In the Danger Zone

by Stefan Gates

  Millennium

  Anyway, there's no time for being snide because I'm back in Ethiopia's most expensive, shortest-lived warehouse. Up in the gallery area sit a variety of heads of states, including the Sudanese president, Omar al-Beshir (blimey – who invited him?). The prime minister, Meles Zenawi, makes a speech admitting what Ethiopia has been through: 'After undelivered promises and dashed hopes, this generation has started to break the cycle and we are at the dawn of a new era.' He's not enormously clear on what the new millennium will specifically achieve, but I decide it's best not to heckle.

  Outside the warehouse are catering areas where free food and drink are handed out – as much as you can eat. The difference between this and what I've seen in the countryside is overwhelming. I chat to some of the party-goers, about half of whom seem to have paid for their tickets, while the other half are on the blag. One smart young chap says to me: 'As an Ethiopian, even living abroad, millennium is a new start for our country. A promise, a new beginning.'

  This building has cost $10 million. Is that a good use of money in a country like Ethiopia?

  'Well, first of all, it's a guy's private money, so he should spend it however he likes. But let me ask you this: have you been to an Ethiopian wedding? Oh boy, they're mad. As a nation, we love to throw parties. We will sell everything we own to put on a fantastic party, even people who have very little will manage to do something spectacular. It's in our blood.'

  I stand outside the warehouse and consider whether this whole shindig is just a big, gruesome waste of money. As ever, it's not that simple. On an economic level, the millennium has brought tens of thousands of the Ethiopian diaspora back to the country, and it's these people who are the most likely to invest here, create jobs and help move the country forwards. If this party has encouraged them back, it could be worth way more than $20 million.

  On an emotional level, it's the country's millennium, for crying out loud. Of course they should celebrate it, and if that involves someone spending $ 10 million, well it doesn't sound like the best use of cash to me, but who knows what a few weeks of optimism might do for a country? Perhaps a few people will be inspired to solve problems, to help their countrymen, to think about long-term solutions to the country's crises. Heaven knows, perhaps some wealth might even filter down from these people to the millions at the bottom of the pile . . . eventually.

  Anyway, Will.i.am from the Black-Eyed Peas is on stage and he's quite excited.

  'I've heard people say that Ethiopia is a poor country. Ethiopia isn't a poor country!' [25,000 people roar.]

  'Because Ethiopians have LOVE in their hearts!' [25,000 people go wild.]

  'Five! Four! Three! Two! One! HAPPY MILLENNIUUUUUUM!'

  So finally, seven years, nine months and 11 days late, it's the year 2000. Around 25,000 people (including me) get down to some serious hugging, loving and smiling. We're all beside ourselves with excitement.

  I want this outpouring of optimism and patriotism to turn into something solid, so despite my journalistic desire to wag fingers, I'm determined to end this on a positive note. Here goes . . .

  The Ethiopian economy has grown by 10 per cent for the last few years. Now 10 per cent of very little isn't very much, but at least things are getting better. This place is one of the great cradles of civilization, so if there's any truth in history repeating itself, these people might one day be back at the top of the wheel. And, of course, they have a nice shiny airport and a nice shiny hotel. The WFP is talking more and more about long-term aid projects rather than short-term emergency distribution, and this is really what Ethiopians need. So many problems remain, but for one night most people are going to look to the future, full of hope.

  I walk slowly away from the stage and as I pass the toilets, I see that they are swamped with inebriated party-goers. Some of them are unconscious, others look like they won't be standing for much longer. One girl vomits copiously over her boyfriend's lap but he's too drunk to be annoyed, so he just stares down blankly at the mess. There's quite a lot of vomit sprayed around, now that I look more closely. One man is lying flat out on the road, weeping with joy or sorrow – it's hard to tell.

  I try to push the memory of horrific scenes of rural poverty out of my head. Thoughts of Dora, Gebru Abera and his wife Yalezmer, Fate and her kids and the street children Muuehabto and Atersaw. But it's impossible, so I breathe deeply and hope to God that this optimism reaches them, that somehow this filthy excess turns into something good.

  Good luck Ethiopia. I hope things get better for you.

  • • • • •

  I must admit that I'm feeling a guilty relief that it's my last African adventure. I've begun to see misery and unimaginable poverty as some cracked, bastard version of normality, and it's time to go home – or at least back to my own continent: Europe.

