Owner: The Road to the Horizon URL:http://theroadtothehorizon.blogspot.com/ Join Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 03:34:26 -0600 Rating:0 Site Description: Short stories about travel to the world's most remote places, working in war torn countries, life as a humanitarian worker, and about the road which is more important than the destination. Site statistics:Click here
Rumble: Immigration Anyone? 2007-04-18 07:28:00 Once upon a time, before 9/11, I was invited to the US to speak at a congress on international humanitarian emergency response. I landed in Chicago, and showed my UN passport to the US immigration officer. The guy flipped through the pages, stamped it and wished me a nice day (yep, those were the easy times).Just as I walked off, he said "Excuse me, sir!". I pulled my head between my shoulders, thinking "Oh shit!". He leaned over his counter, and whispered to me: "Tell me, sir, which country is that?", pointing at my passport.I answered: "This is a United Nations passport"He smiled apologetically, and said: "Yes, I know, but which country is that actually? I mean, what is the capital?"I whispered back: "Timbuktu"He nodded, smiled and waived me through.Later I told this story as my opening line at the congress, adding: "Before you want to do international humanitarian emergency response, you should really learn your geography!".They did not think it was funny...I guess the world change Read more:Anyone
Rumble: The Sabbatical. Stock Taking. 2007-04-20 12:15:00 End March last year, I ended my tour of duty in Dubai to go on a one year sabbatical. Many people said I was crazy. I had a well paid job, an excellent office which we set up ourselves, staffed with superb people, all handpicked for the job. I had a nice car, and a diplomatic status.“Why? Why give this all up? What will you do?”, they asked me, “What will you do after that?”. I did not have any answers for those questions. I jumped into the void. Felt I had been in this ‘line of work’ for too long, felt like ‘I had seen it all, done it all’. Time to resource.Felt fortunate in many ways, though. I have a supportive family, even though Tine did raise an eye-brow when I told her, I would stop working for a year. I also had the financial independence to do what I wanted for a while. And had a good health. So, each time people fired questions as to “Why?”, I could answer “Why not?”. Life is too short to be boring. And boredom, routine is the one thing that kills me. Read more:Sabbatical
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Rumble: UN, US? More Than a Letter of Difference? 2007-04-19 23:52:00 Once upon a time, I arrived at the Dubai International Airport, and showed my UN passport.The guy looked at the cover, and said "Bot whot contry?"I said: "United Nations!"He shrugged and asked again: "Bot whot contry, Unatod Notions?"I said: "Well, it is not a country, it is an organisation. It is really 'All Nations'!"He shook his head: "No, Unatod Notions, Unatod Notions. Unatod Steets, no?"I was quit to reply: "No, no! Not United States, United Nations. Big difference!"He laughed: "But wheer ees big office Unatod Notions?"I said: "The big office? Well the main office is in New York"He replied: "Ahhhh? New York. Unatod Steets.. You see?"I guess he had a point. Sometimes I fail to see the difference too, to be honest. Read more:Letter
Your feedback results 2007-04-19 15:19:00 I started this website in Jan'07. We are now three months and 50,000 visitors further down the line. I started as a complete blogging and internet newbie but your feedback has helped me through. Thank you!The previous poll-period ran from the time I set up this site. Based on your input, I altered many things on this site. So, today, I reset all figures of the poll to '0', to get fresh and updated input from you, the readers.The previous feedback figures were:Overall rating of the site: (26 answers:)Excellent (54%), Good (19%), Poor (12%), Dunno-Just arrived (15%) What people liked most on this site: (24 answers)contents of the stories (50%), Style of writing (46%), other (4%)What still needed improvement: (21 answers)Fine as it is (67%), More pictures (19%), grammar/spelling (10%), length of stories (5%)A reader gave detailed feedback to speed up the download times. (thanks, Tom!!).Based on this feedback:I added 'Rumble' posting, rather than merely publishing stories. The rumble Read more:results
Rumble: The Sabbatical - The Day After 2007-04-21 12:44:00 Ending this sabbatical once more feels like jumping into the void. Once more it feels like I am ending one period in my life, and starting a new one. Lemme see, for the… sixth time already : After working in a digital research company as a graphical expert, I stopped what I did to start my civil service at a university lab, as a software developer. People said I was nuts to give up my well paying job simply just because I refused to go to the army. I preferred doing a $150/month job for 20 months, rather than doing 10 months of army service (with all living expenses paid for).After 20 months, I returned to the company as a system engineer. People said I was nuts as I did not have a degree in IT nor in system engineering, so how could I make a career in that?Two years later, I started in an inter-bank company to manage their IT network. People said it was nuts, as by then I was well established within my previous company and had my career all laid out in front of me. So why change?Two Read more:Sabbatical
