Day 9: Saharawi Recce

Day 9 Sat 2nd Oct


We go to meet the architects and discuss the new building that Danielle and I drew up on kids drawing paper, and had a hard time explaining what a floating room was and how and why it is needed in a recording studio. I ended up pointing at rubber engine mounts to explain why it was necessary to block the noise out from the outside when recording. We got our point across and can only hope that the building comes out as we wished, we will just have to wait and see.

The rest of the day was spent resting and preparing to leave for Blighty.

Before leaving Danielle had organised going to a family’s house for dinner in their tent which I was looking forward to as I hadn’t been in one of the tents yet. On arrival we were treated to tea and a banquet of food that would not look out of place in a restaurant back home and for the first time here I fed fresh veg and fresh fruit. Not all the family was there as a lot of them are schooling elsewhere, but there were still eight or nine for dinner. This was a great way to end my trip here.

So off to the airport to meet up with the olive branch crew for our mammoth journey home via Algiers.

Hamdi comes and sees me off at the airport which was great and we were on our way.

Day 8: Saharawi Recce

Day 8 Fri 1st Oct


So tonight we are going to meet up with the Olive Branch crew and go to the sand dunes which will be great. It will be a fun night under the stars and with some local musicians from the group TiRiS who are very talented musicians and singers.

So the trip to the dunes started out well, slow but good all the same. Nothing gets done quickly here and you just have to go with the flow at times. So we first drive to Samara to pick up the Polisario guides which must escort us to the dunes as we are not allowed to go alone. On arrival we start by racing some of the other vehicles across the sand which was a good laugh and it was good to see the young people we have been staying with laugh and joke openly as there has been a lot of seriousness on this trip.  We are, after all, here on a serious mission but it was great to see them let loose a bit.

When we stop it is in front of a huge dune that we all climb and start throwing ourselves off this is where the trip took a bad turn for me as, whilst throwing myself off the dune, I dislocate my clavicle bone in my shoulder and after a bit of soldier medicine which included them trying to pop my bone back at much pain to me I opted for being taken to the local refugee hospital in Samara. There the doctor promptly patted me on the stomach and said “that wasn’t a good idea huh”. He said what we already knew and sent me to the bigger hospital in Rabuni that I had visited a few days ago and of course the director was there waiting for me. News travels fast here.

Here I get an x-ray which confirms our initial thoughts however they don’t have the drugs or materials to sort me out so the call the military hospital in Tindouf which is across the Algerian border. So, off I go in their ambulance, once I get to the border I have to wait 45mins for the military to send an escort which turned out to be two 4X4 Toyotas with fully armed escort, front and back.

Once at the hospital the French bureaucracy kicked in, and we were there for a good two hours whilst they checked and triple checked my passport; wanting to know all about everyone’s mum and dad and where we were all born. At the end they sold me some drugs and put a figure of eight bandage thing on me and sent me packing back to the Tindouf border with my armed guards... sleepless nights began from here due to the fact that I had to lay on my back and every move I make would ensure a yelp / scream from me.

Day 7: Saharawi Recce

Day 7 Thurs 30th

We go to meet the secretary of the Minister of Culture, Mohammed, and he shows us the plan for the building. It is OK, however, I don’t feel it is the best use of the space so I set to work on re-designing the building into a more usable space with more studios and less classrooms. I've never been asked to design a building before but Danielle and I manage to get a hold of a ruler and start designing..

Around us we have many visitors including the very lively MoMo, a member of the local band Tiris, who is a constant source of music and laughter. Also there was Biba, also from Tiris, and whom I think is going to be a great asset to the Studio Live project as he is a strong spirit and very good musician whom I think will really embrace the studio concept. Lots of music was played and there was a great atmosphere in the house.

