(NOT TO BE CONTINUED)

Djibouti :

 

What I Know:

 French.

 I book into the Hotel Relais.   Within the hour the power of the Dash has me driving out to the main gates of the docks to meet a customs official. Twenty minutes later armed with a seal, a sealing gun and stamped documents he hands me the keys to a forklift. “I will be back in a few hours, “he says pointing to a container, which happens to be on top of another container.

A heavy dollar shake handshake he leaves. In the middle of the night never having driven a forklift I was looking at prospects of lifting a container, not to mention loading it and wiring up Williwaw so she does not move during her forthcoming sea passage.

After a few ear-splitting practice run on a similar container that would have woken the dead I am backing away with ebbing confidence to deposit an enormous steel box with a resounding bang to arouse the whole of Djibouti’s French armed forces.

Not a living soul appears.

Opening the doors of the container I drive Williwaw to the entrance. She won’t fit in due to her roof rack. I deflate her tyres but she is still a fraction to high. The front of the rack where I stored my tool/spares/ jerry cans will have to be flattened. It takes a half an hour searching to locate the hacksaw. Four am the job is done, batteries unconnected, wired up, blocked, I close the doors on our faithful friend.

With dawn breaking there is no sign of my customs official I let myself out.   Walking back to town a pungent waft of cooking arouses my hunger. All a quiver I sit down to a large breakfast. Eight am I on a flight back to Addis the journey is over not quite.

On landing in Addis I am arrested. Apparently I have a single entry visa.

There is no interest as to why I have arrived from Djbouti or that I have a flight booked to the UK in a day’s time. I have no proof other than the export papers for Williwaw that I left Ethiopia. No passport stamp.

Six hours of haggling, explaining that I was due to leave in a day’s time. That I needed to pick up my belongings from Paulo address were all having no effect. Once more the might of the dollar has to come to the rescue > Flight 207 leaves on time with me on it.

At the start of this narrative I was asked why Africa. I suppose the answer is because it feels like the original Continent the Cradle of life.

Would I do it again. Is the Pope a Catholic.

Donation News: To be honest I did not expect anything other than Zero. So I thank all those that took the time and interest to read the Journey as we are all on the same journey and we will all leave with zero. However I Fanny and Flo will leave with what money cannot buy an enriched life.

So lets us take some time out and consider:

 

The World gone wrong:

 

Looking back from the Moon human activities on earth do not show up.

By the Year 2030 there will be 50% more of us – 6 million a month.   Our headlong collision with Nature makes us number one enemy of the Earth.

The technology to wipe out civilization is getting cheaper while we turn back the evolutionary clock by pumping  8 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere each year wipe out 50,000 species each year in collective denial.

Humanity will have to put aside the deep divisions it has maintained for thousands of years. Find a new spirit of human co-operation.  Stop spending trillions on arms and start spending it on the environmental crisis now facing our very existence.

There can be no trade-offs between economic development and the protection of the environment.

One-fifth of the world’s present day population live in the “rich world “consuming 86% of the world’s goods with over half the people on earth trying to live on 2$ a day and the absolute poor on a !$ making up !.! Billions.

Another word the Gross Domestic Product of the poorest 48 nations is less than the wealth of the world’s three riches people combined.

You don’t have to look far to see why we have terrorism. Poverty and Inequality spawns it.

Since Sept 11 2001 the USA has launched a war on terrorism making sure that poverty will remain on the bottom of the issue priority list.

 The bottom line.

Our Democracies seem unable to achieve any progress such as mitigating climate change, better managing ecosystems, creating a fair global trading system but we have the knowledge ,data, and technologies to do all of these things.

The question is not so much “How could we have learned so little in all these years? But “How could we have learned so much and done so little?

My advice is to stop supporting large world corporations that don’t show a corporate social responsibility, Use face book, twitter as tools to expose pressurize and praise till earth becomes a fair home for all its inhabitants human and otherwise.

HERE IS MY PLAN TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE.

A world aid tax:

All stock exchanges transactions worldwide, sovereign funds, lotteries, and the like should be brought into the United Nations and made sign a charter that would compel them to forsake a small percentage of their profits.

The funds generated by this tax would then be the cornerstone of a new World United Nations Investment Fund.

30% of the FUND TO BE FOR                                    GENUINE DISASTER AID.

These funds would change the United Nations Aid programme from being a helpless G2O begging organisation to an organisation with its own clout.

70% of the FUND TO BE FOR                                 WORLD INVESTMENT.

The Investment fund to be operated by independently appointed experts from the world business community. Each country represented in the United Nations to submit a candidate for election to its board:

All successful candidates being subject to re-election every five years:

THE FUND TO BE NAMED > THE UNITED NATIONS INVESTMENT FUND:

This fund would then to be placed on the world stock exchanges where it would benefit from the one virus that is consuming the world.

Greed:

By placing The Fund on the world stock exchange it would ensure the fund transparent. i.e. standing, on its own successes and failures.

All projects requiring funding to be submitted (other than genuine humanitarian aid) for approved by the board to establish their cost and viability.

The successful projects to be funded would then be placed in a yearly drawn on a ‘lotto’ base. This would cut out any interference from political corruption or pressure outside groups.  

The yearly Draw to be featured on an independent United Nations TV channel.

A dedicated United Nations Web site would monitor the projects > reporting on their progress and certify their completion while allowing all who are interested to follow the lucky projects progress.

I leave you with this thought –

The culture of growth for growths sake must be

brought to a halt before the gap between our distant past and the not so far

away future is unrepeatable. It is heart breaking what we are doing to our

world so open your eyes and look before it’s too late. THE Future belongs to

now.

BOB.