Olympic Dreams
Spending time with the boxers training at Kibera Olympic, you realise you have no excuses. For anything. These guys have so little, yet are so dedicated to their sport, and to use boxing as a way to rise out of Nairobi’s largest slum.
They have a few skipping ropes and the odd pair of gloves. Once, they had a punch-bag, but that got damaged, and now slouches in the corner of the hall where they train.
They shadow-box, spar, jump rope, and do press-ups and sit-ups. No ring, little equipment, and yet there are still those amongst them who win bouts, and tournaments, in competition.
Chemi and I will be publishing a piece on this; today’s session with them was just the start. There are those that aspire to reach London in 2012, and their coach has confidence in them reaching the national team.
A day-trip to Dhobley - Somalia
I haven’t been back to Europe for nearly two years. A few days before I was due to fly back to England I was asked if I could go to Somalia, for a day trip just over the Kenyan border. “Sure”, I said, “when is it?” I was keen to see as much of Somalia as I could, and I had failed to reach the other side of the border when Chemi and I drove up a few weeks previously.
“The eleventh” came the reply.
“Euh, that’s the day I’m flying back to London.”
“What time is the flight?” asked my editor.
“Not ‘til the evening” I replied.
“It’ll be fine. You’ll be back by the evening. Can you go?”
And so, with a bag packed for five weeks in the UK and in France, I drove to Wilson airport at some un-Godly hour of the morning, and boarded a small charter plane for a visit by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation to Dhobley.
We did our work, I became a convert to the idea of giving money to cattle rather than people - preventing their deaths would save many more lives and is more cost-effective, they tell me - and then flew back to Nairobi. An hour spent in traffic, a spot of writing and editing the pictures, and I just about had time to take a shower before jumping in another taxi for the airport.
The following day, I would be in London, a world away from the conflict and famine of Somalia, and trying to explain everything I have seen over the last two years.
South Sudan Int’l
The first game of South Sudan’s international squad. Admittedly, not a fully international fixture, for they were playing a Kenyan team, Tusker F.C.
The newly rennovated Juba stadium was packed. People pressed up against the wire fences, sitting on walls around the grounds. Every seat in the stands was taken.
South Sudan got off to a good start, scoring the first goal. The final score was 3-1. The South Sudanese had scored three! Unfortunately, two of them were in their own net.
Pole, pole, as the Kenyans would say. “Slowly, slowly.”
South Sudan’s Independence Day
As the crowds swelled below the podium where AFP had a spot and a very long lens, the scene lay out below me reminded me of the history books. Of the black and white photographs of African independence from the sixties. The Colonialists handing back the countries they had taken, and ravaged. Here in Juba, Omar al-Bashir, the president of the previously unified Sudan, was in attendance, ready to hand over South Sudan to Kiir and his men.
Thousands had come out, and sat through the day under a baking Juba sun. The lines of soldiers, many who had fought through the long, bitter war with the north, occasionally had someone drop amongst their ranks. The sun taking its toll as Red Cross stretchers whipped away the feinted.
The armoured vehicles of South Africa swept in, their gunmen training their huge rifles on the thousands gathered as Jacob Zuma made his way to his seat. Museveni’s entourage seemingly went on for almost as many years as his rule.
I had had two hours sleep since last night’s celebrations, little water and less food. We wrestled with the over protective security, freshly laminated badges hanging around our necks. Elbows were out. Tempers were fraying with some of those around me who were fresh to South Sudan and its protocol.
Everything was inevitably delayed. Speeches went on. And on. There were not enough seats for the dignitaries; but the generals of this army chivalrously gave up theirs for these fresh-faced “guests of honour”, amongst them, Britain’s own foreign secretary. (We heard rumours that someone had the unenviable job of advising him to wear a cap to cover his balding head from the Sudanese sun.)
But I felt immensely fortunate to be here, six months after covering the referendum and its subsequent results announced preliminarily in Juba and then formally in Khartoum. Honoured to be here at this moment in history, to be one of the (many) photographers to capture this moment and leave a record on the history books.
As the sun dropped, I jumped on the back of a motorcycle and sped across the eerily empty streets of this new capital, a dash to file my images.
Tables of exhausted journalists sat around our usual haunt, and despite resolves for an early night, a few of us stayed up until the following sunrise, high on the adrenaline of the day.
South Sudan Independence Preparations
The army is marching, but it is not on its way northwards. Having returned to Juba from the war in the Nuba mountains, it is easy to think that the Nuba were right: the South has forgotten them.
Here in the southern capital, the trumpets are warming up, the choir rehearse the (rather terrible) new national anthem, as do soldiers their march, and people are out in the street celebrating. Deservedly so. They have suffered for decades, and many thought this moment would never arrive.
Tomorrow, heads of state will sit on the (still being constructed) stands outside the John Garang Memorial, the band will play and South Sudan will secede from the north.
And we, the international press, our numbers swelling by the day, will be running around taking pictures, absorbing the atmosphere, collecting quotes and recording speeches. If the day doesn’t end in sunstroke, I’ll be surprised.