Rumble: You'll Never Guess Where This Is. 2007-04-23 11:46:00 I used this picture in a previous post. I gave away it was somewhere in the US, but asked if anyone could guess where... Nobody apparently knew... Well, it is in Hawaii.. Not the typical Hawaii people normally have in mind.. But it *is* Hawaii. The Big Island actually. An area called Parker Ranch.So what was I doing on Parker Ranch? Well, not learning to be a cowboy, that is for sure! We once did a humanitarian exercise there. With the heat, the volcanic dust blowing meters high in the air each time you put your foot on the soft soil, it was one of the toughest environments I ever worked in. The fine dust got into everything.After one week, we retreated in one of the beach hotels for a debriefing of the exercise, and the hotel staff almost expelled us from the premises. We were just too dirty. Clogged up the showers and washing machines!So now you know. Hawaii has its volcanic deserts too! Read more:Guess
Rumble: One More Task Done... 2007-04-22 20:32:00 One task less to do before I go: the garden is in shape again. The flower pots are out of the winter storage and filled with fresh flowers. The garden is ready for spring and summer. Seven days to go on this sabbatical.For all I know, in a bit more than a week, I might be in the middle of a desert, or in the middle of a jungle. And this refers to where I might be going for work, and has nothing to do with the garden. ;-) A pity I can not post the scent... The nursery. Plants recovering from the winterThe deck chairs are ready for lazy summer evenings.
Rumble: The Feed Bag 2007-04-28 00:43:00 Lauren Bush and Amazon launched an interesting initiative worth your support.They promote a bag, "The Feed Bag", designed to raise awareness and funds for hungry children and to help them get into school and out of hunger. Each bag sold will provide a school year of meals for one child in need and give them the hope of an education and a regular meal.The Feed bag is for sale for US$59.95 on Amazon.com.
Rumble: What if the Earth Was a Village of 100 People? 2007-04-27 10:07:00 The magnititude of the world can be overwhelming. How massive is the number of impoverished people? What percentage of the overall population lives in urban areas? How vast is the threat of AIDS? It's hard to put things in perspective when the numbers are so large. The Miniature Earth
gives a clear vista by reducing the global population to only 100, while keeping statistics the same. The effect enables us to see the differences on our planet more clearly, and perhaps consider how our actions can impact humanity. Read more:Village
Rumble: One Thing I Didn't Do This Sabbatical 2007-04-25 23:59:00 As I said before, there was no set plan what I wanted to do during this sabbatical. One thing I did think off was to write a novel. A love story partially set in Africa. I wrote the first twenty pages in the Caribbean but never completed it. Oh, and I wrote the ending too.I don't have a plot. Not written anyway. It is all in my head. That, and the title. Here are the first lines:At Last the Sun Rose.A novel to be finished. By P.CasierAt last the sun rose, in a veil of pink, orange and red, bright, and vivid. The clouds forming a low mist ring around the hills, tried to hold on as long as they could, sheltering the valleys from the warm sun to come. Wrinkles of smoke coming from some huts and villages in-between the hills mixed with the mist, creating the unique intense smell of humid wood fire –almost sandalwood - he always linked to this place. The leaves from the banana trees, the palms, the mango trees in the garden would be dripping of dew by now..The mango tree. ‘The big one Read more:Thing
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Rumble: Belgian Airforce Drops By to Say Hi. 2007-04-25 14:38:00 I want to wrap up at least one more short story before I leave. It is one I have been working (read: "struggling") on since a while. About a field trip to Zambia. Tentative title "Stuck in Mpulungu". Attentive readers probably saw it appearing in the scroll-box with updates in the right column as the "next short story to be released". And then saw it being replaced with "Next short story: The Dudettes". Now it is back again.Part of the story is how we got transport from a Belgian
Air Force C130 Hercules cargo plane from Uganda to Zambia.You won't believe this, but as I was sitting in the study editing the story (once more) this afternoon, a C130 from the Airforce flew over at a real low altitude and made a U-turn right above our house. I was just in time to snap the picture above as the plane flew off again.Talking about coincidences, hey? Or do you think "they" are monitoring this blog? You know! "Them"! Or was it the other "Them"? Hahaha.. Anyway, I thought it was a nice gesture, o Read more:Drops
Rumble: Yeah, Let's Vote For This Guy! 2007-04-24 18:05:00 Yeah, that'll teach them. Yippieya-hey...Nice foreign policy statement, Mr. Presidential Candidate! I hope your electorate has learned out of the Iraq experience.NEXT!