 

Later in the evening we head out to Auserd with two more musicians who are taking us to hear some of their music and for me to check out the equipment they have. The drive takes 40 mins and nowhere near the main road so a bumpy ride was had.. Our driver Hamdi was essentially driving blind as there were no road signs, in fact there were no roads at all so all done on memory. Once there we went to Ahmed’s house and were looked after by his wife and entertained by his kids whilst Ahmed went and set up his equipment. The equipment he has was, as I thought it would be, all cheap Chinese products which to be fair do a job at the right price but I can hear in the music he plays that there is a need for better equipment, simply because the kit he has is not doing justice to his skills.


After a while we head back to Feb 27 and eat and sleep.

Day 6: Saharawi Recce

Day 6 Wed 29th


Danielle arrived in the middle of the night and was there when I woke. So today was a bit of a lazy day in the house with lots of visitors as Danielle is well known in the camps and has lots of friends. I updated Danielle on the past week and talked about our meeting tonight with the Director of Culture.

Meeting the Minister of Culture was the big meeting as she has the power to make our project work in many ways. With her behind the studio we would have access to many of the resources available to the Saharawi people and the influence to get all the camps involved. She can organise transport, concerts and meetings so it is very important to have her on side.

So we have just finished the meeting with the Minister of Culture and to our surprise she is not only into the program we want to bring here, but she is willing to give us access to a new building which she has secured funds to build from the international humanitarian aid,and turn it into a music school in which we can house our studio and where we can implement our engineering course. She asked us to meet with her secretary the next day to help them to re-design the building which of cause I know nothing about but will try my best. All in all a very good meeting and she seemed to like me and was very open tothe ideas I put to her.

In the evening we head out to the theatre were the Olive Branch team were showing their two weeks of teachings in a 35 min show, which was great and very powerful in parts. The show is made up of stories and songs from both the young people in the show and songs in English added by the Olive Branch crew. The show was well received and all involved should be very proud.

Back at the house we have more visitors and decide to eat outside as it was a cool night. We had some musicians over who played music whilst we chatted. I have bonded with Hamdi’s cousin Cory and in broken French and English we manage to talk about everything from Moroccan prisons, to music and the World Cup. I managed to get music and photos from him which will be very useful in documenting this trip..

Day 5: Saharawi Recce

Day 5 Tues 28th


Eaten alive last night, DOH, and still no electricity, therfore no fans so very hot in the house.

After breakfast it’s off to the main hospital for all the camps. I am surprised to see that the hospital is very clean and not over populated with patients; I am told this is because most people would rather go home and be looked after by their families than stay in hospital. Although the hospital is clean and well run, it is seriously under equipped. The director, who has kindly taken 15 minutes to show me around, explains that they get a lot of equipment donated but much of it doesn’t work for long and when it breaks they don’t have the skills to fix it. Therefore, it tends to sit in a corner doing nothing, for instance they had a Vito ambulance donated that works perfectly well, however no one knows the code to enable the computer to start the engine. So it has sat dormant whilst they have awaited the code for one year.

TV editing suite

We next visited the TV/Radio stations for a full tour and meeting with the director. The tour was great and I got to see the facilities they have, and was very surprised that they are able to run a TV and radio station with such little equipment. I can see that the radio station has a lot of use and the young engineers who work there are very keen to learn new methods of broadcasting and to get their hands on newer equipment. Again they talk about the need to get the message out to the West about what is going on in their country as a main concern, so we talked about the internet being the best option.


I think that the radio engineers will benefit from our studio as, whilst talking to them, I quickly gather that their knowledge is very limited. Even knowing how best to record live concerts was something they knew nothing about, and after I explained to them a simple method they were all smiling and very happy. I can see that we will be working with them once we are here.

My hope is still that we are able to teach them and then have them pass on the knowledge to the rest of the students. However, this is still shunned when I mentioned it again to them.. hmm well see..
Home to see the electric was back on and tea, eat n sleep.

