La Boîte à Savon

Moral meat, part 1

2012-02-08T17:41:00.001+01:00

I'll try to address here the first of the criteria for moral meat eating.

The first thing that we have to remember is that livestock animals (cows, sheep, fowls, pigs, and all animals that we might raise for food) are mortal.

If we accept that livestock are animals like any others, an argument voiced to argue against their organized slaughter, then we must accept that, as herbivores, they are in the middle of the food chain, destined to be some other animal's prey. As such, their destiny is to be hunted down and killed, whether by a lion, a bear, a wolf, a human, etc... Alternatively, they can die of disease, fire, drowning, or starvation. Dying from old age isn't quite an option for animals, except for pets. Old and/or weak herbivores (think gazelles, zebras, gnus...) are the easiest preys for the lion, crocodile, or what-have-yous that lurk in the tall grass. As part of natural selection, predators routinely pick-off the weakest prey. It's not philosophy, it's Darwinism.

In the wild, to the extent that such places exist, the herbivore has a fair chance at escaping his predator. Domesticated livestock meets their demise at an appointed hour. This is because we control every aspect of their life, from birth to breeding to slaughter. This control, in turn, means that we have a dual responsibility to ensure that:

the life of our livestock is free of the pain and suffering that befalls wild herbivores
the manner of death is as painless and stress free as possible

The farmer is therefore responsible for ensuring that his livestock is raised under comfortable conditions. This is to say that the animals have enough space to roam, have appropriate shelter, are protected from predators, are availed plentiful, adequate food, and are given medical care. In short, they trade their freedom for comfort. Medical care cannot include the massive preventative application of hormones or antibiotics, while space and shelter must be sufficiently roomy so that animals can follow their rooting and exploring instincts. Food must be natural, to the extent possible, not result from human transformation processes.

One might object that a cow born in captivity has not willingly entered into this bargain: comfort and death against freedom. However, HFW makes a convincing point that, on a species basis, livestock animals have entered into this bargain with humans, growing more numerous and healthy than they could ever have dreamt to be in the wild (i.e.: compare the number of gazelles to the number of cows worldwide). In this sense, a symbiotic relationship of sorts has been established between humans and livestock, albeit one that involves the slaughter of one half of the symbiosis to feed the other.

Going back to item 2 above, the farmer is also responsible for choosing a slaughterhouse where his animals can meet their demise in a stress-free manner. While this might seem unrealistic, it should be clear that there is a big difference between a place where animals are killed after a wild stampede where some might be gored or trampled to death, and one where only a few animals at a time are killed in individual pens, by a person who administers a swift death. The difference might seem artificial, but it is fundamental in my view.
It should be clear that what I described above is the exact opposite of factory farming, where animals are kept in confined spaces, pumped up with antibiotics and hormones (in the US), and fed fish or other animal meal. Further, I essentially rule out eating meat that has been slaughtered in an industrial slaughterhouse.

Of course, that means ruling out most of the meat available in supermarkets in France and US today, but that's another story.

The morality of eating meat

2012-02-02T11:13:00.002+01:00

Eating meat is under attack. Countless vegetarians make potent, rational, and cogent arguments about the moral precariousness of eating meat. However, these arguments have never felt completely compelling or satisfying to me, and so I've kept on eating. At the same time, I've had a feeling that I couldn't quiet provide an appropriate response to my vegetarian friends. Now that I'm reading HFW's book, I feel that I can better articulate a moral position for meat eating, and so I'll try to do it here and in future posts.

While I am no great philosopher, I can see that encouraging the suffering of sentient, social animals for my selfish pleasure is wrong, especially as alternative sources of food abound. I can further see that consuming a product whose production is bad for the environment is morally fraught. I understand and respect the position of moral vegetarians, but I think it is too narrow.

I am just not convinced that it is inevitable that meat will be both the result of great suffering and bad for the environment. I posit that meat consumption can be moral if it complies with the following:

the meat I (and you, perhaps) consume came to my plate without additional animal suffering, as compared a hypothetical 'wild' state.
animal husbandry does not harm the environment any more than its absence would.
meat consumption is total, meaning that every part of the slaughtered animal is consumed as food, fuel, leather, or other raw material, etc... and no part is wasted.
the consumption of meat is done with full disclosure of the conditions under which the animal is raised, slaughtered, aged, and sold, so that meat consumers can understand the provenance of their meat and be responsible for their actions.

I will attempt to discuss these points individually in later posts, but before I go any further, I'll state outright that most of meat consumed in the developed world fails to meet these criteria.

Who's funding Mitt Romney?

2012-02-01T12:21:00.001+01:00

In today's NYT, you'll find this nice bit of multi-lingual humor.

It turns out that one of the large contributors to Romney's "Restore our Future" PAC (love the doublespeak!) is one Edward Conard.

Now, Mitt Romney, who speaks French very well, ought to know what that name means, and I'm sure he's banking on the fact that few Americans will know that one of his 1-million dollar sponsors is really named Edward Asshole.

PS: ok, I'll concede that the spelling isn't exact, as the correct spelling of the French insult is "connard"

Pauvres chéris...

2012-01-26T09:01:00.002+01:00

LEMONDE.FR | 26.01.12 | 08h42 • Mis à jour le 26.01.12 | 08h55

Baisse significative des bonus en vue. Selon une étude de Sia Conseil, publiée en exclusivité par La Tribune jeudi 26 janvier, les traders français pourraient voir leurs bonus versés au titre de 2011 chuter de près de 50 %.

Pauvres petits... on se demande comment ils vont mettre de l'essence dans leur Porsche.

HFW's Meat Manifesto

2012-01-25T22:35:00.000+01:00

Clearly, the kind of meat you buy has several ramifications. The most obvious are taste and texture, morals, and economic.

Morality comes into play because buying intensively farmed meat means that you condone the bad treatment of animals that is commonly practiced on intensive farms. While it's possible to be a moral person and eat meat, it's not ok to willingly engage in practices that deliberately hurt another living creature. I would argue that if you can't afford to eat meat that is farmed in a way that doesn't hurt the animals, you should eat less meat. Call me elitist, but at the same time realize that most people eat way too much meat as it is.

There's an economic component, clearly, to the kind of meat you buy. Of course, it's not the same thing to purchase meat that is mass-produced by giant conglomerates as to purchase (possibly for a higher price) meat produced by a single smallholder who carefully raises individual animals in humane and even comfortable conditions. With one option you are furthering a world where the concentration of the means of production leads to the reduction of choices and a sort of tyranny of large corporations (which we accept in return for the appearance of lower prices). With the other, you are fostering competition between smaller producers who retain a degree of independence that is the best guarantee against the uniformization of culture and the preservation of regional differences that form the rich cultural fabric that sustains us as humans.

In this way, the economic component becomes a cultural preservation component. Please note that I am not making the case that smallholders are inherently better, culturally speaking, than large corporations. Rather, I am saying that the fact that smallholders must be numerous, they will provide more diversity of options and cultures than a single large corporation. This diversity will manifest itself in the types or breeds of animals that they will raise, in how they will butcher them, etc... even within a single country. This diversity is what leads to a genetic guarantee against debilitating diseases that could wipe out a too uniform livestock population, saddening everyone from PETA-types to meat lovers.

All of these considerations, together with others raised by HFW, mean that a meat eater must be educated, adventurous, and thrifty with meat, ensuring that he gets the most of the meat that he purchases so that it is a satisfying experience informed by a carefully articulated moral stance.

A presumptuous announcement and endeavor

2012-01-22T21:26:00.000+01:00

Because nothing comes of doing nothing, and because it's time I did something other than complain or mock others (no matter how pithily) on this blog, I've decided that I'm going to re-start this great book that I've been reading and keep a journal here.

Announcing, with great presumption and pretentiousness, the start of a blogging extravaganza about "The River Cottage MEAT Book" by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall (HFW).

OK, so I love to eat meat, and it's a bit of a problem, if you will, because I'm also an environmentalist and a water specialist to boot. It's hard to combine a love of meat with a philosophy of respect for the Earth and its non-human inhabitants. I decided to read this book in its entirety because I started reading it months ago at some friends' ranch in Texas and I know that it offers a different philosophy about meat eating (also, because my wife bought it for me for Christmas).

You'll have to excuse the haphazard way in which this is going to go, because I'm not much good at book reports (never was, really). What I'm going to do is read a few paragraphs or pages a night and drop down a reaction here.