News Round-up: Forgotten Stories. 2007-04-24 12:53:00 MSF (Doctors Without Borders) published the Top 10 Most Underreported Humanitarian Stories
of 2006: The current conflict in Somalia may generate fleeting worldwide attention, but the abysmal day-to-day living conditions faced by Somalis remains largely forgotten. Civilians in the Central African Republic (CAR) once again fell victim to horrific violence in the latest bout of conflict in a string of coups and rebellions that have plagued the country since it achieved independence from France in 1960.While many people in the West consider tuberculosis (TB) a disease of a bygone era, the devastating human toll taken by the disease is increasing worldwide.The conflict in Chechnya and its consequences on civilians has been almost entirely hidden from the rest of the world. While it may be decreasing in intensity, for many people who lived through the ebb and flow of this bitter twelve-year war, physical and mental scars remain. Civilians in Sri Lanka have born the brunt of major fighting th Read more:Forgotten
Tips & Tricks: Scrolling Text in a Frame. A Ticker Box! 2006-03-24 15:02:00 I wanted to put the latest updates and some statistics of my blog in one of the side columns, but hated the amount of space the text took up.For quite a while now, I tried to find a simple way to put scrolling text in a box, often called a 'ticker', as that seemed a nice way to condense the space the information took up.You can find several ways to do this, often involving scripts etc.., but the simpliest I found is by using a 'marquee'.A marquee begins <marquee withsomequalifiers> and ends with </marquee>. Everything inbetween will be displayed 'in a scrolling way'Some simple tutorials on the use of marquees, you can find in the HTML code tutorial and on HScripts....But it is really easy. The one I use on my page is:<marqueestyle="BORDER-RIGHT: 1px solid;PADDING-RIGHT: 4px;BORDER-TOP: 1px solid;PADDING-LEFT: 4px;PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px;BORDER-LEFT: 1px solid;PADDING-TOP: 5px;BORDER-BOTTOM: 1px solid"onmouseout="this.start();"scrollamount="1"hspace="5"vspace="5"scrolld Read more:Scrolling
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Rumble: My Love Affair With Sabena 2007-05-01 09:11:00 That is Sabena. Not Sabrena, Sabine, or Sabrina! We’re talking about our ex-national carrier. A customer-company platonic love affairs! If you are looking for sexual inspired stories? Not in this one! Or should I tell them about he Mile-High club?Anyway, just a few months ago, SN Brussels Airlines and Virgin Express merged into Brussels Airlines. I was a regular customer of both “parent” companies, so when flying to Rome I was curious to experience first hand the excitement of the new merged airline.I used to be a regular customer of SABENA, the Belgian national carrier. Back in the eighties and early nineties, they were a shabby airline, deserving their nickname “Such A Bloody Experience Never Again”. Back then, Brussels national airport was a dump, a national shame. Run down, inefficient, unattractive. It was the only airport I knew then, where you had to pay with a coin (then still Belgian Francs), to get a luggage cart in arrivals. Would the international traveler arrivin Read more:Affair
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Rumble: I Am Leaving on a Jet Plane 2007-04-30 09:35:00 The past two days, I spent mostly doing the last chores around the house, and laying in a hammock in the garden.When I closed my eyes, all the sounds became so clear. The fizzling of the leaves overhead, the buzzing of the insects, the song of so many birds, the laughter of kids playing nearby.I just lay in the hammock. Looking at the sky. At the trails of a plane.How symbolic, laying in the cosiness of my home, looking at the trails of a plane. The dilemma of the leaving and the wanting to stay. The hollowness of the absence of loved ones leaves, and the eagerness to chase rainbows.The pain is there. But the horizon is calling. I have to go. Read more:Leaving