Day 4: Saharawi Recce

Day four Mon 27th


I slept great last night even without the fan on. Yehaaww

I woke to find that I had missed the slaughter due to the fact that the car we were going to use wasn’t working so they didn’t wake me.

I have just returned from a morning of visiting various centres around the camps. First we visited the human rights centre where I met the president, Abdelslam Omar Lehcen, where he gave me a tour of the facilities. There is a lot of photographic evidence, which he says is recent and shows some very painful images from the jails in morocco that house the Saharawi prisoners; some who are there for simply speaking publicly against the occupation and some being soldiers from the war.

I ask the president if the Saharawi people are getting much assistance from the rest of the Muslim / Arab nations seeing as they are two Muslim / Arab nations at war. He tells me that they do get help in the form of aid from some of the Muslim / Arab nations but the bigger more influential nations will not intervene as the Saharawi people are a liberal Muslim / Arab country and if someone wants to eat during Ramadan they are not frowned upon and that women are not forced to follow the same rules as in other Muslim / Arab countries. This does not sit well with the bigger Muslim / Arab countries.

What I saw and heard alarmed me. The invasion of Western Sahara can very easily be deemed contentious, as so often is the case, it seems to come down to a case of natural resources - in the Western Sahara’s case it is oil, phosphates and fishing rights. However, the Moroccan government state that they have occupied the Western Sahara because it was once the Moroccan Sahara and they had a claim on the land prior to the Spanish occupation. The UN asked the advisory committee of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at the Hague to rule on the plight of the Western Sahara. They ruled that the Western Sahara should be ruled under the sovereignty of the Saharawi people. As there is no way of enforcing the rule of the ICJ advisory committee, unless the UN or the bigger world powers put pressure on the Moroccan government, the occupation is going to remain as it is.

I am told that the UN is now pushing for a referendum in Western Sahara as the solution to this occupation. However, the French have vetoed this option so it seems that this is not going to happen anytime soon. Meanwhile the UN are spending $75 per annum on working on behalf of the Saharaui people, $25 on aid for the refugee’s and $50 on the delegation who are working on the referendum. It seems like a bit of a joke to me.

I have asked most people I have met as to their opinion of the best way to get their country back. The overwhelming view is that it should be done via a political route and not war. So even though the UN has effectively given their country to the Moroccan government they are still pinning all their hopes on the UN to get it back. Politics over war is great in principle. However, I am sceptical of their chances, and although I don’t think that war is the option, I can foresee problems akin to the Israel – Palestinian situation happening. I also foresee the Moroccan government being in power for a long time, at least until all the natural resources are gone.

Next I visited the Hospital for the survivors of land mines, located outside Rabuni and a 10 minute desert drive.

I met one victim of the war here called Saheed Mohamed who was a Saharawi soldier fighting in the occupied territory and was paralyzed by a land mine explosion. He has been at the hospital since Dec 1982. He mainly talks about getting the word out to the West about the situation in the occupied territories of Western Sahara. He asked me to thank the people of the UK for their help so far and to continue their aid even if it’s the smallest of help. He finishes by asking me to say hello to Elizabeth, our queen… yep you read right. I said I would try… Saheed filled me with sorrow and then hope as his positive attitude came out during our meeting. Even after being here for 22years without any hope of recovery his thoughts are first for the people in the occupied territories and not for himself. I got the same response from another patient in the hospital who was simply a Bedouin family man who was not involved in the war but was paralyzed by mines and has been in the hospital system since 1981. Both men wanted me to get the message of their countries situation out the west so that the future will be better for the future generations of Saharawi people.

We headed back to Feb27 to have lunch and sleep through the midday sun although, as I am not used to this, I sit and write.

In the evening we headed out to Samara which is one of the biggest camps here in the desert. It’s a 35min drive from Feb27.

We go to visit one of Hamdi’s friends who has been staying with us in Feb27 and helping Hamdi out whilst I am there. His name is Mohammad Lamine although I call him Manchester City as his English is limited to football teams and players and every now and then he shouts out the name of a football club in either Spain or the UK. I keep telling him that Arsenal will win the champions league this year and that always gets a laugh out of him.