HFW and I agree that there's a major problem with the way most of the meat produced in the Western world reaches the plates of the people consuming it. There's a problem with quality, there's a problem with quantity, there's a problem with preparation. In addition, there's an ecological problem: the intensive production of meat is extremely bad for the environment, and a moral problem: intensively farmed animal live miserable, sick lives in inhumane (one should say in-animal) conditions.

While HFW is a bit of a megalomaniac, aiming to change the way millions of people consume meat (no less), he's got a very good point and one worth making at length and in detail, so that we can learn enough that we'll never have to finish our plate (of meat) and be sorry that "an animal had to die for that".

You know something's wrong when

2011-12-15T22:10:00.001+01:00

The top two headlines on "The Slatest" are the following:

Census: half of Americans are either poor or low income
and
Casino Magnate will reportedly pour $20M into pro-Gingrich group

being "poor" or "low income" means having an annual income at or below the poverty line, which is set at $45,000 for a family of 4. Notwithstanding the fact that $45K is not very much at all to live on in the US, especially if you aim to retire one day or send your children to college, consider the following:

It would take such a family 444,44 years to make such a contribution to Mr. Gingrich's political adventure, should they refrain from using any of their income at all.

We may all have freedom of speech, but some of us can afford a whole lot more of it than others.

Passive-aggressive law enforcement

2011-12-01T16:15:00.001+01:00

In Paris, it's common that law enforcement is passive-aggressive in nature. Fearing the reproach of a populace that is allergic to policing and ticketing, politicians will sometimes opt to prevent people from breaking the law through physical means, instead of punishing those that break the law.

It wouldn't be an issue if there were no consequences to this lack of courage. Unfortunately, that's not the always the case.

As you can see from the photos below, instead of giving tickets to cars parked on sidewalks, someone has decided that it would be better to clutter those same sidewalks with metal posts and prevent cars from parking there altogether. Notwithstanding the fact that those posts are "expensive" (they are not free: you have to purchase them, install them, paint them, and maintain them - they get bent every so often), they also occupy what little space would normally reserved for pedestrians! Instead of generating revenue from tickets, the city incurs an expense... all while blocking the way of the people it claims to protect.

The photos below capture a particularly egregious case, where the posts prevent the use of the pedestrian space that they are supposed to protect. I tried walking on those sidewalks, and was unable to, owing to the narrowness of the remaining space. Instead, like the lady walking the dog and the man-in-a-suit, I walked on the street, with the cars.

Photos

2011-11-27T12:15:00.001+01:00

Dancing on the roof

Another man on roof

A rare tourist-free view of the Sacre Coeur

Street signs of Montmartre

Pourquoi se gêner (2)

2011-11-18T16:01:00.001+01:00

Comme je l'avais écrit auparavant, la rue de Parme (Paris 9) accueille le commissariat du 9ème. Des scooters sont garés devant, en plein jour, au vu et au su des fonctionnaires de police (par ailleurs occupés, comme on le voit).

Heureusement qu'ils sont là pour faire appliquer les lois.

A useful sign

2011-11-18T15:55:00.001+01:00

It used to be that all roads lead to Rome, but now they'll just take you downtown.

Photos

2011-11-07T10:26:00.001+01:00

A few photos for your viewing pleasure. If you want to guess what they are, just write a comment.

Humour photographique - Photographic humor

2011-10-24T10:36:00.002+02:00

These photos are very clever.

Fausses économies

2011-10-20T10:52:00.003+02:00

Voir l'article du Figaro.

Et en particulier: "Bien sûr, Orange n'est pas la seule entreprise concernée. D'autres grands groupes, attirés par les prix du foncier à Saint-Denis, comme Generali, l'Afnor, la direction de l'ingénierie de la SNCF, etc. rencontrent le même type de problème."

Le "problème", pour ceux qui n'auront pas le temps de lire l'article, est que les cols blancs d'Orange se font agresser et voler leurs portables, iPad, etc... en allant et venant du travail.

C'est typique de la vision à une dimension des petits "cost cutters" à la petite semaine qui pullulent dans les grandes entreprises. Armés d'un tableur Excel, ils pourrissent la vie des autres avec leurs bonnes idées qui s'avèrent désastreuses, car ils n'ont pas su envisager la complexité des conséquences de leurs recommandations.

Je précise :

le problème des agressions, causées par les disparités économiques et bien d'autres facteurs n'est pas le sujet de ce billet - et je ne rejoins en aucun cas les raccourcis simplistes qui pourraient être établis par des "identitaires" au discours nauséabond.
je ne travaille pour aucune des entreprises en question

Démarches administratives à la préfecture

2011-10-15T21:29:00.000+02:00

Suite à cet article édifiant, je partage ici mon expérience à la Préfecture de Paris dans le cadre de l'obtention, par mon épouse, de sa carte de séjour.

Mon épouse est américaine. Nous nous sommes mariés (aux USA) peu après notre arrivée en France (pas logique, mais c'était prévu avant). Nous avons immédiatement engagé des démarches pour l'obtention de la carte de séjour valable 1 an, et renouvelable plusieurs fois avant de pouvoir obtenir celle valide 10 ans.

La demande de carte de séjour, auprès de la préfecture de police de Paris, n'a pas été aussi difficile que celle décrite par Flo, mais nous avons eu des vicissitudes diverses, et pas toujours très amusantes.

Le rendez-vous

Nous recevons une lettre, éditée sur une imprimante en souffrance, qui nous demande de nous présenter à midi à la la préfecture de police. La lettre précise: "ne vous présentez pas en avance". Armés des photocopies des documents demandés (longue liste pas claire), nous décidons qu'il vaut mieux arriver un peu "en avance". Nous arrivons donc vers 11h50 pour trouver une porte fermée, devant laquelle patientent déjà quelques personnes - d'autres petits malins, visiblement.

A midi, on nous fait pénétrer dans une salle où se trouvent 6 bureaux de fonctionnaires. Que fait le fonctionnaire à midi? il déjeune, voyons! surtout s'il a rendez-vous... et donc, nous attendons gentiment que la seule rescapée du bureau (est-elle punie?) puisse s'occuper de nous. Derrière nous, les 40 personnes qui ne sont pas arrivées en avance attendent, tristement, que ceux dont ils payent le salaire avec leurs impôts veuillent bien revenir de leur pause déjeuner...

Le bébé

3ème renouvellement de carte: nous sommes des vieux pros, mais, convoqués dans une autre salle que d'habitude, nous nous retrouvons dans une marée humaine désorientée. Alors que la salle Europe/Amérique du Nord/Moyen Orient accueille des gens qui parlent souvent français dans une ambiance feutrée, la salle Asie/Océanie est un tout autre espace. Ce grand hall froid, où l'on entend des gens pleurer et d'autres crier, pensant sans doute mieux se faire comprendre par des gens qui parlent chinois ou tamoul, est un triste reflet de l'égalité théorique des hommes.

Bref, nous attendons notre tour sur les chaises inconfortables, et nous nous présentons, dossier ficelé en main, au bureau de la fonctionnaire qui nous convoque. L'examen de nos justificatifs de vie commune pose problème. Le formulaire, très peu clair, précise qu'il faut apporter "des preuves de vie commune". Étant d'un naturel logique, j'ai pensé que deux pièces suffiraient (deux > un donc "des"). Erreur... la fonctionnaire nous demande désagréablement pourquoi nous n'en avons pas fourni 3. Passons sur le fait qu'il s'agit d'un 3ème renouvellement, et donc que nous fournissons ces documents pour la 4ème fois, par miracle, notre fille de quelques mois est avec nous ce matin là, sa nourrice ayant démissionné la veille.

la fonctionnaire, d'un ton sec et impatient : "bon, je prends l'enfant".
moi, un peu décontenancé: "vous prenez l'enfant?..." (je me dis: on a trouvé une nouvelle nounou!)
la fonctionnaire, agacée: "je prends l'enfant comme preuve de vie commune"
moi, totalement estomaqué: " heu, bon d'accord..."

J'ai failli lui demander si elle voulait faire une photocopie (le haut, le bas?), mais j'ai pu me retenir. Elle n'aurais sans doute pas goûté mon sarcasme... Nous étions devant le fait de la princesse. Cette petite chef avait décidé "d'accepter", totalement hors cadre et hors procédure, un "document" qui n'en était pas un, qui ne prouvait rien, et surtout qui n'était absolument pas nécessaire ou requis. Bref, faux sur toute la ligne, et impossible de le lui faire remarquer.