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Rumble: What Better Way to Spend a Last Evening? 2007-05-03 18:49:00 What better way to end this thirteen months' sabbatical than with friends? A picture from last Saturday, the day before I left home.There are always a lot of 'lasts' before you leave. Last time shopping, last time picking up the kids from school, last Sunday croissants... This was the "last dinner". Left to Right: Patje, Tine, me, Katrien, Mark and Rosa. All friends since a long time.. :-)
Rumble: And Brussels Airport? 2007-05-03 10:40:00 I forgot to mention in my previous rumbles about Sabena, the Swiss Air Crook-ery adventures and the merger of SN with Virgin Express, what happened to Brussels
airport.Well, I guess they recovered. After being used for a fraction of its capacity for years, they recovered, and seem to be doing well. They have more traffic now, So yeah, when coming back home after wandering the world, landing at Brussels national airport certainly puts a smile on my face. Highly recommended for transit travel too.Two minuses, though: One of the two handling companies’ customer service sucks. If you decide to loose your luggage, and your end destination is Brussels, you’d better hope your flight is handled by a company called “FlightCare” and not by “AviaPartner” !! If it was not for the goodwill of the FlightCare staff, I would still be waiting for my luggage lost between the islands of St-Martin and St-Kitts, a connecting flight on my way home just before Xmas. This was a return flight handl
Rumble: SN plus VIRGIN equals ABORTION? 2007-05-02 10:27:00 Well, the first thing Brussels Airlines did, was to piss off the aircrew by implementing new work schedules without consulting the crew. So the first days, they did several actions, barely avoiding a strike. Now they threaten to actually go on strike. I think there is one coming in the next days. So hey, it seems things did not get much better!So what did my first hand expert testing of the new airline come up with?Well, I did not want to test the quality of Brussels Airlines.. (imagine a small high pitched voice with corner of the lips curled down and a real real sad face). I merely wanted to book a ticket with my frequent traveler miles!! Boohoo… And I couldn’t Boohhoooo… (hand me a hanky!).Booking using miles was a breeze at the time of SN, but boy, on the new Privilege website (the frequent flyer program of SN, now Brussels), it seemed EITHER they hid the booking feature real well, or it was not possible anymore to book flight online with miles…No problem, I thought, I will
News Round-up: Who Wins the War in Iraq? 2007-05-06 17:06:00 Who wins? Bah, read the Commander in Chief's version, in this article.The full transcript of the talk of the Commander in Chief, you find here. Real intelligent stuff. I mean deep stuff. He opens his speech with a real winner: "What I thought I would do is talk a little bit, share my mind with you, and then answer questions for a while. We're on the record until I tell you we're not on the record.""My responsibility is to speak as often as I can to the American people.", he adds. Maybe he should not and leave the Republican candidate at least 'some' chance in the next election ! Maybe one that knows how to sing better than McCain? At least a different tune please! We're so tired of war songs!NEXT! Picture courtesy funnypics.dk Read more:Iraq
News Round-up: NATO in Afghanistan Encouraging Heroin Production? 2007-05-04 19:09:00 Since decennia, Afghanistan
has been one of the main producers of heroin. The plant, the poppy, grows easily, needs little water or care in general, and is easy to harvest: farmers milk opium resin from the plants which is processed into heroin and smuggled.Opium and heroin has become Afghanistan's runaway export success. At the end of the Taliban reign, the cultivation of poppy was outlawed, and the crops were eradicated, up to the extend that the UN Drug Control Program (UNDCP) had closed its offices in Afghanistan with a note "Job Done!".Since the fall of the Taliban, the poppy crop soared from 8,000 hectares in 2001 to a record 165,000 hectares last year. The street value of the annual crop is estimated at US$3 billion, representing about 90% of the world's heroin production. An estimated 2.9 million Afghans, 13% of the population, are involved. There are no cartel lords. Western officials believe trade is controlled by 25 smugglers including three government ministers according Read more:Heroin