Samara

Samara is a huge place with maybe 50,000 people living here without mains electricity. All the houses are on solar power and, as in Feb27, all houses have satellite TV. The surroundings are more like my preconceived ideas of what a refugee camp would look like: a lot more rubbish and dogs here with more close-nit-quarters and narrow alley ways. Although Samara is less developed in terms of electrical facilities it does have better shops that are better stocked and I can see that there are definitely some entrepreneurial people here. I met a young friend of Hamdi’s who owns a store which sells everything from knives and forks to solar panels and car stereos. He's been in the camps for 8 years and started with nothing. He’s 24 now and looks only to grow his shop into a thriving business.

Samara Rubbish

We return to Feb27 and get dinner This time I get to help out in the kitchen, but not for long as the women turn up again and I am ousted. The women to my surprise start speaking English which was nice to hear, but I'm soon taken to the living room to drink tea.

We still have no electricity in Hamdi’s house but we are promised it will be back on in the morning. Dinner is ready about 0030 and all of the women leave when dinner is served except one, I think her and Hamdi are “friends” - it’s hard to tell as affection is not openly shown here.. we eat and sleep…

Day 3: Saharawi Recce

Day Three Sun 26th


I slept much better last night but still was woken several times due to the heat and creepy crawlies.
I woke at 10am to new faces. It was only the second time women were here and the voices filled the house with much laughter. After the morning tea ritual Hamdi tells me that after lunch we will go to Rabuni to meet the director of the radio station and TV station for the Saharawi people. This is where I hope to find the people who will be trained in the new studio.
Rabuni is where the S.A.D.R government have their official buildings and where the aid caravans come to deliver their aid and they have the most creative fuel stations I’ve ever seen.

Fuel Station

On arrival to the TV station building we are told that we can be seen for only five minutes as there is a conference on and they will have to get back to it. We discussed the possibilities of working with them in the new studio we are proposing to bring, but the response I got wasn’t what I was expecting at all. They basically said that they'd welcomed the studio and would be very happy to put their workers through our course. However, they wouldn't be able to then use the trained staff to further work in the studio to teach others the same course’s; which I wasn’t expecting or willing to accept. I was asked if I would like to return in a day or so to have a full tour of their facilities, which I accepted and we left.

After leaving I had a talk with Hamdi and, thinking about it, I suppose that the trained staff will be too busy putting their new skills to use in the TV and Radio stations to then go and teach at the studio. We will have to look at some other options re training staff for a permanent position in the studio.

We re-visited the 'Olive Branch Theatre Group' again today to see that their show coming on well. After they had finished for the day we all went back to the home where they are staying, and to hang out and meet the people they are staying with. We were treated to a traditional dance show by the children whilst Hamdi and Mahmoud played the guitar.

Theatre Show

After dinner I'm told that our house will be taken over tomorrow by a family who are celebrating the birth of a new baby. It will be the baby’s naming ceremony, which takes place 7 days after the birth, and to celebrate a goat is being slaughtered at 4 am. I request to be be present at the slaughter as I have never seen a slaughter in an Islamic country and, having heard many discussions on the subject, most recently on BBC radio London, I wanted to see for myself what was involved. I was told that I could come so I went to sleep earlier to ensure I would wake in time. It’s a lot cooler tonight so I am hopeful of a good night’s sleep. However, just before I sleep the electricity goes off so not sure I’ll get that good sleep. Hmmm.

Day 2: Saharawi Recce

Day Two Sat 25th

Tea Ritual

A sleepless night was had as the heat was too much for me and the creepy crawlies didn’t help either. Plus I never sleep well on the first night in a new place, even back home.