Et c'est bien là le problème! Je me demande comment ceux qui ne parlent pas français se débrouillent. Comment ceux dont la culture ne tolère pas l'arbitraire font pour se sentir dans un pays de loi, gouverné d'après des règles qui s'appliqueraient à tout le monde. Comment ceux que le manque de respect d'un agent de l'état envers les administrés laisse pantois se motivent pour rester en France, à moins d'y être forcé.

Rick Perry's pay-for-play

2011-09-14T15:33:00.003+02:00

Rick Perry. “I raised about $30 million. And if you’re saying that I can be bought for $5,000, I’m offended.”

This begs the question: If I suggested that he could be bought for (say) $1,000,000, would he not be offended? Is there a threshold for this? I'd like to know what price Mr Perry goes for.

Apparently, I am not the only one who is wondering the same thing...

Police Parisienne

2011-09-11T12:49:00.001+02:00

A Paris, il est fréquent que les automobilistes, animés par un égoïsme qui n'a d'égal que leur impatience, se garent en double file pendant qu'ils vaquent à leurs activités plus ou moins importantes. Pendant ce temps, les autres attendent, le plus souvent énervés, et se défoulent, fréquemment à l'aide de leur klaxon. La police, elle, ne se montre que rarement.

Il arrive même ce soit la police elle-même qui bloque une rue! Dans le cas illustré ci-dessous (Paris 9), l'officier de police a expliqué au monsieur qu'il bloquait, qu'il devrait reculer et faire le tour du pâté de maisons. Au-delà du caractère ahurissant de l'attitude du fonctionnaire qui suggère une solution illégale, on remarquera que la maneuvre suggérée était extrêmement dangereuse, car le brave monsieur devait reculer jusqu'à la rue de Clichy à une heure de pointe. Rue dans laquelle, d'autres parisiens énervés lui auraient sans doute réservé un acceuil chaleureux.

Je suis parti avant la fin de l'histoire, et je pense que le policier a déplacé sa voiture. Malgré tout, on croit rêver!

Smoking in Ljubljana

2011-09-08T09:10:00.002+02:00

On my way back from Kosovo, I had a stopover in Ljubjana. The airport is non-smoking, and is equiped with small cabins into which people will cram to smoke before a flight.

It looks like a ton of fun, and I really feel sorry for people who have to smoke so badly that they'd submit themselves to such an environment.

And then, once in a while, you're privy to an astonishing feat of parenting...

For the record, I do not know the nationality of this mother, and believe that no generalizations can be made on the basis of the location of the picture. It is, after all, and airport, where you might find pretty much anyone with enough money to travel and access to visas.

Diaper changing - a political act?

2011-09-07T18:15:00.004+02:00

Changing a diaper in a public place is always a fun undertaking. Be it a car seat (car stopped, of course), a lurching train, a shaking airplane, or just a dirty public restroom, I've done it all. I've noticed, over the years, that the symbol for a changing pad/area/room can vary. See below.

Image 1:

Image 2:

I apologize for the low quality of the photos (one taken in an airplane and the other in a train), but they raise interesting questions: does it matter who's changing the diaper? Should I be offended when I see the figure of a woman (Scotts notwisthstanding) used to depict this activity? Is it preferable to use the more gender-neutral figure wearing trousers?

Here are some answers:
1) as a man of Western culture, I find it regressive, more than offensive, that the act of changing diapers, and by extension of caring for children, should be seen as the purview of women alone. Not only does it confine women in their role as mothers, but it denies the fact that many men want to and can take care of children just as well as any woman. Signs as the one shown in Image 1 reinforce gender-stereotypical child caring roles to the detriment of both men and women, and of equality.

2) In a culture where women cannot or do not wear trousers, Image 2 raises the issue in the other direction... Are men then the only ones who can change a diaper? One could surmise that a culture barring women from wearing trouses would frown on men's changing of diapers. However, I can't be sure of that, so the issue will have to remain unresolved. In addition, the notion of what constitutes a gender-neutral figure is clearly more complex than meets the eye.

Je travaille

2011-07-29T14:30:00.001+02:00

Se garer sur la défensive

2011-07-28T13:54:00.001+02:00

Vu dans le 8ème à Paris, pas vraiment un quartier chaud, mais on n'est jamais trop prudent...

Cheating on exams

2011-07-13T07:34:00.003+02:00

A small-scale scandal is brewing in Paris, where Le Monde has revealed (article dated 12 July) that several of the subjects of the "bac" were available online prior to the exam, sometimes through class Facebook pages.

This is of course a big problem, including the complex re-administering of the many-part exam for thousands of 18 year olds, and probably more importantly in the eyes of the Ministry, the expensive re-mobilization of exam proctors and graders, all of whom are heavily unionized.

While cheating has always taken place during exams (I would even venture that it's happened in all cultures if the stakes are high enough), I am puzzled by those who are asking "why" an entire age group seems to be so willing to break the rules to "make it".

The value that of people's contribution to society in today's Western world is measured to a large extent by their remuneration. The rise of income inequality has created a yawning gap between those that have to tremendous riches and glamorous lives, and the rest, who can only look up in envy. When the rich & glamorous comprise people whose activities are suspect in terms of value for money (e.g.: sport stars, actors, artists, hedge-fund managers, traders, etc...) it debases the work of the productive members of society. This is particularly true in the current financial crisis, as the remunerations of the rich & glamorous has not fallen, quite the contrary for the bankers who caused the crisis in the first place, giving the impression that impunity has rewarded unfathomable greed.

The motivations for becoming a teacher, doctor, or engineer-that-practices-engineering must be very pure indeed, as they lead to automatic exclusion from the rich & glamorous set. This is despite the fact that these professions make arguably more valuable contributions to society (someone's got to teach and cure the kids who become engineers and build the private jets, after all).

In this context where access to immense privilege can be perceived as nothing more than a hold-up, it should come as no surprised that teenagers do not feel compelled to follow the rules of the game and study for their exams.

Pourquoi se gêner?

2011-07-12T09:59:00.002+02:00

Rue de Parme, Paris 9ème. Devant les bureaux de la Police, on trouve tous les jours des motos garées sur le trottoir. On voit régulièrement des PV aux pare-brises de véhicules dans la rue. On n'en voit jamais de aux pare-brises de ces motos. A qui appartiennent-elles?

Sans doute pas à des fonctionnaires de police, cela serait tout de même étonnant qu'ils se garent en infraction et en toute impunité ainsi.

Showing the way

2011-05-31T05:14:00.002+02:00

The man in 10B was short with dark hair. He looked vaguely familiar, like that kid in the back of your middle school math class.

He sat down and I realized that I was sitting next to Bozidar Delic (Božidar Đelić), the Vice-Prime Minister of Serbia and minister in charge of Science and Technological Development. One of the most powerful men in Serbia.

I am impressed that this man, whom I met briefly in his office a few months ago, flies economy without a bodyguard or entourage, and, to a lesser extent, that he remembers what I am working on (a small project in a politically crucial city, but a small project nonetheless).

Kalemegdan Park, Belgrade

2011-02-01T16:08:00.000+01:00

It was bitterly cold (-12°C) and rime had formed on every tree and bench in the park. In the summer, the place is teeming with people, but we were nearly alone to cross it on foot a few days ago.

Back to Sukkur

2010-05-29T07:17:00.009+02:00

I went back to Sukkur for another mission. This time, I got to spend a few days there.

One of things that I was asked to do was to attend a formal ceremony at which we were fed a boxed lunch. The box is actually a recycled cereal box, and when you open it you see what was formerly on the outside. This is the second time that it's happened, so I suspect that it's common practice.
There is an old fort on the Indus River in Sukkur, it's on an island and so the river looks only half as wide as it normally is. Because it was incredibly hot (over 45°C/113°F), boys were swimming in the river.
as were buffaloes
On of the problems facing Sukkur is the lack of appropriate solid waste collection. Thankfully, goats and sometimes cows consume a fair amount of the organic material.

The other animal that you see a lot around is the donkey. There are many donkey carts that people will carry all manners of stuff on.
Water supply in Sukkur is not sufficient, so people have installed hand-pumps from which they draw underground water. On the picture below, you also see another classic: the open manhole (very dangerous).

