Everyone at the café was listening to Tarim´s story, whether they understood English or not. Tarim is only 17 years of age, but wise like a man double his age. He was supposed to be my partner on this second phase, but basically due to demanding final studies and some worries about the possible obstacles along the road for the Expedition, he pulled out a month back. He continued his tale:

“My friend pointed at his friend in pain and explained how important it was the he made it as fast as possible to a doctor in Sanaa. The men completely turned from aggressive to extremely helpful. First of all, they blocked the road. Secondly, they stopped the first car passing with the help of aiming their Kalashnikovs at it, than persuaded the driver to bring the guy with the pain immediately to Sanaa, which he agreed to do. They sat off immediately. Once they were gone, the men helped my friend to fix his car. They worked on it throughout the night. Next day, he left them with a full stomach.”

We all laughed with joy. In my book that story showed that Yemen was on the right track again and that, as usual, things were not as bad as everyone, including most Yemeni friends, experts and a sensationalist media, was making it out. That story lifted my spirits! I needed it, because all the others had warned me as below: 

”Impossible! You will either be killed or kidnapped.”

Or:

“The idea is really good. This is what Yemen needs. This is what the Arab world needs. But I think it is impossible at this time.” 

Well, as you understand, I am back in Sanaa. I am staying with friends in one of these fairy tales tower homes in Old Sanaa and every time you step out of its ancient doors, one gets a feeling of being part of a saga. My favourite time is stepping out at the time of the late afternoon prayer, when old women covered in their black abayyas sit in the shadow and rest against the cold stone walls, whilst the beautiful melodious voice of the muezzin calls his believers  to face Mecca. The old ladies always stare deeply at me and greet me with:

“Assalam aleikum.” 

They probably wonder who I am. My host Tanya has said I am her brother, even though she is a head taller than me, but she can´t tell them I am a cousin of her´s, since we kind of look very different. Because here of course, you can marry a cousin and many do. And Tanya is already married by word to her charismatic Spaniard, Salvador. Oh, what a neighbourhood gossip drama that would be! A woman with two husbands!

Hold on! I just got this message from an American friend:

“Americans working at the Embassy cannot go to either Hadda or the Old City right now.”

Amazing I think, well, to a certain degree (I guess the American drones are not helping this issue) because compared to the last time I was here; it feels almost like I am in another place! Back than in October, November and December last year 2011, the tension was enormous in the city. Everyone felt it. Mortars hit the walls on and off, hunger pains where very visible, there were check posts everywhere belonging either to government troops under the former president Abdullah Ali Saleh, the renegade general Ali Mohsen or the Al Ahmar Tribal Federation. At times I was really scared! Those terrible feelings are all gone now.

At this moment, everything is much more relaxed. Once again Yemenis smile, joke and laugh, traffic is much more reasonable and life in the Old City is like I remember it back in 2008. It is slow, relaxed, not so many people shouting and screaming, pushing and demanding and it is relatively quiet. But youngsters still drive their motor bikes like they’re competing, Bab Al Yemen is still extremely busy and the price of a kuddam (wholesome bread of Ottoman origin) is the same. 15 riyals a piece. And the local media is the same. All misery and no hope at all!

Let me tell you readers in short what has happened since I last was here, on the political stage, just to give you an idea. Abdullah Ali Saleh ended his over 33 year long rule when I was here in November 2011, and in February 2012 there was an election, where the only candidate, Abdrabuh Mansoor Hadi, amazingly enough won. The GCC (Cooperation Council for Arab States) power brokered idea is that he will lead a transitional government for two years, get everyone from all opinions and political directions to pull together to discuss the future, and this aim will be followed by multiparty elections. Implementing this hasn´t been all easy, as you well understand, and in the meantime, outside Sanaa, life appears to have hardened dramatically. We are talking emerging sectarian and extreme political divisions, which has led to grave economic and most of all, major security problems. It seems worse than when I was here at the end of last year. In the north, the Zaidi Houthis are now battling the salafis and they have totally rejected the GCC deal. In the south secessionist groups wants to form their own country. But, according to the global media, worst of all is that groups who are either affiliated or is Al Qaeda, have jumped at the power vacuum and gained control over areas in the provinces of Abyan, Shabwa and Al Bayda. Provinces, together with Marib, a province which has always been hard to control, is of course all part of my route. This problem is blocking my intentions to cross this country from the west to the east.

“This is nothing but a war adventure!” said one of my friends before I went to Yemen, “You are putting the future if your family in danger!”

Another one attacked me for being blind and naïve, not knowing anything about culture, hiding the worst aspects of human kind and that I am nothing but an adventurous tourist. This is two extremely alarmist opinions, of course. The last one, an editorial at ExWeb, made me realize more than ever the need of a trip like this, because this is what most Western notions and articles coming out of this world looks like. They’re full of sensationalist contempt, bitterness, ignorance and they just add on the Western fears of the Arab World. They don´t help anyone. Least of all the Arab women. One of them, a famous Yemeni feminist, said after reading the editorial:

“Articles and opinions like these are so damaging to the feminist movement we have here in Yemen. It is not big, but growing by the day and articles like these, almost makes it impossible for us to get our voices heard. Why not instead try to highlight what we have done, achieved and what we are doing, instead of painting an image that we are nothing but victims. Of course there are aspects of our culture I don´t like, but there are many I agree with. This is really an unjust picture of our lives in Yemen.”

There’s no doubt there’s many obstacles in realizing a venture like the one I have set up. And the last month back in Sweden waiting to return to Yemen was very difficult. There was absolutely no good news, no hope at all, with almost 99% of the people I was communicating with telling me, stay at home. And than I am talking about people living in Yemen, who all had supported me in the past. This time, most of them said, it is too dangerous, it is impossible and if we help you, and things go wrong, we will get the blame from the government. I can fully understand this point of view. But I also now, which is also fully understandable, that all my Yemeni friends are worn out by these hard times and they are really more negative than ever. By default, Yemenis are not the most positively thinking humans on earth. And, I have learned, they are scared of taking any responsibility, if the top person doesn´t say yes.

Therefore I have known all the time that I have to make my way to Yemen, meet all of them and persuade them to see all the possibilities with a trip like this. In my mind, even though there are plenty of obstacles, if handled the right way, it will be a success. Because, the reality is, and no matter what happens, I will naively always believe this:

The Yemenis are amongst the most welcoming, generous and kind human beings on earth. And I see Yemen as the cradle of Arabia and I believe the developments in Yemen will in the future serve as a positive role model for the rest of the Arab World. Yemen is also, in my mind, the Arab country where most people in general have a very healthy attitude towards religion and life, far from any extreme notions. And that is why I am here. Because, the problem we are facing today is that the relations between the West and the Islamic World are worsening, the wall of misunderstanding is just getting higher each day, and this is really dangerous.

So, right now, I am trying to meet all the right people who might be able to help me. And all of them is in Sanaa right now, which is a sign that they have been called by the president to come, something big is going on, maybe a military attack against Al Qaeda in the south, which has been in the air since my arrival. But I would get very little done, if I didn´t have this amazing friend, Tanya Holm and her feminist network to help me!

So, the big waiting game is on again, this time in Sanaa!

Will Explorers be re-defined as Terrorists?

By

CuChullaine O´Reilly

 I have just completed chapter 52, “Guns & Trouble,” in the “Encyclopaedia of Equestrian Exploration.” The project is currently up to 1000 plus pages, and includes more than 500 images to date.

The majority of people would expect a book about horse travel to focus on spurs and saddles. That has certainly been the narrow focus of the few books written about this topic in the past. In stark contrast, the Encyclopaedia is designed for 21st century equestrian explorers. In addition to containing information on how to choose horses, etc., it is the first book of its kind to deal with a host of modern problems which did not plague our equestrian forefathers.

For example, most nations only issue transit papers for horses that are destined to cross their country via a truck and trailer. These papers, usually valid for ten days, provide adequate time for a driver to deliver the horse to a competitive event. Yet such short-term transit papers do not provide time for a Long Rider to journey across an entire country.

The need for personal security has also changed. Long Riders are no longer being murdered by rampaging Indians. Today they have to be careful that their blogs do not provide cyber stalkers with information that will allow them to locate, then attack and/or sexually assault, a lone equestrian traveller.

Nor are Long Riders only interested in pack saddles. Like other members of the international exploration community, they too rely on a variety of up to date electronic equipment. This too has brought unforeseen complications.

Because the Guild has Members in 44 countries, we must constantly remind foreigners that Hollywood’s version of the American “Wild West” is not valid. In fact, the Encyclopaedia explains that in a pending court case, the U.S. government has argued its authority to protect the country’s border extends to looking at information stored in electronic devices such as a laptop. Even though the computer owner may not be suspected of a crime, when crossing into the United States, officials regard a laptop the same as a suitcase and can search it without obtaining a warrant. See this report!

Nor is this the only indication of a dramatic change in the American political climate.

In the Encyclopaedia I warn foreign Long Riders of draconian new laws which have taken effect in America. For example, the United States Supreme Court has ruled that anyone can be strip-searched upon arrest for any offence, however minor, at any time. History demonstrates that the use of forced nudity by a state is powerfully effective in controlling and subduing populations. This legislation joins the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) which lets anyone in America be arrested forever at any time and HR 347, the “trespass bill”, which gives you a 10-year sentence for protesting anywhere near someone with secret service protection. See here!

