Acqua Zumba

The rain can fall, the door can stay in the river, the boat can sink I don't care I’m going away for the next couple of weeks if this blog has any entries it will be about the trip to South America not about mud and water and living in the cold.

Firstly I need to get fit.  Urgently.  I’m flying into Ecuador and going for a trek in the Amazon.  Friends tell me I have left my campaign to lose weight and get fit rather late. They could be right.  

So I go to an Aqua Zumba class in Thrapston it consists of a swimming pool full of ladies of varying shapes and sizes, all old enough to know better, standing chest high in chlorinated water waving their arms while trying to keep time to the loud music and an energetic instructor prancing about on the side of the pool. 

I hate exercise classes but have decided that an aqua exercise class might be bearable. Underwater you can’t hear the muscles scream, you can’t see the flab wobble and most importantly nobody can see that your legs aren’t actually pumping up and down. All I need to do is make a few splashes on the surface of the pool and it will appear that my lower limbs are thrashing about energetically. 

The class starts with salsa music: we all thrust our arms high in the air, move to the left, twirl around a bit, bend our knees. My left arm aches where I have had the typhoid injection.  That is one of the problems of travel to out of the way places, the need for a copious amounts of injections. I have signed the form saying I am aware of the side effects of the yellow fever injection the most serious of which is death.

The music changes to an Elvis Presley number, we have to jump up and down and clap our hands above our heads.  I’m not really sure what Zumba is but I had the vague idea it was salsaish and not rock and roll but never mind a bit of jumping up and down is good for me.  I jump and clap and try to make a decision about malaria treatment.  The last time I took anti- malaria tablets they made me feel ill, so much so that I decided that a dose of malaria must be preferable to the preventive side effects of the medicine and I stopped taking it.  I’d avoid those tablets if I could remember what they were but as I can’t I’ll probably take them again and spend most of the holiday feeling nauseous. I’ve got industrious quantities of Deet to spray on clothes, to rub on skin and impregnate mosquito nets with.  I’ve got walking boots and socks and long trousers and shirts that button from wrist to neck all treated with repellent.  I dare any mosquito to get within biting distance of me.

The music is now a song with an Arabic feel.  It seems we have to gyrate in a belly dancerish sort of way while twisting hands and arms skywards.  Hips must be wriggled enthusiastically, that’s OK my hips are under water so the instructor can’t see that my nether regions are less than enthusiastic.  When I leave I’ll go into the pharmacist to see if they have any high factor suntan lotion.  I’m flying into Quito which is 2,800 metres above sea level and I’m told that the UV factor is strong because of the altitude and I’ll need suntan lotion and sunglasses. I’m concerned about altitude sickness, my daughter who suffered from altitude sickness when flying into Bogota recommends coco tea.  I wonder if the Co-op in Thrapston sells coco tea.  I’ll also need warm clothing because I’ve looked at the weather forecast and at the moment Quito has a high of 16 degrees during the day and a low of 6 degrees during the night and it’s raining heavily so I need wet weather gear as well.

The music is back to high tempo salsa, we’re shimmying from left to right, although I’ve got it a bit wrong and I’m shimmying from right to left which is causing confusion amongst the ladies in my line.  I look at the clock, only five minutes to go and then I can escape and continue planning for my holiday. We’re having a mild winter and the temperature in Devon is not much less than the temperature in Quito and at the moment it isn’t raining in Devon.  Maybe I should forget exotic travel and just go to Devon for three weeks.  I wouldn’t need injections that could kill me or tablets that make me sick.  I wouldn’t need suntan lotion, sunglasses, sprays against mosquitos and remedies for diarrhoea and dodgy stomachs and altitude sickness. I wouldn’t be in danger of getting malaria or dengue fever or yellow fever.  I doubt if I need to worry about poisonous snakes or alligators or piranha fish in Torquay. I wouldn’t need expensive health insurance that includes repatriation. And best of all I wouldn’t have to come to this bloody exercise class to try and get fit enough for a trek in the jungle.

Doing things.....