In this picture, you see an ad-hoc water supplier (using a tanker) getting water from a canal in which cows are having a dip. The cows are upstream of the tanker... (sorry about the blurry motorcycle in the front, I was in a moving car).

This fire fighting equipment was seen at a petrol station.
Whereas most women in Karachi and Lahore will wear a hijab or no veil at all (one can also see a few niqabs), there is a significant number of women in Sukkur and the surrounding area who will wear yellow burqas such as the one below. I didn't see any black or blue ones. I wonder if there is a significance to the color or not. There are also very few women in the streets, as compared to Karachi or Lahore.
In addition to the old fort, Sukkur has a few nice buildings, including this mosque.
As everywhere else in the developing world, those who can afford it have a bicycle, and will ride it even in the punishing heat.

Another option for transport is these overcrowded minibuses. Without air conditioning and room to move, I think I might prefer a bicycle.
Around Sukkur, some traditional houses are made with reeds from the banks of the Indus and the many canals that criss-cross the region.
There are also dozens of brick factories such as this one. Notice the date palms in the back, which the region is famous for. Don't be fooled by the electrical wires, power is available only a few hours a day, as load shedding is prevalent (the cause of the lack of electricity appears to be in part a dispute with India over water, on which I have no opinion).
In the poorest part of Sukkur, the roads aren't paved, which leads to puddles of sewage in the streets. You can also see a small flock of goats, a donkey cart, and two tuk-tuks.

Ethiopian Airline crash

2010-01-26T09:14:00.002+01:00

The tragic plane accident that recently occured off the coast of Lebanon (25 Jan 2010) should, one would hope, be reported on evenly in both the French and US press. Unfortunately, I was not surprised to notice the difference in reporting. Don't get me wrong: the facts are exactly the same, as is the pathos conveyed in the piece. What differs, however, is where the make of the doomed plane is mentioned.

Excerps are from the very first word in the article.

In Le Monde dated 25.01.2010 (emphasis mine) :

Un Boeing 737 d'Ethiopian Airlines avec 90 personnes à bord s'est abîmé au large du Liban, lundi 25 janvier vers 2 heures, heure locale (1 heure, heure de Paris), peu après son décollage de Beyrouth. Les équipes de secours libanaises qui participent aux recherches sur le site de l'accident avaient retrouvé dix corps lundi matin. "Jusqu'ici, nous avons retrouvé dix corps sur le site du crash au large des côtes de Naameh, [à environ 12 km] au sud de Beyrouth", a indiqué un responsable du ministère de la défense sous le couvert de l'anonymat.

see the entire article here: http://www.lemonde.fr/proche-orient/article/2010/01/25/catastrophe-aerienne-en-mediterrannee_1296109_3218.html
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In the New York Times online edition, dated: January 24, 2010

An Ethiopian Airlines plane crashed into the Mediterranean Sea on Monday morning shortly after it took off from Beirut International Airport in stormy weather. Officials said that 82 passengers and 8 crew members were on board. “The flight lost contact with Lebanese air traffic controllers shortly after takeoff,” said Wogayehu Terefe, a spokeswoman for Ethiopian Airlines. She added that a rescue crew was headed to the crash site to see if anyone had survived.

Of the 90 people aboard the flight, more than half - 51 people - were Lebanese nationals. The airline also said that 23 passengers were Ethiopian. Two British nationals were also listed as passengers, and the remaining six passengers were Turkish, French, Russian, Canadian, Syrian and Iraqi nationals, the airline said. The eight crew members were Ethiopian.

The plane that crashed, Ethiopian Airlines Flight 409, was a Boeing 737 that had been scheduled to take off at 2:10 a.m., according to the company’s Web site, but it actually left at 2:35. The 1,730-mile flight to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital, was scheduled to take 4 hours and 40 minutes.

See the whole article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/25/world/middleeast/25crash.html?ref=world

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I've long had a theory about this, namely that the French press will bury the name Airbus deep in an article while the US press will do the same with Boeing, and that the French press will lead with the name Boeing while the US press will lead with Airbus, depending on the case.

Should I be disappointed? perhaps a little bit, but I am also not surprised in the least.

Animals

2009-09-18T16:46:00.003+02:00

Domesticated animals are part of the ecology of the road, and can sometimes cause traffic jams as they cross.

Pakistanis are Muslims (for the most part) and so they eat beef, but they also consume milk. You see guys on motorcycles with old-fashionned metal canisters driving around. Here is a guy driving his cows (notice the short round horns on the black one):
Between Hyderabad and Sukkur, you're crossing what's essentially a giant desert oasis (more pictures of that elsewhere). And the desert, there are camels, or in fact, dromedaries.

Road danger

2009-09-18T16:36:00.002+02:00

The road is dangerous. Not because there is anybody out there to get you (if there is, I didn't see them), but rather because people tend to drive recklessly and at high speed. Vehicles are often overloaded and weave continuously, trying to go forward as quickly as possible. Sometimes, accidents happen (notice the decorated bumper)...

Overloading is a bit of a national sport (right after cricket of course)
And it can be done with either goods or people...
This car is driving about 60-70 km/hr (the one with the people standing)
Four people on a motorbike, and no helmet in sight.

Back from Sukkur

2009-09-18T09:45:00.008+02:00

I visited Sukkur, in northern Sindh province, as part of my trip here. I was taken around the town and somewhat astonished by what I saw, but have few pictures to show as my camera malfunctioned once I got there.

Instead, since I drove there from Karachi (8 hours), I have some pictures from the road, where the buses, trucks, private vehicles, and animals live in an incredible and somewhat precarious high speed equilibrium. The road itself will soon be improved, and the scenery was interesting. Unfortunately, most pictures are taken from a moving car and through windows, and so they are not very good, but they illustrate the journey sufficiently.

The trucks that seem to ferry an infinite variety of goods among the highway are colorful and beautifully and intricately decorated. This one is from the toll in Sukkur. Note that the entire truck is decorated, including the bumper.

Another truck along the road in the irrigated part of the Indus plain. Note the motorcycles on the highway.
Another truck
The peacock (or is it a partridge) is a common symbol. Perhaps it has some religious or national significance, but I am not aware of it. Note the decorations down to road level...
Some trucks are decorated with human figures.

Apparently, even the interior of the trucks is decorated, so that they are still stunning when they are empty.
A nice side view of a heavily loaded, and completely decordate truck, including the cab.
More peacocks/partridges.

From Karachi

2009-09-15T19:33:00.006+02:00

I am in Pakistan for a short trip . I have not had much of an opportunity to take pictures, but I have already been to Lahore and Karachi.

Lahore seems like a fairly peaceful city, and in the nice parts, is extremely leafy and clean. Old trees line the roads, which are in good condition. Our friends welcomed me in their home in the suburbs, where an amazing collection of kitchy developments has been laid to house the professional masses. The city itself has fairly low density. I will try to take pictures when I return later in the week.

This is a picture of the entrance to a development in suburban Lahore. Not far from this is something called Trafalgar Sq, I'll let you guess what it looks like...

Besides the brightly colored buses and the occasional donkey cart, there is nothing out of the ordinary about either Lahore or Karachi. There is the same nice villas, the same decrepit buildings, same beggards, bicycles, and tuk-tuks, same Range Rovers, servants, and armed guards, etc... that you might expect in similar cities around the world. Once thing that is amazing about both places, though, is the shear size: Karachi has 14M people (at least)...

People here are incredibly friendly and business driven. They all mention how bad Pakistan's reputation is around the world and want everyone to know that it's undeserved. Frankly, with what I've seen so far, I agree. I was invited to iftar to break fast, and met some very nice, highly cultivated and intelligent individuals. Of course, there is the occasional anti-zionist diatribe, and the jabs at the US and India, all within the confines of polite discourse and utmost respect for one's guest (that would be me).

Oh, and one more thing, once you have been to Lahore and Karachi, you know why NYC cabbies drive like they do...

More Belgrade

2009-07-29T22:49:00.002+02:00

At night, the crowds are out in the pedestrian strees outside my hotel. Apparently, there are even more people when it's not vacation time.
The old castle from a boat restaurant on at the confluence of the Sava and Danube.
Decrepit apartment building on Parliament Sq.
Parliament. Clearly, the Serbs are not afraid of car bombs, since you can park you car right under the windows of the parliament. There is also no visible security - in fact, you don't see any police to speak of anywhere in the streets.
Another church
A theater/museum of some sort (frankly I have not idea what the building is but I thought it was cool)

Belgrade

2009-07-28T18:13:00.007+02:00

I am in Belgrade for another work assignment. The city is suprisingly good looking without too many communist or war scars. The site, at the confluence of two major rivers (Sava and Danube), is quite stunning, and it's no wonder that it's been occupied since before the Romans showed up.