While these topics will be of long-term interest to equestrian travellers, my research has revealed an interesting/alarming idea which I believe may be of immediate concern to the international exploration community.

In an article in the English press I came across this quote.

“…..the US Anti-Terror Law judges the provision of medical aid to ‘terrorists’, or negotiation with ‘terrorists’ to gain access to wounded, starving or destitute civilians, to constitute a major criminal offence. This has actively removed any identifiable ‘neutral’ status for doctors, nurses or allied health professionals in battlefield, conflict or famines zone. You are either for the ‘terrorists’ or against them.”

I believe there is a danger to exploration hidden within that paragraph.

The American government has announced that it can arbitrarily define as a “terrorist” any doctor or nurse who aids a wounded human. In such cases a victim’s politics overrules his physical suffering.

Thus, for the first time in history, it appears that the neutrality which all civilized nations have traditionally granted to the medical profession has been violated by the Americans.

If doctors can now be classified as “terrorists” by the “land of the free” are explorers next?

Consider the dramatic shift this might hold for exploration.

In the 19th and 20th centuries explorers were often suspected of spying for foreign powers. The African continent was suffering severe political upheaval in 1970, when Scottish Long Rider Gordon Naysmith set off to ride across 16 countries from South Africa to Austria. When Tanzanian soldiers mistook the equestrian explorer for an Israeli spy, Gordon was jailed, and his ribs broken, before he could establish his innocence and continue his 20,000 kilometre journey. Photo courtesy Gordon Naysmith

In the past native people had good reason to be wary of strangers posing as explorers who passed through their country uninvited. Such missions, though carefully cloaked under a disguise of geography, were often closely connected with an imperial power’s intelligence service.

For example, in 1906 Baron Carl Gustaf Mannerheim set off on a 14,000 kilometre-long, two-year ride for the Czar. The sharp-eyed cavalry officer spoke Polish, Portuguese, Mandarin Chinese, Swedish, Finnish, Russian, French, German and English. The mounted espionage mission took him fromAndizhan in Russian Turkistan toPeking,China. During the ride Mannerheim gathered information on various tribes, befriended the Dalai Lama, surveyed obscure mountain passes, and scoutedChina’s Great Wall, before heading back to share his findings with the Russian government.

In 1906 Baron Carl Gustaf Mannerheim set off on a 14,000 kilometre-long, two-year espionage expedition for the Russian Czar. But times have changed since natives suspected explorers of being a spy. By stripping an explorer of his neutrality and punishing his impartial interaction with the local populace, the Americans have set the stage wherein we may soon see travellers accused of being involved with, or sympathetic to, “terrorists.”

But the hiking boot is now on the other foot.

Instead of the natives suspecting the explorer of being a spy, by stripping an explorer of his neutrality and punishing his impartial interaction with the local populace, the Americans have set the stage wherein we may soon see travellers accused of being involved with, or sympathetic to, “terrorists.”

Is such an idea far fetched? 

French Long Rider Louis Meunier recently made an extensive journey through Afghanistan. Because Louis is a fluent Farci speaker, he interacted with countless Afghans along the way, including at least one respected local mullah. That incident involved the mullah invoking a blessing on the Long Rider’s horses.

During Louis Meunier’s journey across Afghanistan a spell was cast on his horse at the village of Barakhana. Villagers believed that the mysterious knots tied in the stallion’s mane at night were placed there by a naked female jinn. To offset this equine witchcraft, Mullah Khodadad recited a prayer over the afflicted animal. Could the mullah’s political beliefs have compromised the Long Rider’s credibility in the eyes of a hostile American government?

But what if the interchange about Afghanistan’s equestrian culture had turned suddenly political? Could Louis’ participation in a local conversation with the mullah have rendered that traveller a suspect if the Taliban perpetrated acts of political subversion in the area?

What are the implications for explorers who wish to visit countries rocked by political instability, ie Afghanistan, Burma, Eritrea, Kashmir, Mali, Somalia, Syria, Tibet, Yemen, just to name a few?

Arita Baajiens is the Dutch camel traveller who explored the deserts of Egypt and Libya. When rebellion broke out across the Arab world in 2011, the desert traveller found herself swept up by the political storm. “Those kids really pulled it off,” Arita reported to ExWeb from Cairo’s Tahir Square.

Washington maintained a guarded neutrality when dissident citizens toppled Egyptian tyrant Hosni Mubarik. Likewise they ignored Arita’s actions inCairo because it suited their political purposes.

What if Arita interviewed pro-Iranian Shia protestors who are currently trying to topple the pro-American Sunni government in Bahrain?

Could a chance conversation between the Dutch explorer and a politically active student result in statements being voiced which, being in opposition to official American foreign policy, carry an automatic condemnation for the traveller?

The first modern hostage crisis occurred in 1901 when an American Long Rider Ellen Stone was kidnapped by Bulgarian revolutionary Yane Sandanski. He bragged to the media that he had “stolen” the woman so as to set his country free from the Ottoman empire. Despite being held captive in the mountains for six months, it was widely believed that Stone became sympathetic to the “terrorists.” When the American government refused to intervene, the $110,000 ransom was paid after an appeal was made to the public.

In addition to being a leader of the movement to restore exploration’s previous prominence within the Royal Geographical Society, British explorer Alistair Carr has travelled by camel in theSahara. On one occasion political rebels served as his guides.

Last month pro-Islamic Tuareg rebels seized control of the historic caravan city of Timbuktu. IsWashington prepared to dictate terms to explorers like Alistair who venture there? Will the American government decide that interactions between travellers and native guides counts as evidence of “support for terrorists”?

Could explorers become victims of political entrapment? News stories are revealing how well-paid informants are employed by the American CIA, British MI5 and the Saudi intelligence service, the Mabahith. Is there cause for concern that explorers might be lured into situations that compromise their traditional neutrality?

Who would know, you might ask?

The US Army is preparing to deploy in Afghanistan its latest helicopter-style drone, the A160 Hummingbird, equipped with 1.8 gigapixel colour cameras. Able to hover, unlike current drones, it will have unprecedented capability to monitor activity on the ground. It can track people and vehicles from above 20,000ft, and with a 65sq-mile field of view, it will have 65 steerable “windows” able to follow separate targets.

A government capable of spying on a unsuspecting traveller’s conversations can then use any images of interaction with natives as evidence of support for terrorism.

Nor does this problem reside solely with the individual traveller, as organisations which endorse explorers may also be caught up in this international net of intrigue.

Swedish explorer and Long Rider Mikael Strandberg has just arrived in Yemen, where he is preparing to set off on a perilous camel expedition across that war-torn country. Mikael is carrying flags from the international Long Riders’ Guild and theNew York based Explorers’ Club.

Given the highly volatile political climate in Yemen, what are the chances of Mikael journeying across that nation and not encountering a conversation which includes political themes and voices of dissidence?

In the past, the granting of an expedition flag was based upon the explorer’s courage and the expedition’s significance. Will political overtones influence future decisions?

If this explorer is, by default, “caught” talking to people who are politically sympathetic to Al Qaida, are the two exploration organizations which support Mikael’s journey also culpable of “supporting terrorism”?

These are troubling times and disturbing scenarios.

Members of the medical profession, as well as prominent advocates of civil liberties in theUnited States, are deeply concerned at the tremendous erosion of civil rights and basic liberties which political events have inspired.

In the past all civilized nations recognized, and respected, a doctor’s neutrality. He was, it was previously believed, acting for the good of humanity, before supporting any political cause.

That sense of international trust was based upon the Hippocratic Oath, which bound the medical professional to “remain free of all intentional injustice and mischief” regardless of where he might find the wounded or sick.

Likewise, the political neutrality of the explorer is also taken on trust.

Sadly, given the aggressive nature of new American legislation, we may be witnessing the demise of the traditional respect accorded to citizen-explorers.

Respectfully yours,

CuChullaine O’Reilly

In the 1980s Afghan freedom fighters, known as mujahadeen, were involved in a bitter conflict with the Soviet Union. CuChullaine O'Reilly was praised by the American government for his efforts to train these Afghans to become journalists. At that time, CuChullaine also explored northern Pakistan on horseback. How times change. Were he to repeat that journey today, any encounters with the sons of his former Afghan pupils might prompt the American government to accuse him of involvement with terrorists.

CuChullaine O’Reilly is the Founder of the Long Riders’ Guild, the world’s international association of equestrian explorers and a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and the Explorers’ Club. Author of “Khyber Knights,” he is currently completing the “Encyclopaedia of Equestrian Exploration.”

Please vist The Long Riders Guild and The World Ride

The land of the kind and the messy

By

Judith Spiegel

It takes the guy behind the counter half a minute of brain searching, then he remembers: ‘Thank you for visiting the post office’. His smile is wide and genuine. He makes me laugh.Yemenalways makes me laugh, for its sweetness and absurdness.

I am not an explorer, I am just a journalist. I have been here since September 2009 and have laughed a lot. Even during the tough year of 2011 I did. Sometimes out of despair, sometimes because despite the shit they were in, Yemenis could still make jokes. And most of the times because guys like the post officer simply put that smile on your face.

I have met wonderful people. Like the boys inYemen’s national football team under 17, who still cannot get really used to this strange woman showing up during their training. Like the bunch of employees of the Hayel Saeed Anam group on their yearly outings in Khawkha. They gave me soap and beans, straight from the factory.

