Alnwickdotes: No 2 - A lot of things happen when I take a beer!

 The Old Ship Inn

theoldeship@seahouses.co.uk
http://www.seahouses.co.uk 

I have been known to take the occasional beer, with my favourite worldwide hostelry in Seahouses, in of course, Northumberland.  So far, despite valiant efforts to search one out, I have not found its equal anywhere in my travels. (Please see write-up in "Canny Bevvy" below.)

This is an old anecdote from the last century of beer-related events in Malawi, Kenya, Rwanda, and Cambodia followed by a twist in London.  Four times in my life, my relaxing quiet cool beers have been violently interrupted. 

Alnwickdotes: No 3: “Right over Might?” When the little person prevails?

http://bayouwingchun.com/blog-page/

 When the little person overcomes the odds, against stronger and formidable foes, it is a clear sign that justice can be done.  Seldom does this happen in Cambodia.

Alnwickdotes: No 4 - 19th Century Solutions to 21st problems!

Alnwick - Support your pants!

Back in the 1950s, most children around Alnwick would have visited St Michael’s pant.  We certainly drank the water, and with reluctance we would throw a copper coin in, wishing we could take back one of the silver ones already there.
 
Alnwick’s pants tell a story of how the town learned a lesson the hard way.  Even today in 2015 that lesson is still being learned around the world.  As a quick read about the pants reveals, it was a major cholera outbreak in 1849 that led to clean piped water.

 I had recall to this story just a few weeks ago, in relation to a tiny remote village called Srae Thom in Mondulkiri, Cambodia.  The community wanted just US$500 (UK£340) to repair a dam and their gravity-fed piped water system to their village.  It would give families clean water; irrigate their home gardens, and save fetching and carrying of heavy buckets over the five kilometer distance.  

Alnwickdotes: No 5: The Fish and Chip Millionaire

Picture thanks to Darrin Henry, darrin@darrinhenry.com, @SaintsDidNext

When Saint Helena Island’s airport opens in 2016, a great feature of life – the arrival of the RMS St Helena at the anchorage will disappear.  (The UK has wagered the island’s future and self-sufficiency on a £192million (US$ 320m) airport. It is a dramatic effort to bring in tourism and investment, without seemingly taking note of the salutary experience of Norfolk Island in the Pacific and Australia.)

Jamestown is always abuzz when the ship arrives.  Crowds line the seaside from the-landing steps to the gate in to the town.  Some have returning loved-ones, others just want to see who’s coming and going.

I recall an extra-special buzz one time. 

Alnwickdotes: No 6 “Ginger” Northumbrian and Cambodian style!

I came across, one of the most fascinating stories of my overseas aid career, purely by accident.  This story apparently explains the existence of the Bunong indigenous people in Cambodia, now in danger of dying out. Although they total around 30,000 in all, they are under much pressure to integrate in to mainstream Khmer Society.

The story centres on the plant ginger.  A Google search then showed up, surprisingly “Northumberland Ginger Tea” , presumbly using Bergamot leaves, as first used for Early Grey and his Howick water? (Not to be confused with Ringtons Teas or another very fine pure Northumberland Tea.)

Alnwickdotes: No 7 Best laid plans of mice and men go awry

        What the children wanted                 What the committee came up with!  

Do you know that children out-perform adult executives?  Yet they play little or no part in “development” projects intended for them.  In 1998 I inherited technical and fundraising responsibility for a major multi-donor funded project to teach human rights in schools.  I spotted one thing that had eluded the educational and development experts.  The entire programme was being carried out without one child in sight.  We soon changed that, but it wasn’t children that spoilt the project.

  

If ever there is a quotation to apply to our line of work, it must be this one.  It could be the motto of the development game, even its guiding spirit! 

However it predates such modern fancy notions, coming from a poem by famous Scottish poet Robert Burns. I have it on good authority of our local paper that “he was inspired by his travels up and down the length and breadth of Northumberland, so that is good enough for me to claim him for linking my county with the developing world. Apparently he did visit Alnwick Castle, Warkworth and Hexham. 

As this is an Alnwickdote, it is another one of those strange occurrences in my overseas development career, one that fascinates many people. 

Alnwickdote: No 8 Island of Propriety in a Sea of Corruption

Lindisfarne and Tynemouth Priories

www.english-heritage.org.uk ; http://www.st-astier.co.uk/images/503.jpg

Holy Island was the first island we knew when growing up in Northumberland.  The county is graced by many ancient monuments, from Tynemouth in the South up to Lindisfarne and beyond in the North.  In this sense, there is a direct comparison with Cambodia and its great religious relics most notably Angkor Wat. 

Looking at these images reminds me again of the oddities and absurdities we encounter in the development aid business.  I am talking about the spoken and written words, and barriers to communication in language and in context.  Too often people do not understand each other, and it only bothers poor people who are too shy to ask.  It is not only the English and Americans that are divided by a common language.