I was woken for a breakfast of bread, cheese and eggs and a tea ritual that consisted of three small glasses of tea: first Bitter as life; second as sweet as love; third as mild as death - although they just seemed to get sweeter and sweeter to me. The ritual takes about an hour and a half in total and the amount you drink is about a third of a cup of tea from back home, but I enjoyed watching the process and the tea is great. I preferred the 2nd glass for taste.


Today I start the many visits that Hamdi has programmed in for me. We start at the Saharawi museum and I get a brief description of their history and the troubles in the occupied territory by Hamdi. The images are very similar to those that I have seen on my travels to the Australian outback, many of the same methods are used in their cooking techniques, implements and structures.

Saharawi Museum

Morrocan Jail

When prompted Hamdi explains his own story of how he came to be in the camps in Algeria. He explains that he came to the camps four years ago as he was facing a 9 year prison sentence in a Moroccan jail for publicly speaking out against the occupation of his country. He lived in Laayoune the capital in the north of Western Sahara and he travelled to the south to Bojdour some 200km before climbing the wall and making his way through the land mined area on the other side. He travelled for two days in the Western Sahara desert before he was found by the Saharawi army and taken to the refugee camps in Algeria near the city of Tindouf. He left behind his mother, father, 5 sisters and 2 brothers, he is 24 years old now and works for the protocol, which is there to look after westerners and aid workers who visit the camps. His English is very good and so he get the jobs of looking after the English visitors and receives a wage of 50€ for 3 months work.

Zorgan

We then go to the school in FEB 27 and visit a teacher and see the kids. Next to the school we visit a centre that is housing a group of UK theatre teachers. They are from the 'Olive Branch Theatre' www.olivebranchtheatre.com who have a group of young men and women who are learning to act for a show that will be played in a weeks time for the people in the camps. The directors of the camps are very concerned that their culture will soon be lost if they are kept out of their country for much longer. They are very keen to have the young people learn new methods to express and tell the stories of old, which is what the play will be about next week. It’s fun to watch the rehearsals and to hear the translations from Zorgan the translator.

 I am told by Hamdi that he has just arranged a meeting with the director of Naaja Ali the centre for info / culture in FEB27, Anana Labat Arachid. I'm there to discuss with her the possibility of housing the FairTunes/Sandblast studio in her centre. I am surprised to see that they have a AV studio and internet via satellite in the building and to hear that they will soon have a ADSL line in OCT 2010. She explains the importance of having a music studio in the camps as the traditional music and spoken word is fading from the youth and they need to document it in order to preserve their past for the future generations who have and maybe never will see their homeland. She also explains that music is a great way of spreading their message about the occupation of their country.

Western Sahara Desert

FEB 27 is the smallest yet the most advanced of the camps in Algeria and was originally set up as a camp for the women to study and continue their culture. Anana explains that without the women the camps probably would not have been set up so soon and certainly not as advanced. It is evident that the women here are very respected by the men, which was a fear of mine before coming here. I was worried that I would see the men dominating everything and the women being put down and treated as 2nd class citizens, as this is what I am lead to believe by a lot of press back home and, to be fair, what I have seen with my own eyes. But the Saharawi people are liberal Muslims so nothing is forced as far as dress and roles within the community and, in fact, it's fair to say that the women run things here.

The heat is overwhelming at times but this doesn’t stop the women from wearing a full body dress, called Milfer’s, and thigh high boots with woolly gloves with sun glasses. Apparently the reason they wear this seemingly crazy outfit in such hot weather is because it creates a micro climate which keeps them cool. The young women here seem to find my presence funny and giggle when they pass while the young men ask about my bandana, which has Bob Marley on it.

Olive Branch Theatre Crew

This evening is spent wondering around the camp seeing all aspects of life here. The goats all live on the hills and when I get there I can smell why they live apart from their owners - they are housed in pens made from whatever scrap metal they can find . We head off to the shopping area within the camps, which I soon nicknamed oxford st. Again I am shocked to find that there are shops at all and that there are shops selling a variety of home wares, building materials and food. It seems that my guide Hamdi is very popular here and we are stopped every two minutes by male and female friends just saying hi or interested in his companion (me).