Like rebel leader Shalal Ali Shaia Hadi who was hidden in the mountains of Al Dali’. To get to him, I had to travel strange roads and wear the niqab. He offered me 15 bottles of Dilsi-coke. Like Vadim from the Russian Club, who couldn’t stop talking about my swimming skills, combined with my smoking and vodka-consuming ones. He thought I would be good at using guns too and put one in front of me.

 There are assholes too. Like the guy who still owes me quite some money for some permits he never managed to arrange. For months he keeps on telling me that a) he will call me back and b) that the money will come this week. Both never happen. He belongs to an army of permit-crooks.

Or like the guy at immigration. One day I decided to kick out the permit-crook and go to immigration myself. Bad idea. Everybody was called Al Kibsi there, and non of them were nice. I made a joke in the general’s room, moments later I was surrounded by soldiers. The general ordered them to kick me out.

But there was also the officer during the uprising. He ordered me to go away, I was entering an area were heavy shooting took place. I lingered around a bit, thinking of another way to get in, then walked off. The officer yelled at me and ran after me. Now what? ‘Wait, wait, I want to give you this,’ he said. ‘This’ was a guirlande of jasmine.

I ruined my eyes inYemen, that’s true. A year reading books by candlelight and typing articles at the white light of the laptop only, is no good. I can no longer read how many calories a spoonful of chunky peanut butter contains. Which is not very important really, but I needed a bridge to peanut butter.

I love a sandwich ‘fool sudani’ from Shaibani V.I.P. Superdeluxe. I love it how they shout to the guy responsible for the sandwiches: ‘wahed fool sudani lisafari!!!’ There is nothing superdeluxe about the small cafetaria, but it is the ultra warm reception that makes me go back to this ultra super deluxe very important persons place.

You may have had it by now, with my O how I loveYemenstory. Trust me, I hate it too sometimes. I hate the talk talk talk, not do do do, the Yemenis are so good at. I hate qat, period. I hate it when we take a bus to Taiz at 1, it leaves at 2.30 and stops at 2.40 for lunch, because the passengers refuse to change their habits even for a day.

I hate the smell of fried chicken livers early in the morning at the bus station at Bab al Yemen, mixed with the smell of old piss. I actually hate that smell in the afternoon too. I can smell it while typing. I also kind of dislike the dead cats and dogs in my street. I especially dislike the first stage, the one of the maggots. Later, when they are all dried out and flattened by the cars it is ok.

I love, I hate, I laugh, but I do not really know. I do not really know whereYemenis heading to, I do not really know how believing in djinns really works, I do not really know when girls can finally marry the guy they love. I do know thatYemenwill never be theSwitzerlandof the Arabian Pensinula and I am happy about that.

Shouldn’t I say something about Al Qaeda? Don’t think so. Shouldn’t I say something about the Houthis in the north? Nope. Or the Southern Movement in the south? La. And what aboutYemen’s near dead economy. Nah, boring, just read the papers.

Judith Spiegel is a Dutch journalist working for NRC Handelsblad, De Standaard, Elsevier, One World, Radio 1, VRT, Ikon, VPRO. Judith holds a PhD in law and practiced as a lawyer for years. One day, she decided to follow her dream: being a journalist in theMiddle East. After a post-doctorate in journalism at theuniversityofRotterdam, she left forYemenin 2009. 

Read more at www.judithspiegel.com

A major part of every Expedition which is often overlooked, is the preparations. Which includes finding sponsors, figuring out a route, dealing with the daily life of normality, by which I mean, a family life which includes cooking, picking up your child at nursery school, trying to be a good husband, lover and father and get all details right as regards to what is waiting on the Expedition to be. It isn´t easy, but it makes a difference. During this last month before I finally got on a plane to San’a to initiate Expedition Yemen By Camel part 2, I have written down my actions, worries and thoughts every 3 days.

What a roller coaster journey it has been!

From the last blog to the 1st as below:

• Equipment list and final thoughts (6/5/2012)
• Masha´Allah! (3/5/2012)
• No Yemen Visa Yet (1/5/2012)
• The Yemeni Visa… (28/4/2012)
• Don´t listen to those negative bastards! (2nd most read!) (25/4/2012)
• The Big Waiting Game (24/4/2012)
• Yemen visa? Not yet! (22/4/2012)
• Near catastrophy and an angel turns up (19/4/2012)
• Worries and angst (15/4/2012)
• Documentary Film Making in Yemen (Most readers!) (13/4/2012)
• New unrest in Yemen racks the nerves (10/4/2012)
• Regarding sponsorship (8/4/2012)
• One month to go and a possible partner  (3/4/2012)
• Very inspired after meeting camel expert (30/3/2012)
• Testing possible Expedition food and finding out that Sardana is coming! (28/3/2012)
• Expedition Yemen By Camel have been awarded Flag 179 (26/3/2012)
• Flag honor bestowed upon Expedition Yemen (25/3/2012)
• Yemen; Editing the Documentary and a Mid Day thought (21/3/2012)
• Expedition Yemen By Camel; Preparing to return (14/3/2012)

 The Captain’s Log : “The Chief’s Daughter”

By

Captain Joel S. Fogel

“Important events occur in everyone’s life that are the focus of new
directions. These turning points are emotional journeys….they signal
that one way of living is over and a new way is emerging; they are
rites of passage in life.”

Part I — ” The Chief’s Daughter “

It was the Omo River valley in Ethiopia, Africa’s “Hidden Emerald”,
that nearly cost me my life and my sanity.

Do you remember the 1973 fuel shortage, when people stood at the gas
pumps, waiting in anger to fill their tanks ? I suppose it was one of
the first wake-up calls we Americans had regarding our dependance on
foreign oil.

Someone (or a group of someones) had gotten together in Africa and
decided to cut back on the production of that “black gold”. It was the
Organization of African States that had met in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in
the Fall of that year.

I was there, preparing for an expedition that would change my life
forever. As I ran around looking for supplies and assembling my crew, I
heard rumors of an impending taxi strike in the capital city of Addis.
It always amazes me how things can trigger other things that happen and
you sometimes get caught in the middle. The mystics call it “synergy”
or coincidence. I call it luck.

By the time the strike had struck, I had already flown nearly two
thousand miles south into the jungles of Ethiopia along the banks of
the Omo River to begin an exploration by raft for the purpose of
filming the tribesmen who lived in that region.

I was accompanied by an Ethiopian wildlife expert, Otto Tabebu, and an
German anthropologist, Dieter Hanke. The Smithsonian Institute had
indicated interest in an ethnographic film recording the tribal life in
that area and the Walter Reade Army hospital had taken a pint of my
blood for comparison, following my return.

Joel Fogel, MN 72 as "Nogolull", initiated into the Stone Age Mursi tribe during the course of his 1973 Omo River Tribal Survey Expedition. His tribal name meant, "the man who came by water".

In a sense, I was a human guinea pig. The doctors wanted to sample my
blood again, after I collected specimens of insects for an
entomological survey of disease carrying mosquitoes. River blindness,
malaria, leprosy, and elephantiasis were insect-bourne diseases
reported in the area.

If I contracted something, it would show up in my blood upon analysis
and they would know how to treat it (hopefully).

By the time we had arrived in Mui, the game preserve which bordered the
crocodile-infested, wide, muddy waters known as the  Omo River, the
events which would cause Ethiopia’s “Little Giant”, Emperor Halle
Selassie, to be placed under house arrest (after he instigated the oil
embargo which would ironically precipitate his downfall) it was
something we only heard about as we sat around the fire the night
before our historic journey.

We were about to explore a portion of the Omo River Valley for the
first time. It was the upper part of the Great Rift Gorge where famed
anthropologist, Dr. Louis Leakey, had discovered the one
million-year-old “Australopithicus”, the earliest remains of human
kind, several years before our expedition.

The morning of our journey, I woke up to the deep, throaty far-off roar
of a lion. The dry dessert and thorny thickets surrounded us as we
assembled our rowing platform which would sit inside of our 25-foot
rubber raft.

White crates and boxes of food and equipment were scattered near where
the bush plane had dropped us at a make-shift air strip near the river.
The sandy river banks rose thirty feet above the swirling waters of
this ancient waterway, giving it the appearance of a buzz saw cutting
through the desert.

At 29 years old, I was the old man of the group. Tabebu was in his
mid-twenties and Dieter was only 21 years old.

“We must be careful, ” the quiet-spoken Tabebu nearly whispered as we
put the finishing touches on the raft and loaded the gear. “Some of the
crocodiles are as large as the boat and they can turn it over”.

As if to punctuate his comment, a loud slap on the water across the
river, indicated that a huge reptile had just belly-flopped off the
river bank, sliding into the fast-flowing river below.

Mixed emotions accompanied this voyage: there was the anticipation of
the adventure. Fear was a part of the atmosphere as well since we had
heard about warring tribesmen further downstream, and then there was
all of the drama which had led up to our trip on the Omo River.

Originally, I had been part of another expedition led by famed
explorer, Richard Bangs of SOBEK (“The River Gods” and “Riding the
Dragon’s Back” details our explorations of the Omo  and the Yangtze
Rivers). We were a group of nearly 20 men and women who had planned to
explore the Omo together.