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Rumble: Come and walk with us! 2007-05-08 21:41:00 Hey, come and join us on May 13th, the day the "World Walks" against child hunger."Walk the World" is an annual global event mobilizing hundreds of thousands of people on one day, in all 24 times zones, with one purpose: to call for an end to child hunger forever. You doubt the size of the hunger problem in the world? Look at this interactive hunger map! There are hundreds of simultaneous walks all over the world, from New Zealand to Hawaii. Check out the Fighthunger webpage. Find a walk near to where you live. Copy one of their logos onto your website, or donate online.In 2006, 760,000 people "walked the world" at 420 locations, in 118 countries! Read last year's highlights! Let's make it even bigger this year, and join us on 13 May 2007. Excuses will NOT be excepted. I am walking in Rome. Where are you walking?The 2006 CNN coverage of the WalkPictures and video courtesy of fighthunger.org
Rumble: So... Where Did I End Up? 2007-05-08 19:05:00 I have been working as an aid worker since 1994. I have been based in Angola, Malawi, Ivory Coast, DRC, Uganda, Kosovo, Pakistan and my last assignment was as the director of our office in Dubai.I worked in and travelled through more than one hundred countries. I've seen the best and the worst. Wars, floodings, earth quakes. Have been shot at, and been surprised by beautiful sunsets. I enjoyed the good company of close friends, and have lost some in shootings and slaughters... I built a city, negotiated with presidents, ministers and drunk police men. Managed projects of US$30 million, and at other times, struggled for a budget to buy two screw drivers...I got so addicted to the excitement of the job, got used to the adrenaline kick, that few things at work make my heart tick faster anymore.... I have become a junkie, I admit. An adrenaline junkie...When leaving on my sabbatical, I told management: "When I come back, don't give me a standard job. Give me something difficult, complex.
Rumble: The Mpulungu Story 2007-05-08 18:44:00 Yuuhuu! I was finally able to finish and publish the Mpulungu short story!! According to the survey at the bottom of the story, you guys seem to like it.. :-)About flying with a Belgian Air Force C130 to Zambia, how to find your hotel in an African town when you don't have the address, getting stuck in a swamp, repairing car axles with a computer bag, and still ending up landing next to Bill Clinton's AirForce One.Read all about it here.
Once, I went to Mpulungu 2007-05-01 06:52:00 Mpulungu, you said? Once upon a time, Mats and I went to Mpulungu. Mpulungu? I have to admit, I did not know where that was neither. Well, it is a town in North-Zambia, at the most southern tip of Lake Tanganyika.El Nino had washed away most of the railway system in Tanzania, and we needed another route to bring in emergency food supplies to the refugee camps in West Burundi and Tanzania. We thought of trucking in the food cargo from Southern Africa using Mpulungu as a transit point before shipping it by barge via Lake Tanganyika up to Burundi.We did not have a base yet in Mpulungu, so we had to fly in the equipment to set up mobile warehouses, electricity and communications systems. As there were no commercial flights from our regional headquarters in Uganda to Zambia, we used a Belgian Air Force C130 Hercules plane, to pick up people and equipment.So off we went, with a plane filled with cars, warehouse tents, generators, masts, and communications equipment. The C130 crew just came o