Without further ado, some photos.

There are some nice pedestrian streets in the center, near my hotel.

Down some streets, you can see interesting mixes of architecture. Is this synchretic urban planning?

My hotel, rather communist and drab looking, but actually passable.
The confluence of the two rivers is a nice sight. On the hill from which the picture is a taken is an old fort.
Part of the old fort.
More parts of the old fort.

Oh, to live in a world that's not ruled by lawyers and the fear of liability!

A church (duh).
More of the fort, with some nice yellow flowers.
A weird looking building in the distance, and another one nearby. The mix of architectures in this city is really something.
Someone who feels very strongly about Kosovo has tagged this all over town. Unfortunately, I can't tell what they are for or against (though the reference to 1389 makes me think they don't like Kosovo's independence).

Low-income areas of Lilongwe

2009-03-20T17:51:00.011+01:00

My work sometimes takes me to low-income areas (also called informal settlements, or slums). I have been to slums in various countries in Africa, and it's almost always been a rather crowded and invariably filthy experience. In general, people live in shacks built from recovered materials, and the streets are strewn with garbage - sometimes even human waste.

One of major problem is the absence of street grid which precludes land and home ownership and the provision of services (such as electricity, water, sewerage, waste collection, etc...). This makes sense: how can you provide services who people without a legal claim to their land - you'd be acting without a mandate, and essentially validating their illegal occupation of the public or private land on which the slum has sprung. "Sprung" is the wrong word here, as some of these places have been in place for decades...

In Malawi, this rigid vision of things seems to, thankfully in many ways, be a foreign concept. The low income areas that I visited have low density, and they benefit from some services: electricy and water kiosks, such as the one below.

One of the most pleasant surprises this particular LIA (low income area) was the absence of waste in the streets, the teeming economic activity, and the omnipresence of agricultural land uses.

Woman doing laundry with water from the kiosk. Water is purchased at 2.5 Kwacha for 20liters (or about 125 Kw, 0.8USD per cubic meter), which is significantly more expensive than pipe water delivered to the home (about 54 Kwacha, or 1/3 of a USD per cubic meter). On the other hand, slum dwellers control their water use both because they have to get it by hand (exhausting) and because they have limited cash on a daily basis. They would not be able to afford paying the monthly bill because they could never retain the cash long enough to pay the bill in full at once. In a perverse way, they are better off without a permanent home connection...
Children always love it when azungu (white men in Chichewa) show up.

It's the rainy season, and this girl is wise to carry protection...

A bar in front of a corn field.A coffin shop with some lumber in front of it.

A woman loading a child on her back in front of some bicycles used for public transport. The open space in the back is not part of the low-income area, obviously.
A few stores in the LIA. This one sells goods and telephone calls and scratch cards.

This one sells sundry goods. Note the pumpkin patch immediately behind it and the space between buildings. If you've ever been to a Brasilian favela or to a slum in Nairobi, you'll know why this is unusual.
There are also workshops in the LIA. This one repairs TV sets and electronics.
This one fixes bicycles, which is a major mode of transport despite the rains. Again, note the open space and absence of garbage.
A corn field and some pumpkins for sale, smack in the middle of the LIA. No garbage.

An example of some houses.
Another house with a cornfield next to it.
All in all, this is not so different from the non-urban villages that I have seen, and radically different from all other slums that I've ever been to. That said, I am told that there are other, more crowded, slums in Blantyre and in other places in Lilongwe.

God is everywhere...

A tyre recycling "plant", next to the hand of God car wrecking service.

Elsewhere in town, somebody is worried about a shortage of nurses.

Lilongwe Water Board

2009-03-20T17:34:00.003+01:00

I am here in Lilongwe doing some work for the Water Board, which provides drinking water in most of the city.

The Lilongwe Water Board, which is not very centrally located in this sprawling city without much public transit, kindly provides some transportation for its employees. Of course, it's very unsafe (these people are going to stand the whole way on the pickup)

Some people (mostly day laborers without contracts) get to ride in the big truck

The view from the Lilongwe Water Board

Back in Malawi

2009-03-18T21:24:00.002+01:00

I am back in Malawi after a month, but this time in the capital Lilongwe. My connection is very poor, and so you only get 2 pictures for now.

A street with gnarly trees. The city has very very low density, especially in this very residential area with large properties.

An ad for female condoms. As I wrote before, AIDS is a very serious problem in the country. Unlike in Blantyre, the water board here does not provide free condoms in the toilets.

Road from Blantyre to Lilongwe

2009-02-17T13:57:00.008+01:00

On the last day of mission, we left Blantyre at 4:30 to reach Lilongwe by 9:00 for our flight to Nairobi (via Lusaka). It was a nice trip, though the weather was miserable, and I was able to take some pictures. In fact, I took nearly 100, expecting that they'd all be blurry, but a few turned out.

The approach to a village.
Malawi is richer, as I've said before, than other places. Here you can see a mud house and a brick house in a village. This is not something that you might have seen in Niger.
The road follows the border with Mozambique for a while. This ruin is all that's left of a casino that catered to Malawians back in the days of colonization in Mozambique (until 1975, I think).
More pictures of Mozambique:

Some of the mountains on the side of road were capped by the low-hanging clouds.

a lush hillside.

The road goes through various market towns. In one of these pictures, you can see ox carts that people use to ferry goods to the markets (in addition to bicycles).

at one point, it got sunny...
An ox cart in action on the side of the road.
The road, doing its' best American West impersonnation.
Approaching Lilongwe, rock formations galore.

Trees climbing up over the hillside.
The aircraft (only one at a time, apparently) is waiting for you, maybe.

Malawi from the air. Notice the closely packed villages with the fields around them.
Kenya from the air, notice that the layout of farms is radically different, with farms at the center of their individual plots (big rectangular boxes). Also, it's the dry season...

Last pictures from Blantyre

2009-02-13T20:57:00.003+01:00

HIV and AIDS are very serious problems in Malawi, where a significant portion of the population is sick (and dying, mostly due to lack of access to ARVs). All state companies and para-statal institutions (such as the Blantyre Water Board) are legally mandated to participate in AIDS awareness and prevention campaigns. Among the many actions undertaken by the BWB (such as offering anonymous testing and counseling and distributing ARVs for free to its employees and for a subsidized fee to the public), is the distribution of free condoms. These are available in the toilets. If you zoom in, you'll see that the condoms are chocolate colored and flavored. No comments...
This woman had a funky hairdo, so she makes the blog.
A yellow flowered tree.
A mangy and enormous eucalyptus (probably close to 100 years old).

More pictures from Blantyre

2009-02-12T22:09:00.003+01:00

Blantyre has some very nice trees everywhere, including this giant pine tree.This one looks like something that the dinosaurs might have eaten, and the sky looked cool too.

A random street, notice the modern looking buildings, not something that I've been accustomed to in Western Africa recently.
As I said before, there is some really nice scenery around.
A mountaintop at sunset.
The local Hindu temple.
Pretty yellow flowers in the tree.
A double carriage way, as they call them here, again greenery everywhere at this major intersection.

Pictures from Malawi

2009-02-11T18:36:00.002+01:00

Blantyre is a very low density city. Here is a picture of a street scape, with one of the nice hills in the background. These pictures are taken from a moving car, and don't do justice to the vibrant colors.
A more urban part of town.
What is striking here is how clean the city is, and how good the roads are, especially considering the political past of this country. You might also notice that the cars are recent models, which is very unlike the western African countries that I have recently been to.
A reservoir in the middle of the city. Despite the lack of urban development immediately behind the reservoir, we are inside the city limits.
Mini buses are a popular transport method, but they can't park here. Notice the corn the background (we're smack in the middle of town).
The view from the hotel on a rainy day.
More inner-city cornfields.
A chicken joint with a hopeful name. The red buckets on the left hand side are for hand washing before and after eating the fried chicken (with your hands, of course).

