time we made it to the other side (dressed in skirts knee high socks and thin jackets) we realised we'd been blown in the wrong direction and had to stagger blind for another hour until we found the row of trees that marked the school lane. My parents would NEVER let us have a day off school unless it had been declared an emergency on the local radio which usually only happened after we set off, so we'd take an hour and a half to get to a closed school.

In Prague I have experienced 5 month winters where temperatures regularly dropped to -25.

Yeah, when I were a lass..... that's when I realised I'd become old or Yorkshire.

But all this is even nothing compared to the Canadians I have worked with who regularly endure -45 degrees C - EVERY WINTER. They just shrug it off and buy ugly weatherproof jackets. Which is why most of them are insane.

I guess there's an element of jealousy here. One time in Prague it took me 30 minutes to walk 10 metres on my way to work because the hill was so frozen I couldn't get any traction. The next day I went to work with a bag of salt and sprinkled it in front of me so that I could get to the tram stop. In Prague we can't use excuses like snow or ice. It doesn't wash. I wish we could. What happened to innovation?


But, my point is, when did the British become such wusses? It's almost like those people in the Pixar cartoon WallE. Unable to fend for themselves or cope in unexpected situations. Tip them out of their armchairs and they are unable to walk. Slightly adverse weather conditions and it runs the first 7 pages of every national newspaper for days. It disgusts me. Only Hurricanes and Tsunamis usually warrant this much press. Genocide in Rwanda doesn't warrant this much press. This was 2 inches of snow. I thought we once conquered empires? Burned witches? Invented concentration camps? Sent people to Cuba without proper trials?

Well if the terrorists or witches really want to win, lets hope they have never seen a Kate Bush video, because if they ever invent a weather machine we're all fucked.

Goodnight.

The 24 hour round trip

Ker clack ker clack ker clack, knock knock 'excuse me ladies do you have a valid ticket for this journey', 'no but give us a minute to look though our underwear and we'll see what we can find to give you, we'll pay somehow' ching chicka ching chicka ching, ker clack....

Sounds like the soundtrack to the opening of a dodgy movie. Actually it's the sounds that rudely awakened me at 4am on the overnight train from Prague to Budapest on Friday night, when two seemingly quiet Australian girls found out that their student rail ticket didn't cover all parts of Europe. Despite the moustache, the guard expected nothing improper and instead settled for a handful of Zloty, Euro's and two pence pieces. Even though they made up less than a third of the expected fare. He must have been Hungarian. A Czech guard would never have let them get away with it and would have dumped them at the Slovakian border.

As previously mentioned in another blog, I had decided to 'pop' over to Hungary to go to a shindig, and enjoy my new found status as an international party chick and all round lady of leeeiiiiiisure.

I like Hungary. The men are sort of polite when they are not staring down your top. And actually that's far more polite than in CZ when they don't stare at you at all, despite your best efforts with an industrial sized vat of concealer and assorted expensive war paint. Wonderbras are now a luxury item in this economic climate you know?

Ahhh yes, i'm back on the prowl again after my long distance international relationship went down like a balloon dog at a 5 year olds birthday party. Well, long distance is just not sustainable when you didn't really know each other for that long in the first place. But it was nice to know he was there. A bit like a bottle of Asprin. Barely ever take them yourself, but people are always asking you if you have one - especially when you don't. My tip is to ask an American. Be it over the counter pills, or men, they usually have a spare one knocking around somewhere.

Anyway, despite my new found status, I was very well behaved. Except for all those people I think I may have insulted. But I did also meet a lot of interesting folk. After the party (thanks Martin it was great) I was walked home by an exceptionally kind and tolerant man. I was very possesive of the piece of paper which had my friends address on it and was reluctant to give it to anyone. Even for a second. Poor guy. Someone please thank him for me and tell him I'm sorry.

I snoozed a few hours and then met a crowd for Brunch, where I laughed a lot. I almost considered staying longer but I figured a near state of exhaustion was probably the very best time to get a train back to Prague. Who knows who I would have to share a compartment with. Luckily for me I had a compartment all to myself. I spent a lot of time smoke proofing the room. I had a wet facial wipe covering the vent to the corridor, and a large scarf tied around the smoke alarm. But its a little hard to enjoy a cigarette when you feel like you are smoking at your mums house. It's a kind of guilty kind of school kid feeling but without the thrill. I didn't finish one.


As soon as I came back at 6.30am I showered and readied myself for a second round of interviews for a new job which I had already previously been told that I had. One interviewer was English. He seemed pretty cool. But that is no indication of anything. Why they would say I had it and then interview me again....? Is no advertising agency to be trusted? (that was rhetorical by the way).

Anyway, Just in case I think I'd better start looking for alternative options and getting a bloody good choreographer and make up artist for my first stint as a pole dancer. And when I mean pole I mean Warsaw. I think pre vodka infused men with a penchant for women who eat goulash may be the only way forward.

Dagnammit!