Finally we get back to Hamdi’s house and I offer to help cook but I am turned down and instructed that some female friends of Hamdi will be coming over to cook for us, which I happy about as Hamdi isn’t married. Therefore there wasn’t much of a female presence in his house so I was looking forward to talking with them and hearing their stories. Alas i was not to have this opportunity as they came cooked and left only to return to clean up after we had finished... I asked Hamdi why this was and he explained that when they heard that he had a western visitor they wanted to help him to look after me so they came for that purpose, a shame as I wanted to hear what they had to say too.

Dinner is eaten late in Hamdis house, 0030am to be exact, so after eating I went straight to bed as the night before wasn’t the greatest sleep.

Day 1: Saharawi Recce

My trip to the Saharawi refugee camps, Algeria. Recce for music studio.
Day 1 Fri 24th September 2010.

Delayed for two hours at Heathrow, a great start, however this does mean my five hour wait at the airport in Algiers will be cut back and I expect there is more to do and see here than there, so off to the whiskey shop I go to do some “sampling”..

Finally we're off and the flight was good. On arrival I cause a scene with customs as my visa was dated wrongly in London. It seems that I was only permitted to enter on the 25th and it’s the 24th so I get taken to the office and I’m thinking, here we go... But after some broken English and a call to the boss, who sounded like he was out raving, I managed to convince him that by the time I get to my final destination (Tindouf) it will be the 25th so we laughed about it and I was on my way.

On entering the arrivals hall I was approached by five men varying in age. They all seemed to know where I was going and wanted to help me get there.“Tindouf Tindouf ??" they shouted. I guess most westerners would be going to the camps and once they realised I spoke English I was allocated the youngest man to guide me. I don’t think I had a choice in whether I wanted a guide or not... That’s cool though it’s all part of the experience I feel.

On route to the domestic terminal a 200m walk away and with the young man running through the list of premiership football teams and players until I told him I was an Arsenal fan. He then switched to telling me that Arsene Wenger was the best manager and listing the Arsenal team in perfect English, a well-rehearsed routine I’m sure, none the less he knew his football. So now he gets to the business end of his guidance, black market exchange rates. He opens his phone and starts typing numbers for euro-dinar and pound-dinar having only been here for 40 mins and not seeing a bank or bureau du change I was suspect about the rate I was being offered so I only changed 40€ and tipped him 5€, I later found out that his rates were better than the banks DOH.. I should have known really.

Only a 1hr 45min wait for my connecting flight now so I settled into my new book along with some other westerners who were clearly going to the camps too. The flight to Tindouf was as long as the flight to Algiers and a lot busier, I was knackered and managed to sleep a while on this flight. We arrived at 0130am at Tindouf airport and after a quick pat down on the runway by a seemingly uninterested soldier I filled in my final immigration document, my 5th since arriving in Africa and I was through. I met some American teachers and gardeners there who come for periods of up to 3 months at a time to teach in the schools and in the community gardens. 

Hamdi

Finally I meet my guide (Hamdi) who will be with me for my complete stay, in fact I’ll be staying in his house. He lives in a camp called Feb 27th  - so called as this was the day that the Spanish finally left the western Sahara and when the Sahara Arabic Democratic Republic S.A.D.R was announced to the world. On the journey to Feb 27th I am accompanied by two Spanish documentary makers who had their video camera taken away from them as they didn’t have the right paper work or stamps for it. There’s a lot of bureaucracy here left over from the French occupation I would imagine. On arrival to Hamdi’s house I’m surprised to see that the lights are on and he has electricity, which was great as he had a fridge and a fan. It was as hot as hell and I was ready for some wind and a cold drink. However, it was now 0230am and I was totally knackered so I set up a bed in my room and went to sleep..