First impressions from Malawi

2009-02-10T06:17:00.002+01:00

When you leave the very low-density city of Lilongwe behind to head southwards to Blantyre, you pass through some of the most beautiful, if densely populated, countryside I have ever seen.

At this time of the year (rainy season), the land is lush and green, with fields of maize everywhere. Steep hills dot the plains in a haphazard manner, and settlements are tightly packed, not unlike in western Europe. Land is communally owned, and allocated to members of the community on an as-needed basis. Fields surround villages.

The road climbs over hills and overlooks the plains as you travel along the Mozambique border, where the shells of Portuguese casinos can still be seen in Dedza.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to take any pictures so far.

Niger River and gardens

2009-01-26T17:04:00.001+01:00

more random pics

2009-01-21T12:11:00.002+01:00

A few more photos, without much logical organisation

2009-01-20T11:15:00.003+01:00

The Niger River flows through Niamey.

In the countryside, on the way to the giraffes, we saw these granaries that are raised above ground and protected from animals with wooden fences.

These dromedaries had giraffe envy, eating out of trees and all that.

In a village, the bare baobab tree waits for the rainy season to bloom. In the meantime, he's happy to be decorated with some ears of maize.

Obviously people in villages don't have running water, and so they go the well to fetch water. I will post movies of this when I have a better connection.

Kids don't have to worry about getting toys from China, instead, they make their own with recycled garbage.

The area is populated by two ethnic groups, the Haoussa (sedentary farmers) and the Peul (animal husbands - what else do you call people who practice animal husbandry???). These are Peul cattle.

Informal economy

2009-01-19T14:52:00.002+01:00

The formal economy is very small, and so many people basically survive from whatever work they can find. This is even more true outside of Niamey. In these photos, you see harvested wood from the savana (dry wood only, I am told) being sold road-side to trucks wanting to take it to Niamey.

Since the population of Niamey has limited access to electricity or natural gas for cooking, many people cook on woodstoves. This leads to massive deforestation, of course, as woodland are not sustainably managed (or managed at all). In a final irony, some of this wood gets transported on the back of oil trankers, which shows that oil companies are into renewable energy - or that they don't pay their drivers enough.

Kouré Giraffes

2009-01-19T10:14:00.005+01:00

On Saturday morning, we headed out to Kouré to see the wild giraffes that live there. The Kouré giraffes are the last wild giraffes in West Africa, and they have bounced back in 10 years from 67 individuals to 205. This is a real success story in terms of concerted conservation, and the giraffe live in a populated, cultivated, and grazing area designated as a biosphere reserve for the benefit of the local population. The local population receives some of the proceeds of the visitors’ ticket prices, and compensation when the giraffes eat their crops (apparently they dig beans a lot).

The giraffes were very easily approachable. This being the dry season, they get around in small groups of fewer than 10 individuals. We saw a group of four comprising one young and 3 adult females, including a pregnant one. We were able to get out of the car and approach them on foot (as close as 30 feet, but I didn’t try to go closer), as they placidly ate leaves off the trees.

These giraffes, as you might notice, are lighter colored than East-African giraffes. This is one of their characteristics, and can be explained by the dry environment that they live in. Without further ado, here are the pictures.

This is the requisite “I was there” Japanese-tourist shot.

3 giraffes pigging out. The stalks you see in front are millet, which is left to stand after the stems are harvested to serve as food for the animals (cows, sheep, and goats).

At one point, the giraffes decided to check me out as well before going back to eating.

I'm with you, that leaf did look tasty.

They young one is slightly darker than the older ones.

Niamey Critters

2009-01-17T01:00:00.000+01:00

There are lots of animals in Niamey. This picture shows a dromedary carrying a load at a busy intersection.

Donkeys are everywhere. These are lugging an enormous hay bail.

This donkey seems to have an easier job.

A red-eyed dove having a drink.

Some flowers.

Sorry, no pictures of goats yet, but they are coming, I promise.

More from Niamey

2009-01-16T17:00:00.003+01:00

My colleagues and I spent the day opening manholes and looking for leaks and lost pipes. I know you're all jealous that you too could spend your days doing this in the hot Sahel sun, but it's fun to me, and it's not hurting anyone. I took the time to take some pictures, and had a fun adventure.

Notice the word "Coiffeur" or hairdresser on the straw door to the shack.

As in so many places in Africa, people use mud bricks to build many structures.

Sometimes, however, they use wicker. These people are squatters and have no services whatsoever.

Zoom in to see the great use of metalic bottle tops as washers to ensure that the nails do not rip the through cardboard that makes up the walls.

Djibo, pictured below, is a mechanic with the air pesticide patrol - the so-called "Protection des végétaux" - and he and I had lunch together today.

I had been to his hangar a few times already to open and close the taps, as my colleagues and I open and shut valves on the network to see if we could pinpoint a leak and understand how the system was organised (we didn't). After a few stops, he was about to sit down for lunch and asked me to join him for some beef stew and French bread. He insisted, and I couldn't refuse without offending him. The stew was spicy and very good, and very much like the stews I used to eat in Uganda. It was warm and so I decided that it would be safe. I stuck to the sauce so as not to deprive this generous man of his lunch.

We had a great conversation about how he came to be a mechanic on this small Cesnas that fly crop duster missions to kill the various species of crikets, buggers, and - he leaned over to tell me softly - sometimes birds that destroy the crops that are so badly needed in the country. Such kind and warm welcome just doesn't happen in Europe or in the US anymore (or rarely); I just hope that my stomach won't make me regret it.

I have been struck so far by how well people speak French. I daresay their French is much easier to understand than some Anglophone Africans' English, particularly Liberians.

From Niamey

2009-01-16T10:46:00.004+01:00

I arrived in Niamey last night, and it's very much as I imagined it: a sleepy town with an equally languid, enormous river running throught it.

Although there are somewhere around 1M people here, the place has an unhurried and uncrowded feel. Back streets are unpaved and everything is red from the dust. The heat, in this season, is not oppressive (35°C), and the trees are green or covered with flowers.

Nigeriens so far have been very welcoming and friendly.

Is Obama an Arab?

2008-10-12T09:34:00.002+02:00

He's not, but just in case, let's hear John McCain tell us so himself:

Your tax dollars at work

2008-09-20T15:07:00.002+02:00

So here it comes, the big bailout, the monster cash extravaganza, brought to you by your tax dollars. The US government looks like it's on the verge of buying up 1000 billion USD of bad debt (that's right 1000 BILLION) from the various fools who brought you the subprime crisis.

I do not deny that something must be done to prevent the US, and consequently the world's, economy from going into a further tailspin. I won't even begrudge GWB for taking credit for 'fixing' a crisis entirely of his own making. I do however, have a question.

I'd like to know where all of the private jets, the mansions, the yachts, the wine collections, and the barrels of champagne are going to go. What's going to happen to the private islands and the racehorses? You know, those that were amassed by the deserving people who ran Bearn Stearns, AIG, etc...

Those people, we were told, were making absurd amounts of money because they were creating an absurd amount of wealth that all of us could enjoy. They were making credit available to all of us, and that kept the world economy humming. For this, they were paid billions (collectively, over the last 10 years, that is). It's called trickle down economics, to use a dated term.

Today, you, me, and your grandmother, are being asked to help bail these people out. So I repeat my question with a slight twist: can I get a timeshare on that private island? what about a few hours in that jet? I might even settle for a bottle of 1992 Dom Perignon, if there's any left.

A few more pictures

2008-06-27T11:52:00.007+02:00

One of my colleagues sent some pictures.

Sitting for tea and méchoui (whole wood-cooked lamb with herbs inside, eaten with hands)
In the ksar. The white blotches on the walls indicate that something 'happy' has happened in that house.
Collecting water sample (I was not on vacation)
Standing by a pilot well in the desert (not yet in activity). It was about 55°C in the sun. We didn't stay long.

Crawling into a foggara
Collecting untreated sewer water (the things you do...)
Walking in the dunes
Standing on a sand dune.
Need I say anthing?

Where is Timimoun (inquiring minds want to know). Click on the picture for a larger image.

The foggaras

2008-06-23T17:45:00.009+02:00

As I mentioned in a previous post, one of the most interesting aspects of the irrigation of the palm grove is the foggara system. This system is ancestral, as it originated in the 12th century, and is widespread in Algeria, some places in Morocco, and in Iran.