Rumble: One Sort of Boobs Nobody Likes: "Ha-boobs"! 2007-05-10 10:03:00 Mageed, a friend and colleague now working in Afghanistan, sent me these pictures taken in Khartoum (Sudan)...Nope, it is not the fall-out from a nuclear bomb. It is a haboob, an intense sand storm, regularly observed in the Sahara desert, Sudan, the Arabian Peninsula all the way up to Iraq.Haboobs are frequently created when a thunderstorm collapses and begins to release precipitation. Strong winds will blow down in the storm centre, and then stream outwards, away from the storm, generally gusting the strongest in the direction of the storm's travel.When this downdraft reaches the ground, dry, loose sand from the desert settings is blown up creating a wall of sediment preceding the storm cloud. And a haboob is born...This wall of sand can be up to 100 km wide and several kilometers in elevation. At their strongest, haboob winds can travel at 35-50 km/hr, and may approach with little to no warning.Often no rain is seen at the ground level as it evaporates in the hot, dry air. When the Read more:Nobody
Rumble: Yuuhuu, We Walked the World ! 2007-05-14 17:57:00 Yuhuu, apparently the Walk was a great success all over the world... While we were waiting to start in Rome, one of the coordinators got a phone call saying that in China, the park they were walking in could only hold 5,000 people. They had to stop people at the entrance gates after 30,000 entered !The Fighthunger.org website is bringing updates from walks all over the world, so check it out. Once the total numbers are published, I will let you know.With some friends, we participated in the Rome walk. About 1,000 people gathered in the historic center on the Fori Imperiali and Piazza Venezia. Here are some pictures and the video I shot during the walk. Glorious weather, stunning historic backdrop, and a great cause... What more is needed on a Sunday? Read more:World
Rumble: Walk the World! 2007-05-11 19:48:00 Two more days to go before we Walk the World
! The presidents of El Salvador and Uganda will join us, and the king of Swaziland too!.Below, I listed all the planned walks, per country. Each city links to the webpage giving the details for that particular walk. If you can not join us for a physical walk, join us on Second Life!So here is the list, pick your choice and join us in the Walk Against Hunger!Argentina Buenos AiresAustralia Brisbane, GeelongAustria ViennaBangladesh chittagongBelgium MachelenBelize Lucky Strike Village, BelmopanBrazil Ribeirao PretoBulgaria SofiaBurkina Faso OuagadougouBurundi BujumburaCameroon BamendaCanada Montreal, Brampton, Aylmer, Ottawa, Kitchener, Vancouver, Calgary, Castlegar, Toronto, Hamilton #1, Hamilton #2, BramptonChina Hong Kong, BeijingColombia BogotaCzech Republic PrahaDenmark Copenhagen, Aarhus, Kolding, Maribo, Slagelse, VejleEgypt CairoEl Salvador San salvadorEstonia TallinnFinland HelsinkiGambia, The Serrekunda, BanjulGermany Cologne, St. Ing
News Round-up: The Hall of Shame. And the Nominees are.... 2007-05-17 08:47:00 Human Rights Watch has nominated the following people to its Hall of Shame during the International Day Against Homophobia:Pope Benedict XVIUS President George W. BushIranian President Mahmoud AhmadinejadPolish Minister of Education Roman GiertychBienvenido Abante, Chair of the Philippine House Committee on Civil, Political and Human Rights. To get your picture on the Hall of Shame, you have to do a serious effort to undermine human rights by actively promoting prejudice against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. (full article)
Rumble: My Life in Four Bags #1 2007-05-17 08:17:00 Just before leaving home, I wrote a short story about my life in bags.. I will publish it in bits over the coming days.My home is a set of bags. Four bags to be exact. Packed after one year of sabbatical. The full inventory of my life for the new start of my professional life can be summarized on two sheets of paper…One computer bag, one small backpack. Both carry-on luggage. One duffel bag and a backpack with my clothes, toiletry and some basic medical supplies. All together maybe 30 kg. My life compacted to 30 kg…Here is the deal: after my sabbatical, I am starting my professional life as if it were a white sheet of paper. You can look at the white sheet of paper in a negative, or in a positive way. You can say ‘empty’, ‘no information’, so.. ‘worthless’? ‘Lacking something’?Or you could say ‘virgin territory’, ‘potential’, ‘opportunity’.. After all a white sheet of paper could become an item of high value if Picasso drew something on it. Or if Monet p
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