But tragedy struck: on a preliminary exploration of the Baro River
which flows into the Nile, his rafts were overturned on a waterfall and
one of my friends, Angus McLeod, was drown and lost in the river. I had
broken from the group and set up my own expedition on the Omo.

Now, as we drifted downstream, baking under the equatorial sun, the
sorrow was still fresh although the events were months old.

Gramps used to say, “Joel, never judge an Indian until you’re walked a
mile in his moccasins”.

It’s easy to judge. It’s not always easy to accept.

Here we were in the middle of no-man’s land, collecting insects (and
getting bitten), stopping along the banks to visit small
hunter-gatherer villages of 8-10 people, taking photos and shooting 16
mm film. We traded goods for artifacts which we later donated to the
Smithsonian Museum of African Art.

Captain Fogel stands with his dinner for the evening, a small bush buck which he brought back from his hunt surrounding the Omo River camp. Fogel was left with the Mursi tribe following an attack of "vivax" malaria. After several weeks, his food was finished.

There were four tribal groups: the Karo, the Bume, the Mursi and the
Nidi. All lived naked semi-nomadic lives along the river banks,
traveling inland during the rainy season to tend herds of cattle that
grazed further back, away from the river.

During the dry season, they would return  to the Omo River to fish,
raise millet, hunt wilde beast and gather fruits and plants along the
river. It was an idyllic life except for one thing: the tribesmen
fought each other for the land beside the river to cultivate their
crops.

There were regular raiding parties, as we learned, when the tribesmen
would travel across the river, kill members of the other tribes and
even take some of their women as captives and slaves.

During the course of our expedition, I lived with one of these tribes,
the Mursi, following my contraction of vivax malaria. I had been bitten
by a species of Anophiles mosquito which had not heard about the
propholectic medicine known as “chloroquin phosphate” which was suppose
to protect me.

Now as I lay covered with clothes and a blanket, bathed in my own
sweat, hallucinating between bouts of high fever and chills from the
malaria, the two other expedition members determined that they must
leave me in the care of the Mursi. They would cross the river into the
Sudan, hiking to a Swedish Mission which the tribesmen had told them
was a week’s walk away to the west.

I was in misery for over a week, tossing and turning every 48 hours as

waves of nausea and pain racked my body, causing me to lose weight from
dehydration and lack of food. When I came out of it, I was 10 pounds
lighter, but it was not a diet I would recommend for weight loss.

I remember sitting on the riverbank, pointing to objects which were
familiar as Gaddi, a young tribesman who took pity on me, would
pronouce their name. In  this way, I was able to form a crude phonetic
vocabulary which helped me to communicate.

One day, I looked at Gaddi and nearly gave him a heart attack when I
put some of my words together to form a phrase and spit it all out at
once: “Keen art te ?  Nabasa art te ?” – “Who are you and where are
you going ?”

His large wide grin exposing beautiful white teeth, broke into laughter
as he realized that I could speak his language. I saw a new sign of
respect in his eyes, similar to what I had witnessed living among other
cultures when I learned to communicate in their “tongues” whichthe
tribesmen called language.

It was about this time, several weeks after my recovery, that the chief
of the tribe, Carante Dahoe, invited me to join him in a hunt on the
plains surrounding the village. We were a group of 5 men that morning
as we gathered to face the rising sun. Gun-blued mountains rose in the
distance as we walked through the mist towards them holding our spears
and leather whip shields.

I climbed a bare-limbed Beobob tree and saw a wart hog grazing in the
distance beside some wilde beast. The group fanned out, staying up-wind
and slowly surrounded the wild pig, gradually closing in on him.

We were successful that morning and my spear was the one that stopped
the boar which carried everyone’s spear in it’s back.  As a guest, I
was proud to be able to contribute food to these people since a drought
had begun to affect their crops and starvation was beginning to set in
among the river tribes.

We had fed many people with our supplies during the course of the trip.
But eventually, we had run out. Now, waiting for the return of my
expedition members, I depended on what we could catch for food.

It was a scary time, but also very tranquil and beautiful, watching the
sun setting over the plains as the dust rose from herds of elephants
roaming in the distance. Strange…but I was beginning to feel at home
as though I had once  before lived in this place.

Joel Fogel films aboard his 20 ft. Avon Inflatable raft which carried him and his supplies down 500 miles of the Omo River in southern Ethiopia. The purpose of this expedition was to film tribal groups along the riverbank. His film and artifacts were donated to the Smithsonian Museum of African Art in Washington, DC following his expedition.

My home in New Jersey was beginning to seem a long way from where I was
at the moment. As for that matter, I had no idea where my partners were
either. I found out later about their odyssey across the desert, their
attempts to return for me and the difficulities they encountered in the
Sudan with the officials at the border.

All of that would come later, for the moment, however, I was seated on
a stool by the riverbank as Carante Dahoe and the rest of the tribe
began my initiation into the Mursi tribe through the shaving of my head
and the placing of mud and clay in my hair.

I recall sitting on that stool for nearly six hours, a rite of passage
to test my will and strength as they wove a piece of bone into my scalp
to make the headdress that would officially make me a tribesmen.

When they were done, they painted the clay cap with blood and water,
giving it a red color. And then they named me “Nogolull”, which
translated to mean “the man who came by water”.

I was given a pair of wart hog sandals, a cloth made from the bark of a
tree which was casually worn over the shoulder and a hut that was built
for me by the tribesmen. It was after all of this, several days later,
that the chief presented me with his 14-year old daughter for a bride.

I explained that I was already married with a child and that my wife in
another place was seven months pregnant with another child. This seemed
to please Dahoe and his son, Gaddi. It was proof of my virility in a
tribe where each man had several wives.

I came to understand that this system of polygamy evolved as a result
of tribal warfare where there were many man killed and many women
without husbands. I also learned that their life expectancy was about
25-30 years, a woman had her first child by 14 years old and 50 percent
of the infants died during, or shortly after child birth.

It was a harsh land.

From the onset, I made it very clear to the chief that although I would
accept his daughter, Kafo, as a bride, she would only be allowed to
come to my hut during the day to help prepare the meals. I could not
take on the responsibility of a new family since I was planning some
day to return to my home in another place.

Kafo had been captured by Dahoe in a raid on the Bume tribe many years
before, several miles downstream. She had all of the markings of a Bume
women, including the scars on her shoulders and a large plate in her
lip which was a sign of beauty.

She wore a gazelle skin skirt with pieces of bone in the hem which made
a light clicking sound when she walked from hut to hut, gathering the
fixings for our meals. Apart from that, she was naked. We all were. It
was hot and that was the way we dressed.

I also learned that the mutilation experienced by the men and women of
the tribe was started during the slave trade period, centuries before,
when the tribesmen learned that if they cut and scarred their bodies,
they would be ugly to the slave traders, their value would be decreased
and they would be left alone with their families. Today, they regard it
as a sign of beauty.

That was something else my travels taught me: that beauty was a
relative thing and definitely in the “eyes of the beholder”. The
tribesmen would chortle with laughter, holding their bellies when I
showed them a fashion magazine displaying Caucasian women, fully
clothed and made up with lipstick, eye shadow and nail polish.

All of this was academic as I stood nearly naked on the Ethiopian
plains beside the Omo River one late afternoon. A small, twin engine
plane had flown low along the river, wing dipping as it passed our
village.

Everyone ran out to the river bank and stared at this great white bird
as it circled the plains, looking for a place to land.

When the pilot arrived, walking towards the village with a member of
the Swedish Mission beside him, their mouths seemed to drop open at the
sight which met his eyes: I was standing beside Kafo in her gazelle
skin skirt, my body, covered with rancid butter the tribesmen used to
keep insects from biting.

Fogel stands with tribal wife, Kafo, a young Mursi woman who was presented to him following his initiation into the tribe. Captain Fogel lived with the Mursi for several months until a small Cessna came from Addis Ababa to take him back to civilization.

My skin was dark brown from the intense sun, a guinea fowl headdress
sprung forth from my forehead. I wore wart hog sandals, a bark cloth
over my shoulder and a spear and leather shield were in my left hand as
my right hand gently draped Kafo’s shoulder.

“Fogel ?” the bush pilot stammered. “Is that you….Joel Fogel ?“

He didn’t seem too sure and hearing my name pronounced for the first
time in English for such a long time….it took me several moments to
respond with a nod.

” Your friends are waiting for you in Addis. There’s been a terrible
revolution and the communist junta has replaced the government. Sorry
to take so long. Your friends were detained but everything is O.K. now.”

But anyone who knew me during that period in my life will tell you that
everything was not “O.K.” I returned from that jungle a changed man.

A terrible drought struck the Sahil Desert within a year after my
departure. Water holes dried up and million died, including many of my
adopted family by the Omo.

I wandered through the U.N. and Unicef, trying to gain the attention of
those organizations, pleading for the children I had seen beginning to
die. I lectured throughout the country about the same topic. But the
world had it’s attention turned towards oil and the lack of it.

I needed to wait for more than 12 years until 1986, when some of the

film I had shot was combined with a BBC film report on the drought
which had killed millions in Ethiopia. “Band Aid” was born and aid
began to flow into the country. But then came Somolia, the war lords
and all of the trouble the world community had getting food to the
starving in Africa.