The basis of the system is that there is cliff in which there is a spring. At the bottom, you decide to plant palm trees. The spring is fed by a fossil aquifer that happens to surface at a given spot. As the water flows out of the spring, the level in the aquifer drops and the spring's flow rate ebbs.

To maintain the spring's flow, you can start digging a nearly horizontal gallery into the cliff, reaching back to the aquifer's front. The longer gallery you dig into the aquifer, the more flow your foggara generates. The beauty of the system is that the water flows by gravity (no pumping). Clearly, the aquifer's front will continue to recede away from the cliff as the foggara depletes the aquifer, and you'll be stuck digging further and further into the aquifer, always at a slight uphill.

Because this system is inherently low-tech, the galleries are unsupported and dangerous, which is why there are wells every 8-10 meters to ensure access all along the foggara. The longest foggara in Timimoun is 14km (9mi), and ends far into the desert. A foggara is therefore composed of two parts: one which is gaining water (in the aquifer itself), and one that is losing water (where the aquifer used to be).

From a socio-economic point of view, the foggaras are also very interesting, in that they are maintained in a cooperative manner. Clearly, the maintenance of 14km of tunnels is too much for a man and his sons. The water from that foggara is also more than is needed for the land a family can work.

The system works as follows: water flow is allocated on the basis of land ownership (lots of land=lots of water), and water and land rights are not separable. They can however be traded as a set. In proportion to his water rights, one is required to undertake repairs on the foggaras. Clearly, as parcels become more and more fragmented, it becomes increasingly difficult to coordinate the inputs of an ever-larger number of cooperative members, and the foggaras fall in disrepair. In addition, ever-smaller parcels become uneconomical and are abandoned by their owners, which leads to an increase in the marginal cost of repairs for each remaining individual land owner.

With all that said, we require a few illustrations... going along the flow.

Out in the desert, you can see the maintenance wells of the foggaras going on for miles.

Once you reach town, the well covers can be more or less decorated (yes, that big white tower is a well cover).

I was fortunate to go into one of these foggaras in two different parts. It was a bit like Indiana Jonesing through the Timimoun underworld...

Some parts are really narrow.
As you can see, the bottom is unimproved, which explains why water will get 'lost' as it flows through this part of the gallery (currently no water is going because of repairs).

In another, functioning, foggara, near the outlet.

Once the foggara reaches the hillside (cliff side), it emerges from it into what is called a 'comb' (un peigne). Water is then allocated by using the openings in the comb and channeled downhill to the parcels in question. The water can be further divided at downstream combs.

the same comb looking downhill. Notice the two combs. The first one serves to remove turbulence from the flow, thereby making the allocation by the second one fair.
Open air channels take the water to the parcels. These are made of carved sandstone.
Once the water reaches the individual properties, it's usually stored in a open air basin, such as this one.

Then the farmer will water individual 2x3 meter parcels separated by tiny dirt ridges, where he'll grow a variety of vegetables and legumes.

Some combs are broken (though this one might have been broken on purpose).

In the following two pictures, you can see the arrivals of various channels, and the complex allocation of water to various destinations. this results from the trading of land/water rights. It's actually quite intense if you care to zoom, with mini aqueducts. Wet clay indicates that these are maintained regularly.

Below is a sub-comb, if you will, where the flow is further subdivided. the channel to the right side of the picture is freshly made.

Unfortunately, the longer the foggara, the longer the losing part, and the less efficient the foggara becomes. The amount of water it produces is a function of its length, as is and maintenance cost. The amount of arable land (and income) is constrained by the water available. It follows that the system is inherently flawed from an economic perspective. At some point, the cost of maintaining the foggara exceeds the profits to be made from working the land it waters. It appears that we've reached this point in Timimoun.

The Dunes

2008-06-23T12:49:00.007+02:00

Timimoun is on the edge of the Grand Erg Oriental, which is an enormous expanse of sand dunes (several hundred square km). You have to cross some salt flats, and you get to the dunes, which have magically stopped at some point instead of marching across the valley.

One morning, before sunrise, we asked a driver to take us there. The pictures do not do justice to the grandiose sight, and all it took to see this was to walk less than a mile in.

Here you can see the valley and Timimoun on the other side (ok, you can't really see Timimoun, but it's there).

Up close and personal with the dunes.
Sunrise
Something was here.
You can see how big this place really is. In the background is the valley.
Some pictures without words.

Here is a shoddy 360 view from the top of a dune, but it does give an impression of how big the place is.

The Timimoun Ksar

2008-06-09T08:51:00.000+02:00

Timimoun, like a lot of cities in the so-called Old World, has two parts: one modern and one not.

The not-modern part (I wouldn't want to call it old, since I don't really know how old it is), is called the ksar, which means "fortified village" in Arabic, is the equivalent to the medina in Moroccan cities. I went for a stroll through the narrow sandy pathways as the day was falling, and took a few pictures. The ksar isn't very big, probably not more than 1-2 square kilometers, if that, but habitat is incredibly dense.

This is a public square in the middle of the ksar.

At the base of the castle, young boys play football on one of the few flat, paved surfaces of the area.
Some streets are covered entirely (and the passages unlit). If you venture down this way, you'll find doors with numbers leading to private homes, but the passage is public space. Because the flat floors are supported by palm tree trunks (there is no other building material besides mud/straw bricks), the width of the streets is constrained at less than 2 meters. This is because the trunks do not have enough structural strength for longer spans. The guy is another expert on the mission.
Sometimes, wider passages are built with archways, but those are rare. Zoom in on the picture and check out the bat flying by the expert's head.
On some walls, the cover is these hand-shaped mud balls.
A wall and door in the ksar.
A tower for the castle
A staircase leading to a private home.
Another public space. Note the way that the infrastructure has worked around a large rock outcrop.

Adrar to Timimoun

2008-06-08T11:59:00.000+02:00

We travelled from Adrar to Timimoun by car. Because we were in an official convoy (with members of the Ministry of Environment, Equipment, and Tourism), we were not allowed to travel at more than 80 kph, which is very very slow in the vast emptiness of the desert. In fact, the most surprising thing about the ‘vast empty desert, is that whole stretches of it are not empty at all. There are palm trees, villages, electrical poles, green houses, and, indeed, whole cities!

So, the vast empty desert has stretches of vast empty emptiness, but it has other things as well. Some of which are portrayed below. Most taken from the car, which explains while they are not very good. In truth, the scenery along the road is not exceptionally beautiful, and I haven’t managed to take a good picture of Timimoun, where the view from the hotel and over the salt flats is absolutely staggering.

The vast empty emptiness. This is mostly the view from Adrar to Timimoun, until you get close to Timimoun.

Greenhouses just north of Adrar. Adrar prefecture is well-known for its produce (that’s right), which is grown using fossil water from below the Sahara. The amounts involved are very small compared to the overall volume of the aquifers, but the real problem is how to ship tomatoes 1800km north to Algiers.

Palm trees behind a mud-brick wall.

Sand flying over the road

On getting close to Timimoun, the scenery changes and becomes a lot more interesting, with sand dunes, rock formations, etc…

Palm trees, dunes, and grass

Arrival in Timimoun

A poor attempt at capturing a grandiose view. I’m told the view’s even better in the winter, when the sky is much more blue.

Away in the desert

2008-06-07T11:40:00.002+02:00

As I boarded the plane in Paris this morning, on my way to Adrar in the middle of the Sahara, the sky was grey and the weather cool. On stepping out of the plane and onto the tarmac, I was hit by the warmest wind I’ve ever encountered. It was a cool 43°C in the shade, and the wind felt as if someone had left the oven door open (only this time I was in the oven).

Adrar town is the wilaya (prefecture) of Adrar province, which is where Timimoun is located. I am headed to Timimoun to evaluate tourism development opportunities there. On arriving at the hotel, I turned on the TV (what else does one do?) and the first two things I see are, you guessed it: Pimp my Ride (subtitled in Arabic), and an Eddie Murphy romance movie (also subtitled). It’s amazing how far American trash reaches… You can run, but you can’t hide.

We took a walk around town in the late afternoon, and there are some pictures to show for it.

This shows traditional building materials of this area, which is mud brick that’s cool in summer and warmish in winter.

A butcher shop in the souk. No, the meat that’s hanging isn’t refrigerated, and that’s why he hasn’t got much of it.