Yesterday I went for a ride on Santa's sleigh, pulled by Rudolph of course. But I didn't get a chance to sit on Santa's knee and tell him what I want for Christmas only the little ones did that.

On Tuesday I booked my flights to Ecuador and made plans for a five day trek in the Amazon.

Ooooohhh isn't it all exciting.

Gone fishing - Part Two

The Mechanical Magician arrives with a device that would make Heath Robinson envious (or there again maybe not).  It is the new patent device for fishing doors out of rivers.  A pole with a piece of wood fixed on the bottom and the three magnets attached.  The theory is that because it is rigid it will make it easy to manoeuvre and find the door.  It doesn’t make it any easier to find the door, the door seems to have disappeared into The Nene equivalent of The Mariana Trench and is refusing to be located.  The contraption is heavy and awkward and when lobbing it into the river my paintwork and windows are under threat. We keep catching something heavy which may be the door or may be that sunken narrowboat again.  In the end we do thing I always recommend when cunning plans aren’t working.  We pack it in and go and have a cup of tea.

I have a piece of Perspex which fits the side hatch but which I have never used because I have to remove the side hatch doors to fit it in.  Well now I’m half way there, I remove the second door without dropping it in the river and fit the Perspex.  I like it better than the steel doors, it’s light and bright (and draughty but never mind that), the only downside is it illuminates the kitchen floor which is in serious need of a good clean.

We now need a new plan to retrieve my door.  The Mechanical Magician talks to a man in the chandlers who has a friend who knows a man who has the full scuba diving kit.  A decides if somebody is going diving he needs a chimney retrieving and if he’s down there he might as well bring up that butlers sink that is behind my boat because it will be useful for planting flowers in.

Later that day The Man Who Knows Everything comes over for coffee and tells me we have been going about this in the wrong way.  He will come over on Saturday and show us how it should be done.  Problem solved then.

Gone fishing

I needed more light to see where to put the screws for the thermal curtains I was putting up across the side hatch.  I opened one side door.  I opened it carefully because I knew the hinges were dodgy.  I didn’t open it carefully enough and it escaped my grasp and jumped into the river.

I could see it in the shallow water near the bank and I thought I’d be able to get it out with my sea searcher magnet.  I couldn’t find the magnet.  Went to T to borrow his.  Caught the door but was at the wrong angle to pull it in.  B came along to help, we decided we needed two magnets. Asked B if he had one he said ‘no, I borrow T’s if I need one’ asked everybody else but it seemed that everybody borrowed T’s magnet  if they needed one.  We tried again with one magnet : caught the door: pulled it just within reach: tried to grab it: it avoided capture and slid away under the boat.

Untied the bow and let the current take the boat out far enough to locate the door.  B did a balancing act along the gunwale with the magnet finds the door again starts to gently haul it out of the water and then watches it fall away and move further into the middle of the river. Citing cold hands and pressure of work B leaves me to it.

I suddenly remembered I’d tidied the back cabin when the washing machine was removed.  Looked in tidied compartments and found the sea searcher magnet.  That just proves tidying up is a bad idea, I’m not going to do it again.

Now I have two magnets and two new helpers.  The Mechanical Magician and the Landlord arrive, the boat is moved back and they perch on it’s outside edge and go fishing.  They catch the door.  They start to walk it gently towards the bow.  Almost there it suddenly drops away.  It disappears from view.

The fishing starts again. The rope on one of the magnet breaks, they search for it with the other one and catch the missing magnet.   The Mechanical Magician appears with a third magnet, a heavy beast that looks as if it will do the job. He slings it into the river. The rope breaks.  They go fishing for the third magnet. Retrieve the third magnet and then have difficulty separating them all.

They start all over again with three magnets on long ropes. The Landlord says they can feel something heavy down there, but it won’t be hauled up, he wonders if it’s a sunken narrowboat.  Over the next half hour they catch my boat, each others magnets, an awful lot of bottle tops (who would have thought that boaters drank that much) various screws and coins and eventually they catch the door.  Then they lose it again.