Joel S. Fogel has been head of the Environmental Affairs for the Philadelphia Chapter of The Explorers Club for the past 10 years. He also is President of the Waterwatch International and sits on the advisory council of the Atlantic County Utilities Authority’s Groundwater Advisory Committee. This year, Captain Fogel was nominated by ACUA for the CNN Hero of the Year Award for his clean water projects around the globe. The South Jersey native was also nominated this year for The Lowell Thomas Award for humanitarian work in Ethiopia during an anthropological expedition in 1973. His other awards include two Presidential Commendations for environmental work and a Carnegie Hero Award nomination for the rescue of a young woman in 1986 when her car went into the bay on Christmas Eve. Visit his home page here!

Northern Rainbow Festival in Nyurba, Yakutia

By

Luis Fernando Medina Salazar

Empty streets in the village of Nyurba could give the impression at first sight to be in a ghost town in the wild west. The cold was one reason of such a solitude but actually, what kept the city like staying still in time was a folk fest. Little by little spreaded groups of people appeared from everywhere going towards the same big building. Once inside, the contagious party atmosphere  with music coming from all rooms in the place; flocks of dancers performing their last acts before stepping on the stage; improvised food-court serving the most delicious region specialities and the joy that could be seen in everyone’s faces, could easily be compared with some of the most colorful Latin American carnivals.

For 2 days the remote town of Nyurba, in the Republic of Yakutia in far east Siberia, became the hotspot of the Sakha Culture & Traditions and hosted a Folk Fest organized by the Foundation of the people of Siberia with the same name “Northern Rainbow”. The Foundation’s president Alexandra Borisova explained to me “The Sakha people express best their feelings and thoughts through their folk with songs and dances”.

Well dressed dancers and performers evoque the world’s most elegant royalty of all times. Seductive movements and voices, like those just imagined in fairy tales, took you for a long lasting trip back to the origines of mankind. You could believe for moments, by listening to those melodic voices, that nothing was impossible anymore.

In spite of the outdoors freezing cold weather, that last 9 months with unimaginable tempertures that could drop to a -70 Celsius deep inside Siberia, the heat inside the Cultural Hall was increasing as the kick off for the Festival approached. The colourful outfits together with the joyful dances and music supported by the warm Sakha heart breaks with the stereotype  ”In a Cold region there is cold people”.

The Sakha people keeps a very strong and close relationship with the Nature, which is expressed in their believes as well as in their folk. Dances and songs dedicated to animals and spirits of the Nature are performed one after the other. “What impress me the most are the beauty of their voices and the connexion with nature shown in every one of the performances” said Dimitry Todorov, president of the Bulgarian Folk Association and part of the jury in he Festival in Nyurba.

Sakha folk does not only posses a great variety of  dances and songs but also, a diversity in music instruments which are also very fascinating.  Jew’s-harp (khomus), symbol of the spiritual culture of the Olonkho Land, is used in more than 100 countries. There are 162 known modifications of khomus. With its 5000 years of history, the instrument is the same age as the Pyramids of Egypt. The more fascinating is that it is still being used. The horse whip plays also an important role in the everyday sakha life style, it is used in dances but also in rituals and ceremonies which are performed by “shamans”. The Northern Rainbow’s festival audience had the opportunity to appreciate the use of many other wooden music instruments, most of them are hand-made and have a tide relationship with the sakha identity.

Acrobatic jumps with a cat’s agility kept everyones attention on the stage during the 2 days festival. The popcorn stand was the most visited by the people during the breaks after each performance. The full concert hall gave the best scenario to motivate the dancers with screams and applauses from a friendly audience to encourage them to give their best. Folk groups came from several villages around Nyurba to attend the Festival with the intention to get the first place of the event but also, to make some new friends and to enjoy this opportunity and dress up with their best clothes and show everyone the beauty of the Sakha folk.

The corridors towards the main stage were packed and all you could distinguish were the colours of the rainbow in every participant’s outfit who were waiting for their turn to jump under the reflectors and rip up the dance floor with their best dance steps.

As everything in life, there is a begining and there is also an end in every situation. After 2 days of adrenaline running through each cell of my body, running up and down the stage to capture the best impressions of this unique culture, i felt wrapped into a warmness that i could compare with that felt at home, where your most beloved persons comfort your with their souls and bodies and from where you wish not have to leave and make this moment simply endless.

Luis Fernando Medina Salazar is a Mexican freelance Photographer and Traveler living in Lucerne, Switzerland.

With a deep individual Vision he tries with his project “PASSENGER DIARIES” to describe the World and interpret its people; events and festivals; issues and personalities; reflecting all aspects of life throughout the Planet Earth with imagination and brilliance in a great collection of documentary photography. He gives a SENSE OF THE PLACE as far as it can be caught by the lens.

The main purpose is to inspire people through the images collected in all my years living abroad and having the privilege to travel the world for over 20 years, counting so far 20 countries in different continents, to explore magical and unknown places. Joining my 2 passions in life as a freelance photographer and adventurous traveler I share ideas, thoughts, a shared human quality, a curiosity and respects about what is going on in the World and finally to express it visually. I took my first picture at the age of 15, in a trip to Patagonia, Argentina with my family, where my interest woke up and my passion to capture beautiful and unique moments of life was developed.

Read more at www.passengerdiaries.com

 Yemen; Through The Eyes of a Crazy Frenchman

By

Benjamin Wiacek

Yemen, a word that four years ago did not mean much for me. I might have read it sometimes in history books related to the Middle-East. I’ve been interested in Egypt since the age of 11, dreaming of my professional career as an Egyptologist digging the treasures of the desert. Even though my hopes were based on orientalism and romantic adventures, nevertheless, the journey has made me fully aware of the need for us to discover and try to understand the world, as a way to understand and reveal ourselves.

Realizing with time that my dreams of Egyptology were not necessarily what I truly wanted or was able to achieve, I still left to Egypt (to study law) and immersed myself into a new universe, a mix of cultures, beliefs, religions, characters and ways of life, that truly transformed me during the three years spent there. Described as “crazy” by my family and friends, I was convinced that these “adventures” as they say, could only bring so much positive elements to my life.

And this is when I realized how Egypt would change my life forever. Yemen entered my life while I was in Cairo, through the lovely image of the woman that would become my amazing wife and introducing me to a new world. While Egypt is often seen as a bridge between the West and the East by its history, Yemen is quite something else.

Arriving here in September 2010, I tried not to have preexisting ideas of what I would discover. We traveled twice in Sanaa for two weeks before moving here, but nothing can be compared to the feeling of living in this place. I read dozens of articles and books related to Yemen to start the journey of understanding this country, but quickly realized that except for few of them, most of this writing was clearly outside the reality I was living in.

It is hard for me to describe these 20 months here, as I feel that my experience is more an accumulation of numerous completely independent stories than a homogeneous frame. The discussions I’ve heard in Sanaa’s mini buses (dabbab), the taxi and motorcycle drivers, the restaurants, the new fashionable coffee shops, the Arabic schools, my French students, my work as a journalist, the revolution, are all part of this experience, and all added to the vision I have of the country. The accumulation of these experiences cannot be diluted into one article, but I will try to share some of these experiences.

One of the first things that clearly characterize my own experience is the fact that I’m married to a Yemeni woman. As many know, society here is often divided between men’s and women’s “spaces”, and it is hard to share and discover both of them, especially for a man. But I realized many times how being French was allowing me to see a side of Yemen, many Yemeni men cannot.

I participated in many family lunches with my in-laws, men and women, as it was more accepted for me as an “outsider” to share the same space with the women unveiled.  They felt more comfortable because I was not sharing the same culture and thus would not judge them, but yet still part of the family, making a unique relationship.

I also remember once wondering about “men’s rights” here. As a joke, I told my wife how everyone focuses on women’s rights in Yemen, but what about us? There are many high expectations for men in this society.  When visiting people, we have to wait outside the house, even when it’s raining, until we are told it’s safe to enter (giving women the time to cover). Men are expected to deal with bills and all plumbing and electricity issues, which are very frequent here, and men can never pass quickly through checkpoints, unless they have women with them in the car.  This of course was said in a humorous way, since I do not deny in any way the obstacles faced by  women in Yemen, as evident by the large water bottles they have to carry home every day.

The time spent here has made me “more Yemeni than the Yemenis” according to some friends who cite my qat chewing as an example. While many are campaigning to fight “this plague” and to ban it everywhere – I understand the concerns and truly believe some reform and regulations should happen – I started to chew qat regularly. But this was more for the atmosphere, the talks and many other things than the qat itself. Indeed, I really love the gathering, the fact that we sit for hours to talk, discuss or debate various topics, and share an amazing social experience.

As I used to spend hours smoking shisha in Cairo’s coffees, qat became for me a new necessary social activity that connects me to various aspects of the Yemeni culture. Wearing traditional clothes and chewing with relatives, colleagues, friends or random people taught me a lot about this country which was thousands of miles away from what the mainstream media portrays.

When I settled here, I was shocked not by the country’s instability, nor by security concerns or by a so-called under-development of the region, but by the enormous difference between what I read and saw in the media and what I was living.

It’s as if there were two Yemens, one described as the most dangerous country in the world, terrorism and Al-Qaeda’s heaven, ancestral land of Osama Bin Laden, and the other Yemen, one of the most welcoming countries I’ve ever lived in, where warm people open their door and their heart to you even when they’re very poor.