The oases of the Sahara are watered by structures called foggaras, which require manholes every 20 m or so. Here are some manhole covers. Foggaras are hand-dug tunnels that can span a much as 14 km and provide gravity (ie: no pumping) irrigation to the oases from the Albien aquifer that stretches from Algeria to Egypt.
The main drag in Adrar as you exit the hotel.

More main drag

Still more main drag. Notice the shop under the arcades.

A mosque at nightfall

An old Peugeot taxi drives by an administrative building in traditional style.

The dumpy hotel room at the Hotel Touat (state owned and run)

Same dumpy room

Selling veggies outside. These guys are very dark skinned, but they are Algerians, not immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa.

The main shopping area at ‘rush hour’.

A street scene at rush hour

The main square at dawn, this place is teeming with life in the evening.

Obama speaks

2008-03-20T15:15:00.003+01:00

And you should listen.

Please note that I am not endorsing him.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/18/us/politics/18text-obama.html?pagewanted=1&sq=transcript&st=nyt&scp=2

Let me know if the link is broken.

Multi-cultural dialogue - dialogue multi-culturel

2008-03-11T20:28:00.004+01:00

On my way to a second week in Oujda, I met a young man (my age) who was born there and who has lived in France since the age of 6. He told me that he's a French citizen, married to a 'Gaul' (a term I suggested). He also explained to me how he feels Moroccan, that his parents have retired in Oujda, and how he owns a vacation home in a nearby beach town.

He insisted heavily on how much he likes France, and how he feels French. He also told me at length how he is also Moroccan (you can't give up the citizenship, apparently), and that his wife loves to vacation in Morocco with his 3 Arabic-named children. He went on to tell me how privileged he feels to be a bicultural and bilingual person.

It's always refreshing to meet someone like this.

I wish that someone would tell the thousands of French "children of immigrants" who live in France that they can be like this man: that they can fully claim their dual culture, and be proud of it.

They should know that they do not have to choose between France and a so-called home country where many of them have never been.

They should know that they do not have to reject their parents' traditions to be French, and they do not have to give up being French to be Moroccan, Algerian, or what have you.

Finally, someone needs to tell all the racists and mildly bigoted people in France that some French people are black, or Arab, and that couscous is a French dish, just like pizza has become. Live with it.

Maybe then we can inch towards a solution in the suburbs.

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En repartant passer une autre semaine à Oujda, j’ai rencontré un jeune homme (mon âge) qui y est né, et qui vit en France depuis l’âge de 6 ans. Il m’a expliqué qu’il est citoyen français depuis ses 18 ans, et marié à une « Gauloise » (mot que je lui ai suggéré). Il m’a aussi expliqué qu’il se sent Marocain, que ses parents ont pris leur retraire à Oujda, et qu’il possède une maison de vacances dans une ville côtière toute proche.

Il a insisté sur son amour de la France, et sur le fait qu’il se sent français. Il m’a aussi expliqué longuement qu’il est Marocain – il semble impossible de renoncer à sa nationalité – et que sa femme adore passer ses vacances au Maroc avec ses trois enfants aux noms arabes. Il a continué en me disant qu’il se sent privilégié d’être bilingue et biculturel.

C’est toujours un plaisir de rencontrer quelqu’un comme ça.

J’aimerais tant que quelqu’un explique aux millions de Français « issus de l’immigration » qu’ils peuvent être comme cet homme : qu’ils peuvent pleinement assumer leur double culture, et en être fier.

Ils devraient savoir qu’ils n’ont pas à choisir entre la France et un soi-disant pays d’origine où ils n’ont souvent jamais mis les pieds.

Ils devraient savoir qu’ils n’ont pas besoin de rejeter les traditions de leurs parents pour être français, ni de refuser d’être français pour être marocain, algérien, ou autre chose.

Enfin, quelqu’un doit expliquer aux racistes et aux bigots divers que certains français sont noirs, ou arabe, ou que le couscous est un plat français, comme la pizza l’est devenue. Faîtes avec.

Alors peut-être qu’on pourra s’acheminer lentement vers une solution.

Oujda

2008-03-08T12:20:00.008+01:00

Where's Oujda? Où est Oujda,

The city is on the border, and you can see Algeria in the background (the tall mountains).
La ville est à la frontière, et on peut voir l'Algérie au loin (les montagnes).

The current president of Algeria, Bouteflika, was born here, and attended high school in this nice lycée.
Le président de l'Algérie, Bouteflika, est né à Oujda, et a été au lycée ici.
Oujda has no tourist trade to speak of, and that's because there isn't much to see in town. The nice thing is that you don't get harrassed by hawkers trying to sell a trip to see the pyramids, or a safari, or what have you. This is a view of the old city (médina) from my office window.

Oujda n'est pas une destination touristique, en grande partie car il n'y a rien d'intéressant y voir. La contre-partie est qu'on peut s'y promener sans se faire accoster par des vendeurs de safaris et autres visites des pyramides. Voici une vue de la médina depuis la fenêtre de mon bureau.
The médina gate at sunset.
La porte de la médina au coucher du soleil.
Don't even think about bringing your donkey cart this way...
Interdit aux ânes bâtés...
An old man fixing an equally old Peugeot 204.
Un vieil homme réparant une aussi vieille Peugeot 204.
In case you had any illusions that the israeli-palestinian conflict had a simple solution.
Au cas où vous auriez pu penser que le conflit israëlo-palestinien puisse avoir une solution simple.
A reminder of the French colonial presence.
Un reste de la présence coloniale française
Two cigarette sellers eat couscous on the street.
Deux vendeurs de cigarettes mangent du couscous dans la rue.

En route to Morocco - En route pour le Maroc

2008-03-06T10:40:00.000+01:00

Vol AT 751 pour Casablanca, nous attendons le décollage. Un homme se met à crier, en anglais, et avec un net accent africain : « j’étouffe, au secours, … » Au début, les cris sont faibles, mais ils deviennent plus forts avec l’énergie de désespoir. « Je demande l’asile politique ». On commence à se retourner pour voir le fond de l’appareil. On comprend vite la situation, et on rit d’un air gêné, on se plonge dans son livre, on se met à discuter politique avec son voisin, ou bien on peste carrément sur le fait que tout ceci va retarder l’avion.

Le personnel se précipite vers l’arrière. Les cris s’amenuisent, et tout rentre dans l’ordre. Une fois en vol, je vais chercher un verre d’eau au fond de l’appareil. Pas de trace de ce réfugié politico-économique (qui sait où commence et finit tout ceci). Tout le monde sait que la France sous-traite les expulsions du territoire aux compagnies privées, sur des vols comme celui-ci. Mais l’illusion reste parfaite, et chacun d’entre nous peut continuer notre vie de privilégié autorisé à voyager de part le monde sans se poser de question.

Epilogue : le passager récalcitrant (Ghanéen, il s’avère) a été débarqué sur décision du chef de cabine. C’est un usage apparemment bien répandu, les associations de défense des immigrés informent les expulsés que les compagnies d’aviation refusent généralement de transporter les individus qui se rebellent.

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Flight AT 751 for Casablanca. We are waiting to push back, when a man starts to scream, in African-accented English: “I’m chocking, help me!, …” At first, the cries are muffled, distant, but they grow louder and more desperate: “I demand political asylum”. The crowd starts to understand, and gazes turn to the back of the plane. The situation is quite clear, and people laugh nervously, start up a political conversation with their neighbor, dive into their book, or complain out loud that this charade will delay the plane.

Flight attendants rush to the back of the plane. The cries diminish and stop, and all goes back to normal. Once aloft, I go back to get a drink. There is no trace of this political-economic refugee (who knows where the line between these really lies). Everyone knows that France subcontracts the flying of illegal immigrants to private companies, on commercial flights like this one. But the illusion is complete, and each one of us can go back to our privileged life where travel restrictions don’t exist.

Epilogue: the recalcitrant passenger (from Ghana, it turns out) was removed from the plane as per the bursar’s decision. It’s apparently a common pattern, as the associations that defend illegal immigrants inform them that airlines usually refuse to transport rebellious prisoners.

Intro

2008-03-01T10:34:00.000+01:00

The purpose of this blog is to serve as a repository of ideas and opinions, along with reports of travels. I hope that you'll enjoy reading it. I will try to keep postings extremely short and bilingual.

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Ce blog doit servir de dépot à mes opinions et idées , et à mes expériences de voyages. J’espère que vous aimerez le lire. J’essayerai de faire que les textes soient bilingues et très courts.