Notes from Ramadan
It’s 2.30am and I can hear the blender start up. It happens every night, I could just about set my clock to it when my neighbour starts clinking pots and […]
NOTEBOOK
Canter past Patagonian icefields. Sail the tranquil waters of Lake Como in Italy. Sip coffee in a Palestinian village. Listen to the ancient voices of Australia’s Arnhem Land. Climb the mountain paths of northern Albania. Let’s go!
Feasting, fasting and fighting
The fasting always gets to the market boys after 3pm. The hours before fitar (known as breakfast even though it occurs around 6.30pm – it’s literally, ‘breaking the fast’) are […]
Sweet tooth
Hi all – a lighter blog back home in Cairo after the last, fairly grim one I’ll admit, which was a radio script of a piece for Ireland’s national broadcaster, […]
Kenyan drought sees tribes go walkabout
The four Maasi tribeswomen are keen to talk. Sitting on the bare ground as red dust swirls around us, they tell how the drought across the East African country of […]
Farewell to coconuts and mangos
Mombasssssa, Mombasa, baby. Where coconuts wash up on the shore and there are three different kinds of arrowroot on the breakfast buffet. The very name of this city conjures up […]
A horn for a horn
Poaching in one of Kenya’s premier national parks, Amboseli, is at 20-year highs, says the African Wildlife Foundation, which reported in April that 703kg of whole or partially chopped elephant […]
Notes from meetings with the Maasi
During an afternoon siesta in my tent in The Mara, I hear the cluck and warble of two little Maasi herdboys at play. Their cattle are grazing on the opposite […]
In bed with…
In bed: There’s an elephant on the other side of my tent. I can hear it ripping apart the foliage beside my bed. It would be three meters from where […]
A dry issue
Everything is at the waterhole even though it’s an unfashionable time to be drinking, now at lunchtime – despondent wildebeest drink morosely, zebras kick and frolic, baboons spit and argue, […]
Carnival of the Animals
Tonight, from my balcony, I watched the carnival of the animals: deer of all sizes from the tiny dik dik to the walking meal that is the waterbuk, trotting elegantly […]