I still do not understand why there is such a huge gap between the two perspectives. Yemen is no longer a desert country, cut from the world, where you would need months of travel to reach it. Yemen is also not a country that no foreigner visited. On the contrary, it is a place where numerous westerners have been living and working, where few hours by plane are enough to land in one of Yemen’s international airports. Oil companies’ employees, researchers, teachers, journalists, aid workers are present here, and most of them will tell you to what extend they love this welcoming country.

It is this difference of perspective that pushed us to begin a news website about Yemen in French. Our aim is to provide a more real and deeper understanding of Yemen, by highlighting many of the unknown aspects of the country to bridge the gap.

Of course, there are a lot of issues in Yemen that need to be addressed – security, equality, poverty, etc – but that cannot be the sole focus by the media or people, since that would mean missing the true reality of this country. All of us, all the people who have a connection with Yemen, who lived, visited or worked here, should work on changing the image of this country. All media outlets covered Yemen’s revolution, but it has now disappeared from the news again, with the exception of stories related to Al-Qaeda.

During the revolution,  I hoped people would now associate the words “freedom” and “democracy” with Yemen, rather than “terrorism”. One year later, by looking at today’s headlines related to Yemen, I wonder if my hopes were too unrealistic for now.  But I still have faith that time will reveal the true essence of Yemen.

Benjamin Wiacek  is a journalist with over four years of experience living and working in the Middle East and North Africa with publications in numerous prestigious newspapers including Liberation, Al Masry Al Youm and the Yemen Times; wrote deeper analysis pieces for La Revue Averroès, Fair Observer and Le Courrier de l’Atlas, and co-founded the first News website in French about Yemen. In addition to written pieces, I also reported live on television and radio for various outlets including France 24, Al Jazeera English and BBC, participated in photography exhibits, and contributed to the production of a short documentary on Yemen.

Follow his Yemen reports on http://www.lavoixduyemen.com

Papua New Guinea – 10 years of exploration

by

Steven Ballantyne

My professional life started out as a movement therapist, the study of the use of dance and the arts therapies as a therapeutic technique with a specialist focus on working with bereavement.

Following the end of my studies I became a founder member and trustee of the East London and City Bereavement Association, a London based charity and established a private counselling practice working directly with a range of clients through stages of bereavement as well as victims of crime and clients marginalized from society,

 I was quite set on what I had established and achieved, yet through the clients I had the privilege to meet, I experienced a wide range of bereavement rituals, stemming from cultural, religious and family traits, it was with a growing fascination in bereavement rituals that in 2001 I set out on a journey to study rituals and rights of passage around the world.

My interest was to discover and experience beyond that which I already knew and as such selected countries which where considered remote, challenging and more importantly where the population retained its historic values and traditions.

 I landed in Papua New Guinea on February 2^nd 2001, on February 5^th 2001 at around 3pm in the afternoon; I had a gun at my head and was being force to my knees, terrified I handed over my rucksack and bags of food dropped by my porters who had long since vanished into the jungles that surrounded me, I said nothing, but simply waited, while all around me men shouted.

 To my relief, I was pulled to standing and pushed towards the Jungle – we walked all night to a village which would become my home for the next 8 days, always guarded but for most of the time left to my own devices.    I befriended two women who brought me food and water, it was they who on the 8^th day of captivity helped me escape, and it was their selfless acts, that lead directly to my ultimate air rescue by the Australian army.

 Before initially heading out to Papua New Guinea I had been warned of the dangers, primarily by people who had never been to the country but still new best, I was told among so many other tails that I would encounter man eaters and head hunters and now here I was sitting in a chopper, who’s crew announced when they hauled me in that ‘We thought you where dead mate’, having been rescued from a tribe that primarily wanted to kill me – but they hadn’t and that thought stayed with me.

 Six months later I returned to Papua New Guinea with the sole purpose to meet my captures; I felt the need to understand more about ‘These savages’ and their way of life.

What I discovered through my time with them was a community is despair; they had lived for over 4 years through tribal warfare due to an ongoing land dispute and as such had not been able to plant gardens to grow the crops to feed their families, they had lived in fear of loosing their lives should they venture far, they where a community in need of help.

 Two sides to every coin!

 Over the past ten years I have continued to return to Papua New Guinea to explore its territories and gain a deeper understanding of the many different communities that can be found hidden within its jungles, I have also set out to provide support where I can, such as providing funding for a village school and basic medical provision, for the most part I have found stable communities who’s lives are built on trust and reliance upon one another to survive, whether they be the hunter gathers of the tribe or home makers they all have an equal part to play to ensure the village runs and all mouths are fed, stepping into this world from the one I know where money dominates and the need for more is every growing, Papua New Guinea and village life seems quite civilised and lessons could certainly be learned from the Western World as to how to live with thy neighbour!

 It is through the friendship’s build over time, with many of the men I now call friends being my original captures, that has given me the opportunity to explore the country as I have, but exploring means accepting the dangers that one may face to accepting without question how communities and individuals live, I trust my guides to do exactly that lead me not only into new territories but also in the way of their people.

I take their lead when challenged and seek their advice consistently through out the expedition – I tend to travel alone, that is without a Western companion for it is the company of the guides and porters and the tribes I meet, who I seek companionship from.

 Papua New Guinea have become very much my home and I will continue to explore its jungles for as long as they accept me, documenting and recording the tribal rituals that set each village apart as well as making journeys without any other purpose other than to just live within the jungle, to wake each day to fresh ground coffee (beans picked and dried and roasted while on expedition) a good breakfast of ‘dampers’ baked in the fire which takes the morning chill away, a day hiking into the unknown, yet knowing there is an adventure ahead.

My next expedition to Papua New Guinea planned for later this year is to explore the Great ‘Fly’ river a journey from sea to source.

 Over the past ten years Papua New Guinea has become a key focus in my expedition work, but along side this time has been spent in Java living at the foot of Mt. Bromo with the Tengger people and journeys into the Mongolia Gobi Desert, working with scientists from the University on Ulaanbataar and supporting their field research.

Steve Ballantine, read more about him here!

Siberia changed my life completely. And it ruined it. It was the best time in my life. It had everything I have ever dreamt about. The enormous taiga and the extreme cold gave me and my partner Johan Ivarsson unlimited freedom. We hunted and fished to survive. We met the best people on earth, the native Siberians. It felt like I had finally understood. Also, I felt like it doesn’t matter one bit if I die now. I have seen all.

He had fallen in love with Siberia himself. So of course I said yes, it is a shared love. I asked him for an article from this vast area and he was happy to honor this site. So, a good travel story is waiting for you below!

NYURBA,

FAR EAST SIBERIA.

An unimaginable & deserted vastness

by

Luis Fernando Medina Salazar

Long white roads cross the Siberian Landscape. Along the way, like frozen unearthed figures, stand still white trees. For miles, all your sight can reaches in the far horizon, are white forest, covered with a thick layer of snow that make the trees bend to create a unique winter world.

 ”Make yourself confortable and enjoy the ride” our driver  Vasily said.

A 10 hours ride adventure from Yakutsk to Nyurba might sound like a nightmare, specially after 6 hours fly from Moscow, but once you are on the road your eyes will not close for a single second. I think this is the first time that i have enjoyed such a long trip on a car. Owls, huge black birds, deers, and the mighty Yakutian horses observe in a curious way our vehicle as we drive through.

“Here is the Nature’s kingdom where men are rarely seen, here there is an unimaginable and deserted vastness, here is Far East Siberia” said to me with a lovely smile Vasily and continued driving.

Aren’t you cold? was the most asked question once i arrived to Nyurba. With a temperture, what for locals was a mild, beginning of the spring -40, the siberian country side has one of the most severe winters in Russia, with tempertures dropping to sometimes -70 degrees celsius. “Here in Siberia we can’t imagine how people in hot countries tolerate tempertures of +30 most of the year ” said Viktor Borisov, a local resident and administrator of the History & Natural museum in Nyurba. After that statement, the perception that i had about living in hot countries completely changed in my mind.

 Cup of tea? a question that was like music to my ears, asked Viktor’s wife Sveta once i sat down and shared the table with a Sakha family for the first time. The western idea of considering tea as national drink in England might change soon, i said to myself as Sveta poured hot water into my empty cup.

Early morning breakfast could put youself into serious troubles, specially if you are a vegetarian; Sakha people’s national food consist in Horse meat and literaly they eat it all. The Horse is for Sakha people not just a part of their everyday life meal, but also a deep part in their folk, traditions and believes. “We cant imagine our lives without 2 things: Horses & snow” said Antony, a secondary school english teacher as he took a big piece of frozen raw slice of meat into his mouth. The Yakutian horse is very strong and is one of very few animals that put up with the extreme winter tempertures that last for 9 months in fasr east Siberia.

On the shores of the Lake Vilyuy, deep in the heart of Siberia and with a population of 10.000 people, you find the town of Nyurba. Here, it is hard to imagine to find a well organize village that with the efforts of its people, a slow but contagious development takes place in many fields. White shining walls of the main hospital’s interiors and some of the most sofisticated treatments, were some of the facts that took my attention, as i put on a blue plastic cover in my shoes to enter the main room, to avoid the contamination of the area.

Rainbow colors comming from a dark room and long soft sofas to chill out, give the impresion to be in a Club’s Lounge rather than a children hospital. “Here the kids come and relax themselves with colorful shining lights” explain to me the director of the hospital aria.