The fog rolls up the river, it is cold and getting dark and they go home to get warm. I cover the hole in the side hatch with cardboard.  We’ll have another try tomorrow.

Good News

It is a month after the typhoon hit The Philippines and I have just learned that all of my ex colleagues in Tacloban have survived.  I have only had direct communication with Emelyn because she had moved away from the city and the area of West Samar was less badly affected.  In the case of my other friends I have found out they are safe by trawling through Facebook to look at postings from their friends and relatives.  I won’t make bad remarks again about Facebook (well not for a while anyway) for it has been a very useful forum for information about the survivors. 

We had a fund raising evening at the club.  We ate Filipino food and danced the Tinikling, the dance which entails stepping in and out of bamboo canes.  There weren’t many broken ankles. It all made me realise how there is much about the country and people that I miss. When the communications are up and running, which isn’t likely to be until after Christmas, I will send the money raised directly to the people to help rebuild their homes.

Watching and Waiting

The Man that Knows Everything knocked on my roof this morning at 7am demanding coffee. He’s a happy bunny because he had just heard from his new love in The Philippines that she and her family are safe.  She’d queued for four hours to make a three minute telephone call.  She said there was no sign of any food being distributed within the city and was surprised that throughout the world money was being donated to help them.  Four days must seem an eternity to be without food or fresh water and to live amongst the death and destruction of this typhoon. It is easy to criticise the government and aid agencies for doing too little too slowly but the logistics of moving help to disaster zone must be incredibly difficult.

I am doing what he has spent the last few days doing. Watching video after video to see if there is a face I can recognise:  looking at the scenes of devastation to see if I can identify places of safety that friends could have gone to: the office I worked from is no longer standing:  the area of Sagakahan where my friend and god-daughter live is flattened and under water.

Going to school

 

As my son said we often see images of disasters of displaced and grieving people but when you know the place and many of the inhabitants those images are so much more emotive. 

Barugo Church

I keep wondering if the lovely children in the schools I visited have survived, what about the chatty man who sold me roast chicken and the miserable old cow at the supermarket check-out.  What about MacMac who strapped half coconut husks on his feet to polish my floor. I can’t get any information about what has happened in Barugo where the biscuit makers co-operative I worked with live or in Barangay Bukid where the chicken rearing project was started.  All we can do at the moment is to watch and wait and give money to the aid agencies.  When the communications are up and running then I can send money directly.  I think Western Union will get the money transfer system working as soon as possible, after all they aren’t going to miss a business opportunity like this, then I can send money directly to the people to help them try and rebuild their lives. It is all I can do.

 

The eye of the storm

Here on The Nene we battened down the hatches for a storm that never arrived.  It seems trivial that we even worried about it when you compare it to the truly devastating storm that has hit The Philippines.

Tacloban Harbour in calmer times

I’m finding the news from there particularly poignant because the centre of the storm was in Tacloban a city I lived in for two years.  I can look at the pictures of the devastation and recognise the places that have been damaged.  I know how vulnerable are the shanty towns that have grown up around the edge of the Tacloban Bay.  Many of the people that I worked with lived in bamboo dwellings roofed with grass which offer little protection from falling coconut and banana trees or telegraph poles.

 

Tacloban Shanty Town

I lived through one typhoon that’s epicentre passed through the city.  It was nowhere near as strong as this typhoon and I lived in a concrete house above the areas liable to flooding yet it was still frightening.  I can only imagine how terrifying it was to have the wind howling around a house amongst trees, with roofs that are about to take off and watching torrential rain fall and see the water rising or to live on a hillside where the drenching could trigger landslips.

 The people of The Philippines are resilient.  They have to because disasters strike regularly. They will pick themselves up, clear up the mess and get on with their lives.  They will do it with humour and humanity. One thing my two years in Tacloban did teach me was to love and respect the Filipinos, especially the very poor. At the moment I can’t reach any of the people I know out there but my thoughts are with them and I hope they have come through the storm unscathed.



Bohol hit by the typhoon and a recent earthquake