  CHERNOBYL

  Cooking with

  Radiation

  POPULATION: 46 million

  PERCENTAGE LIVING ON LESS THAN $2 A DAY: 19.5%

  UNDP HUMAN DEVELOPMENT INDEX: 77/177

  CORRUPTION PERCEPTIONS INDEX POSITION: 99/163

  GDP (NOMINAL) PER CAPITA: $2,275 (104/179)

  FOOD AID RECIPIENTS: n/a

  MALNUTRITION: 3% of the population

  At 1.26 a.m. on 26 April 1986 an experiment went horribly wrong in Reactor 4 of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant and a massive explosion blew the top off the building. The world's worst nuclear accident unfolded, spewing radioactive material across much of Europe, including the UK. Twenty years on, millions of square kilometres of land are still badly contaminated and radioactive particles are still making their way into food.

  Following the break-up of the Soviet Union, Ukraine became an independent state, but it's still coping with the Chernobyl legacy.

  Reactor 4

  I'm travelling with Marc again and we check into the gruesome but affordable Hotel Rus in central Kiev. I immediately want to leave the country. People are rude and unpleasant here, the place is harsh and unwelcoming and everyone looks depressed. It's as though the city is enveloped in a cloud of misery and pain.

  I meet up with Helen, who works for the BBC in Kiev. She's actively scared of radiation (which seems strange for someone who has chosen to live three hours from Chernobyl): she keeps a Geiger counter on all the time in her apartment, and refuses to go anywhere near the Chernobyl plant. Despite this, she has reluctantly, but kindly, agreed to lend me her Geiger counter for the duration of my trip.

  Later, she takes me for some classic Ukrainian food to celebrate my arrival. We visit Tsarska Selo (the Tsar's Place). The clientele seems to be largely gangster/moll, and it advertises 'Guarded free parking' on its literature. It's an ersatz, fibreglass version of a Ukrainian peasant cottage, and they serve us classic peasant cuisine with a flashy gangster twist: cabbage and potato ravioli, pork fat with raw garlic, mince wrapped in cabbage, sturgeon with cauliflower sauce and green borscht, made with sorrel.

  It all sounds a lot worse than it tastes, but by the end of the meal, I am already oozing flatulence, a feeling that is destined to stay with me for the next two weeks. We try out various beers, firewaters and vodkas and suddenly Ukraine seems to become an altogether nicer place.

  I stagger out of the restaurant and head for home, but on the way I spot a supermarket and decide to pick up supplies for the next few days. Marc and I have been banned from eating any food grown in the exclusion zone around the nuclear reactor, so we need to bring some of our own. I've heard it said that you should never go shopping when you're hungry for fear of buying too much food. I'd like to add to that: never go shopping when you're flying off your nuts on vodka because you'll wake up the next day with all sorts of bizarre and useless foodstuffs.

  So when I wake with a thumping vodka head the next morning and get up to take my head to the sink, I stumble over four large carrier bags full of dried fish, flat sausages, smoked stringy cheeses, and an assortment of arcane breads, a dozen packets of instant borsch
t and a variety of bottles of fine vodka. All pretty much useless in the field.

  At 8.30 a man knocks on the door and delivers breakfast. I'm so viciously hung-over that I forget to mention that I haven't ordered any. I sit in my underpants looking at a plate bearing three unadorned hardboiled eggs. The perfect post-Soviet austerity breakfast. I try to eat a dry boiled egg, but can't get it down. Then I realize that breakfast must have been delivered to me by mistake. Someone else must be sitting in his underpants in another room like a guy in a Tarkovsky film, waiting for his boiled eggs, and getting angrier and angrier.

  Never mind, there are more important issues to deal with: my few remaining brain cells for a start. I feel dizzy and a little bit disgusted with myself and decide to make a pact with Marc that we shouldn't egg each other on to down shots of vodka any more.

  I meet him in the lobby half an hour later, but he claims to feel fine. The swine.

  I get into the world's smelliest minibus for the journey from Kiev to Chernobyl, and as soon as we leave the city the roads become spookily deserted and the bulk of the traffic is bovine. The landscape is hideously flat, a mixture of grassland savannah and wheat fields – Ukraine used to be called the breadbasket of Europe, and wheat is even featured on the national flag.