Off the beaten track, the Village of Kjundjadja is located 20 minutes away by car from Nyurba. The sense of vastness increases when you look around trying to see a sign of surrounding villages in vain. Long extensions of forest and frozen rivers capture your attention. Horses walk lonely like if they were a domestic pet in a huge backyard. “This is a land of hunters, of warriors fighting back against the strongest forces of nature to make it day by day ” spoke up loud Mary, a local teacher who was my translator during my short but memorable stay in that town.

Alexander the great must have felt the same when he first saw unknown worlds and they welcomed him with the best of their food and dances. In his diary, he claimed that “Far far east, after the land of the Tatars, exist a folk with no princes and uncivilized.” Well, he was completely wrong. Ancient ceremonies were the highlights of my visit; well dressed girls and boys recalled in my mind images of lost kingdoms with royal societies; captivating dances and melodic voices were all over the place; colorful outfits made me doubt about my actual location, but what really made me wonder whether or not that was the coldest place on our planet, was the amazing warmness of its people.

“Put on something warmer on” i was adviced by the group of hunters before our departure to do some ice fishing. Outside, the sun shined, but just to give light. It was an orange-pinkish colour falling into the Taiga forest. Reindeer boots, militar camuflash patterns suits, and a courage greater than the Siberian wolf are needed to succeed as a Hunter in this hostile environment. Prepared with the necessary equipment, a drive through the snow was the hardest part of the excursion, strugling to get through tones of thick white powder to find the hiden white ways across the permafost, was the real challenge.

The 10 steps process before you finally fish something, has to be made as soon as possible before you end up inside an ice cube. 3 meter ice layer form a natural barrier between you and the water. “Everyone comes here to do some fishing once in their lives” said to me Mary, while she looked at my astonished face when suddently a couple of small fish jumped out of the water.

“Come to Siberia anytime you want, here averything is free” laughed out loud Dimitry, a local horse men and hunter. Outside his small but warm cottage a pile of ice blocks lie inside a wooden box. Lots of ideas crossed my mind to guess what they might need ice for, but it was invain. “You see this ice” i was asked by Dinitry, “well, you just drank water from those blocks”. The adventage to be so close to nature is giantic; fresh Taiga forest red berries, fresh meat from different animals and fresh water from the lake!! even if they have to melt it first, the idea is fantastic, isnt it?

A 3 hours way by car and a road that could easily beat up the most exciting roller coster in a western country amusement park, is what takes to reach the Village of Malykai. Horse farms, a strong Sakha identity and a very kind people is the main characteristic of the place. “Have you tried kumis already” asked my host family right after i crossed the door of their house. It is also spelled kumiss or koumiss in Englis, which is a fermented dairy product traditionally made from mare’s milk. The drink remains important to the peoples of the Central Asian Stepes. A sour taste invaded my mouth as i took the first sip, it reminded me like some European sour cheese taste. It didn’t take long for me to enjoyed it and asked for my second glass. “Now you can say you have been to Yakutsk” everybody in the table said with a non-stop laugh.

20 km away from Malykai, the small village of Chatyi, Megeschekskii nasleg, stays umtouched by the modernity. The rural atmosphere that predominate in this northerst human settlement in the Region, heals your soul and clear your thoughts. Dogs barking in front of colorful houses, kids playing in the snow, families taking a walk have changed the wheeled baby trolley by an ice slider. All this scenario takes place while the sun shines in the far horizon. “We must enjoy the sun now when its getting warmer” said Julia, member of the municipality and director of the History and Natural musuem ,where a bunch of lovely kids were waiting for me to explain with such an excitement the history and traditions of the Village.

Happy faces filled up the rooms, at the kinder garden, where i was introduced to the children. Their faces looked a bit confused with my presence; they kept looking at the camera like if they were posing for a fashion magazine. With such an spontaneous moment i realesed the camera shoter several times, i could have stay for hours there, but the time was up, the sun was hidding in the horizon, it was time to keep on with my trip.

“Put on something warmer on” i was adviced by the group of hunters before our departure to do some ice fishing. Outside, the sun shined, but just to give light. It was an orange-pinkish color falling into the Taiga forest. Reindeer boots, militar camuflash patterns suits, and a courage greater than the Siberian wolf are needed to succeed as a Hunter in this hostile environment. Prepared with the necessary equipment, a drive through the snow was the hardest part of the excursion, strugling to get through tones of snow to find the hiden white ways across the permafost, was the real challenge.

The 10 steps process before you finally fish something, has to be made as soon as possible before you end up inside an ice cube. 3 meter ice layer form a natural barrier between you and the water. “Everyone comes here to do some fishing once in their lives” said to me Mary, while she looked at my astonished face when suddently a couple of small fish jumped out of the water.

“Come to Siberia anytime you want, here averything is free” laughed out loud Dimitry, a local horse men and hunter. Outside his small but warm cottage a pile of ice blocks lie inside a wooden box. Lots of ideas crossed my mind to guess what they might need ice for. “You see this ice” i was asked by Dinitry, “well, you just drank water from those blocks”. The adventage to be so close to nature is giantic; fresh Taiga forest red berries, fresh meat from different animals and fresh water from the lake!! even if they have to melt it first, the idea is fantastic, isnt it?

My last stop was the charming village of Nyurbatschaan, located 19km away from Nyurba. I visited a school to withness the unique Sakha way and secrets to keep themselves fit and fight back the hostile winter. “This kind of jump is called kuobach, or the rabbit in English language, explained to me the fitness director of the school. Long jumps by the school children that could be compared with those made by the gold medal olimpic winner in gymnastic, give the name to this sport; a great flexibility made them look like if they were made of rubber, and a great sense of coordination is the main characteristic developed by this kind of training.

A Sakha version of the western Chess game got my attention. With special carved wooden figures of animals and knights taken from one of the many Sakha fairy tales, “Sonor” is the most traditional table game. Agility and coordination games replace the Nintendo videos, which are now a days found in most houses of a modern society. “This is a game of concentration and coordination and belongs to the Sakha traditions and culture.” said Antoni, a secondary school teacher.

“It is party time. Get ready for 3 hours road adventure”, laughed Viktor. The memmories of the ups and downs that we have already experienced was about to begin again when we were ready to get in our russian truck and get back to Nyurba. This time however, didn’t feel that wild, maybe because either we were exhausted or because our thoughts and souls were still enjoying the time we had in the Siberian country side.

An spontaneous stop in the middle of the road woke me up, when 3 men jumped at the rear part of our car, took a bottle of Yakutian Vodka and started to celebrate like if we were in the National day. “Are you really from Mexico” asked one of them; what do you think about Yakutia? asked another; will you ever come back? the third man asked and gave me a shot of vodka. After 10 minutes of questions and laughs i asked Viktor to translate a question for me to them ” Why are you here, is your truck broken? Viktor couldn’t hold his smile and replied to me” They stopped, bacause they wanted to see you and talk to you, thats the reason”. I could never imagine that my visit to those villages had been broadcasted through all the long reach radios, and by the time i was leaving, every single house in the area knew about my visit. “You are the first foreign ever in this Region” said Viktor with a voice that made eco for the rest of my trip. ” We see you again, the world is round” with those words the 3 men left our truck and continue their trip back home.  If i could describe the Sakha heart and soul the first words comming at the top of my mind would be “warm and kind” i mentioned to Viktor, who was also surprised by the nature of our short encounter with the 3 unknown hunters.

Once Lao Tzu, a mystic philosopher of ancient China said “The further one goes, the less one knows.”  Well, Siberia is just an example of how much we need to learn about our planet and its different ways of life in order to appreciate them. Siberia could have one of the outdoors coldest tempertures on earth, but inside every home you will be conforted with the most amazing warmness you have ever felt.

Luis Fernando Medina Salazar is a Mexican freelance Photographer and Traveler living in Lucerne, Switzerland.

With a deep individual Vision he tries with his project “PASSENGER DIARIES” to describe the World and interpret its people; events and festivals; issues and personalities; reflecting all aspects of life throughout the Planet Earth with imagination and brilliance in a great collection of documentary photography. He gives a SENSE OF THE PLACE as far as it can be caught by the lens.

The main purpose is to inspire people through the images collected in all my years living abroad and having the privilege to travel the world for over 20 years, counting so far 20 countries in different continents, to explore magical and unknown places. Joining my 2 passions in life as a freelance photographer and adventurous traveler I share ideas, thoughts, a shared human quality, a curiosity and respects about what is going on in the World and finally to express it visually. I took my first picture at the age of 15, in a trip to Patagonia, Argentina with my family, where my interest woke up and my passion to capture beautiful and unique moments of life was developed.

Read more at www.passengerdiaries.com

Adventure and Exploration: Conflict or Collaboration?

By

Earl de Bonville

 A journalist with a major city daily asked how I became an adventurer. At the time, 1978, the word ‘Adventurer’ in Australia referred to shady characters who took big risks on the stockmarket. Australia was then a culturally empty space, with money the only measure of a man. Our proud history of exploration, no more than 100 years old, was of a handful of men with no training and poor equipment who had through sheer grit prized open the secrets of an empty continent one and a half times the size of Europe. Not only was all that heroic era now forgotten but was in any case irrelevant to a shallow, consumerist and status hungry society.

Earl leading Australia's 1st Arctic expedition, East Greenland 1986 (still from internationally released TV doco)

As a professional mountaineering instructor, trained by some of Britain’s biggest names in exploration, I realized the journalist was ill-informed, and corrected him. ‘I am not an adventurer’, I said. ‘I’m an explorer”, which was pretty challenging. But I explained that adventure is about seeking thrills, whereas exploration seeks knowledge and understanding. The next day, much to my surprise, his piece duly described me as an explorer, and the term thereafter was applied to other spirited people who journeyed with a higher purpose. Surprisingly, a new public fascination and admiration emerged, which had profound repercussions on subsequent sponsorship and media support for expeditions, including my own.

 Not only was this a breakthrough in re-establishing a public consciousness for the incredible achievements of our early explorers, but it also awakened an awareness of the elements of exploration that lay within the Australian cultural DNA: courage, persistence, vision, great comradeship and an uncanny ability to invent solutions to seemingly intractable problems. Stories were told of repair miracles using fencing wire, straightened nails and tree limbs; of following birds to hidden waterholes at dusk and in one case of surviving an entire desert crossing by cutting meat en route from the flanks of live pack animals. A light had been thrown on a forgotten facet of our society and overnight this simple correction opened up new opportunities for adventurous ambitions, and in time saw Australian adventurers and explorers reach out across the globe and firmly stamp an international awareness of Australia.

Early Australian explorers Burke & Wills, dying at Coopers Creek, central Australia 1861.

I believe the key to this cultural change lay in one thing, the grasping of the importance of higher purpose. Adventure, certainly in its modern context, can be easily understood to benefit adventurers themselves, whereas the very word ‘exploration’ is redolent with probing and uncovering geographical, scientific and cultural mysteries, of spending sometimes years beyond contact, and requiring the most extraordinary range of skills, including linguistic, animal husbandry, cultural and leadership, and personal qualities such as extreme long term vision and perspicacity, tolerance and courage. Ultimately, exploration benefits others by extending the boundaries of the known world.

It is higher purpose that gives meaning to my own journeys. I was once asked why I would go off and do seemingly dangerous things. I answered by saying that in my view, I don’t do dangerous things at all. Danger scares me, so I only do things I know I can do without risk. I also explained that I am not driven by a need for adventure, but by curiosity. I want to peek over the distant ridge and see what’s in the unexplored valley. Yes, we can get caught out by extremes of weather and unexpected events, and it’s good to know that we can always survive, no matter what, but it’s curiosity that makes a trip worthwhile for me. Not only that, but being able to travel in the footsteps of great explorers, and appreciate the rawness of their achievements, is a wonderful opportunity to extend one’s knowledge of what it is to be human.

 Much diverse opinion has been offered on this relatively new debate, including what has become a polished chestnut: ‘But haven’t all the world’s wild places been explored?’ To those with televisions it seems a self-evident truth, but is this true?

 A few weeks ago I was invited onto a prominent radio show to discuss the question: ‘Is there anything left to explore?’ Although my experience is limited, compared to many others, I could think of half a dozen places I know that have never seen a European or a scientist. Places unexplored that may well yield some great results for science, yet are next to impossible to get to.

 To remind myself, I checked one of them on Google Earth and was surprised to find the images looked nothing at all like the photos I took when I flew over it in 1985, doing some aerial reconnaissance for the 1988 RGS Kimberley Research Project. Google offered a bland rounded hillscape, yet in reality the place is a jumble of deep gorges. How could the two images look so different?

 The answer can be explained using another example.

Falls flowing off the Kimberley Plateau wilderness, Western Australia - now an exotic tourist mecca

 When the IPCC 4^th Report was released in 2007, it predicted that the Arctic Ocean’s summer ice cover would disappear by 2050. Amid an uproar, this was amended to 2030. Professor Ted Scambos of Colorado Snow and Ice, knowing that the IPCC’s modeling was badly flawed went up to the sea ice and conducted his own ground truthing. His prediction, based on actually being there? All gone by 2015. Big difference and so far, right on track. So, we can have all the computer modeling we like, but without a reality check, people end up arguing over falsehoods.

 Being there IS the difference, which is what exploration is all about. And being there was the difference between satellite imagery and my low-level overflight in the Kimberley, where my camera was only 500 feet off the ground. The RGS expedition leader, Professor Andrew Goudie, was amazed at the images I presented saying he had not seen anything like them outside Antarctica. This is but one example, and I could offer many more, all adventurous, but all of them focused on exploration.

Accepting that adventure is a wonderful, worthwhile and immensely satisfying pursuit is important, as it rewards individual adventurers with rich experiences and personal growth, but alone it is not exploration in the grand scheme of things.

 Exploration is characterized by greater commitment, longer involvement and higher purpose: things learned, secrets revealed, inconsistencies clarified, shapes measured and concepts tested. Exploration can be safe and thus deadly boring (although boredom can be dangerous), or it can be highly risky and involve immense discomfort, months or years of uncertainty and deliver the explorers with little more than personal satisfaction at the end of it.

Wally Herbert (later Sir Wally) (left) and team on the 1st surface crossing of the Arctic Ocean 1968 (painting by Wally)

 I think of my dear old friend Wally Herbert, and the almost unimaginable lengths his team went to, whilst overwintering on an icefloe, to conduct valuable science while making the first crossing of the Arctic Ocean. Afterwards, their names were soon forgotten by the public. Another friend, Geoff Somers, has had enormous experience at both poles supporting scientific fieldwork. By any measure he is a great explorer, as his dog sledge crossing of Antarctica with Will Steger testifies, but his humility ensured he was not out screaming for attention afterwards. The expedition was itself so personally rewarding that no public acclaim could possibly make any difference.

 And maybe that’s the missing piece of the puzzle. Adventure, and its modern competitiveness, fails to intrinsically satisfy, which may explain why after the adventure people seek additional peer recognition and public acknowledgement, even to the point of severely criticizing other adventurous ‘competitors’. Conversely, exploration at heart intrinsically satisfies the individual human curiosity that originally nurtured and drove it. The word ‘Fellowship’ at the RGS means exactly that: sharing and support, based on mutual respect for courageous journeys with a sense of higher purpose.

 Fame and acknowledgement are naturally part of both adventure and exploration and the issue is one that occupies minds well beyond the outdoor setting. For example, in my executive coaching work I often ask clients to consider these three questions:

- What do you want to be famous for? We can all be famous for something, including being famous for nothing. It’s important to remember that you do have many choices regarding what you’re famous for.

- How do you want to be remembered? Will it be for hiring hundreds in the sun and then sacking them when it rained? Will it be for sacrificing your ambition for a higher ideal, such as your family’s happiness? Or might it be for discovering and promoting the best people to rise to their potential?

- How long do you think you’ve got? A reputation can be made or lost in an instant. If you realized how uncertain your life was, what would you do right now?

Sir Edmund Hillary's 1st school for the Sherpas, in Khumjung, celebrating 25 years.

 In helping to clarify the distinction between the immediacy of adventure and the longevity of exploration, the two ‘first’ ascents of Everest are instructional. In 1953, after continual failures to summit due to altitude affects, human limitations, weather problems and sheer bad luck, had many experts wondering if it could ever be climbed. So the successful British ascent was just as much scientific exploration into human capacity at altitude as it was straight mountaineering adventure. And the hero of the day, Edmund Hillary, far from using his fame as ‘the first man to conquer Everest’ to seek personal glory, instead used it for the rest of his to life to improve the welfare of the Sherpa people, raising money to build them schools, medical centres and an airport to draw tourists and enrich their local economy. Out of adventurous exploration, he chose a life of higher purpose. In contrast, Peter Habeler and Reinhold Messner who, by climbing Everest without oxygen in 1978, the second ‘first’, achieved an extraordinary scientific and medical breakthrough, yet disappeared from popular view afterwards simply because there was no higher purpose to their climb other than adventure. This is not criticism, but distinction for clarification.

 A final thought comes from my old kayaking mentor Jim Hargreaves, from when we worked at the British Mountaineering Centre in North Wales in 1977. A former joint-services canoeing and kayaking champion, Jim had been trained by an Olympic coach who gave him a powerful philosophy, which he passed it on to me: “You will not be judged by your performance alone, but by your ability to train a suitable successor”.

 What Jim and his Olympic coach were saying is that whilst in sport and adventure we are called on to do our very best, history will record that it is never just about us. If we are to truly endure in the hearts of others, rather than shrink to a statistic, it will be through ensuring that the successor we choose is better, faster and stronger than we could ever be. And that will be our measure of greatness.

It’s something for us to consider. When thinking about the differences between adventure and exploration – both worthy ambitions – perhaps we can be guided by Shakespeare’s immortal words: ‘There is nothing either good nor bad, but thinking makes it so’.

© Earl de Bonville 2012

Earl de Blonville is a Doctoral researcher into leadership, and a senior executive leadership coach. In 1986 he led Australia’s first Arctic expedition, with HRH The Prince of Wales as patron, and has explored half of Greenland’s navigable coast. In 1988 he was Director of the Tall Ships spectacular that officially opened Australia’s Bicentenary to an international television audience. His critically acclaimed book Seventh Journey provides valuable leadership insights for both expedition leaders and business executives. A Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society since 1984, he has advised successful Arctic, desert and maritime expeditions.