  Three hours later we arrive at the Chernobyl 30-km exclusion zone checkpoint, a decrepit jumble of huts and barriers plonked on the road to the nuclear power plant. This exclusion zone is also called the Zone of Alienation, but for many Ukrainians and Belarussians it's the entrance to hell.

  I'm suddenly consumed with anxiety about the entire trip. My wife had shaken her head in disbelief when I told her where I was going. 'I don't want you bringing any radioactive particles into this house,' she warned. Quite so. But I'd read that the radioactivity that's left here is very low-level stuff. Not much to fear. So why is there still a 30-km exclusion zone 20 years after the accident? And why do I feel such a strong sense of foreboding? Even the weather has turned ominous: bright sunshine giving way to torrential rain, then gales, and back to sun again. It all adds to the sense of apocalypse.

  I finally meet my guide, Denis, who works for the snappily titled Ministry of Emergencies and Affairs of Population Protection from the Consequences of Chernobyl Catastrophe. He's been assigned to me for the entire trip within the zone – a mixture of guide, minder and chaperone – and I mustn't travel anywhere without him.

  How can I describe Denis? I've never met anyone who cast more of a cloud of glumness than he does. He's miserable, monosyllabic and unexcitable. His answers to questions are abrupt and unhelpful, his explanations obscure and disinterested, and he chain-smokes the entire time. He answers my questions with a single word, after which I expect him to add something or qualify it, but the rest of the sentence never comes.

  'Can we visit the laboratory that tests food?' I ask.

  'No,' he says.

  'Can we ask someone for permission to visit?'

  'Maybe.'

  'Well, can you then?'

  'OK.'

  Marc and I look at each other with raised eyebrows: we're stuck with this guy for a whole week. But there's no time to argue – my one and only opportunity to visit Reactor 4, the site of the accident, is this very afternoon so I have to get on with it. As we drive on, the Geiger counters begin crackling ferociously. The radiation levels here are already 100 μSv (microSieverts, a measurement that aims to reflect the biological effects of radiation as opposed to the physical aspects) – three times the normal level – and Denis says, disparagingly, if they had .50 in Kiev they would panic.'

  Inside the Zone of Alienation is a second security cordon – the 10-km exclusion zone, which is the original area that was evacuated soon after the accident. A tingle of fear creeps down my back as we get nearer. The road is potholed and scraggy – no one bothers to maintain a road that has no future. We pass empty buildings and farms, and I see that wildlife has begun to reclaim the land. It's eerie: the roads are peppered with bus shelters at which buses never stop; signs that shout propaganda slogans to no one; and an extraordinary network of knackered steel pipes snakes its way around roads, paths and houses like something out of Terry Gilliam's Brazil. After the accident, the earth could not be dug up because it would disturb the radiation particles in the topsoil, so all pipes have had to be laid above ground.

  We pass Reactors 5 and 6, which had been under construction at the time of the accident. The cranes that were working on them have never been removed. They just stand, ghostly and apocalyptic, workers frozen in mid-toil.

  Finally we arrive at Reactor 4. The building itself looks like any huge industrial plant, but it's covered in a vast metal and concrete casing – called 'the sarcophagus' – that was built swiftly after the accident to encase the reactor and its remaining fuel and components. It's a horrible, gruesomely fascinating sight. I stand gazing at it, speechless and appalled. Massive though it is, it's hard to comprehend the scale of misery and destruction that has been caused by a simple broken machine. It's a temple to hubris.

  I ask Denis how he feels about Chernobyl, and disturbingly he tells me that he loves it. This guy is very odd. We compare Geiger counters. They read 7.00 μSv – that's 23 times normal background radiation.

  We are about 200 metres from the nuclear reactor and I'm beginning to suffer from a disconcerting physical tingle. I'm also starting to feel dizzy and anxious, but surely it has more to do with the power of suggestion than with radiation (odd, though, because I'm not particularly prone to anxiety or phantom ailments, and I'm not big on holistic psycho-spiritual diagnoses).

  I mention it to Denis and say that it must be psychosomatic, but he says that he's had physical symptoms of radiation several times: 'Headaches, very bad headache, you feel thirsty, you feel dizzy.' I ask if that scares him, but he says, 'Not much.' Despite this, he says it's too dangerous to stay here any longer so we head off.

  One of the strangest things about the power plant is that, in spite of the devastation, the other three Chernobyl reactors were restarted less than six months after the accident and continued to operate until December 2000. The plant produced 10 per cent of Ukraine's entire electricity needs at the time, and regardless of objections from other European countries, the Soviet Union was willing to take the risk. Were these people insane?

  We drive to Chernobyl town itself. Another eerie sight. Although it's decaying, overgrown and bleak, it does have some facilities to cater for the scientists and support staff who are still here decommissioning the plant, and I'm surprised to see people walking the streets. There are even a couple of shabby stores selling processed food, biscuits, fags and booze. Marc and I stop off to buy some vodka and beer – it's going to be a long week – and then make our way to our hotel. Yes, Chernobyl even has a hotel, although it's not like any hotel you might have stayed in. This is a prefab slum of damp, mouldy rooms built for foreign workers staying on site, and it's utterly, marvellously miserable.

  Marc and I drink beer in my room and despair about how on earth we'll make it through the week with only Denis to talk to. Then we turn on the telly to find Carry on Camping. It's been dubbed, but they haven't bothered to turn the original soundtrack down. The Ukrainian translators just talk over the English actors. Marc goes to bed, but I'm fixated by it, trying to hear the English original in the background. I spend an hour glued to the box. Chernobyl does weird things to a man.

  Our hotel has a restaurant designed in the glorious mould of Soviet utilitarianism: dour, damp, depressing. It's not a place for smiles, which is fine because no one seems to smile much anyway. In designing this building it seems the authorities knew that Chernobyl was never going to be home to much joy.

  I sit down to breakfast, which is spookily similar to the other meals I've had so far: a plate of fatty salami, garlic sausage, shredded beetroot and shredded cabbage covered in mayonnaise. My meal finishes with what I'm told is egg and noodle broth. It's really just hot water with a bit of tat floating on it. Marc admits th
at he was told before we arrived that this is the worst restaurant in Ukraine, but he didn't want to tell me until we got here.

  All the food in the restaurant is imported from the furthest reaches of Ukraine. I drop into the kitchen to talk to the chef, a large lady who presides over a roomful of grim-faced girls and crusty pans, all of them covered in a thick coating of caked-on fat. She roars at me when I ask if she'd eat any food grown on the land around here: 'Niet, niet. Good God no. We don't eat fish, meat, fruit. We don't eat anything. It's all contaminated. You can't. You can't.'

  Later I meet the head of the ecological testing labs who proudly shows me around his dilapidated and crumbling building. His instruments all look like antiques from the 1960s' space programme – all very pretty but very clunky.

  At the labs the breakfast I ate a few hours before starts to threaten another toxic disaster, so I run to the loo. There's no loo roll, so I have to break apart some cardboard to use instead. Deeply unpleasant.

  When I return, the head scientist agrees to lend me a few of his inspectors to visit some of the radiation hot spots tomorrow.

  The Red Forest

  Strangely enough, the area right outside the reactor where I'd stood isn't the most dangerous place in the Chernobyl exclusion zone. We load the van full of soil and flora inspectors and head off for the Red Forest, a huge area of trees that turned red and died immediately after the accident. It's renowned as the most radioactive place in the region.

  I have to put on my contamination suit and disposable boots, as instructed by BBC Health and Safety experts back in White City. Needless to say, all the inspectors and guides in Chernobyl laugh their pants off at the sight of my bright white suit and bright blue foot-bags. I'm glad to offer them something to laugh about. My only comfort is that Marc has to wear the same.

  There's not much to see at the Red Forest – it's just an unhealthy mass of trees with a crumbly road running through it. I watch the scientists taking soil samples and I try to talk to them, but my Geiger counters start to crackle with a panicky fizzing noise. I have a dosimeter attached to my boots that warns me when I'm exceeding the safe accumulated dose over a period of time, and the alarm on that trips too, adding to the racket. Our counters peak at 70 μSv – the highest we record on the whole trip, and 2,300 times higher than normal background radiation. Denis says that he's suffering from a radiation headache so we'd better go. We kick the earth off our boots, dispose of our disposable suits and quietly leave.