by Stefan Gates
She takes me to her local shop to buy food, and I ask her if it's anything like the shops back home in Ethiopia. She laughs and explains that when she first arrived, she burst into tears at all the food on the shelves after a lifetime of struggling to feed her family. 'I took armfuls of food, but the shop owner had to explain that I should come back when I had some money.' The food was unusual too: 'We didn't know how to eat things like pasta or lentils, let alone digest them, and many of us had malnutrition problems to begin with, but we soon learnt.'
Aviva remembers the traumas of the five-day journey from her home to the airlift points: 'We were hunted and intimidated along the way – my father was an important man so the authorities imprisoned him for some time to stop him from leaving, but eventually we managed to get out. We couldn't bring anything with us – we lost it all.' She arrived at the airstrip and remembers seeing the huge white bird for the first time. She didn't know what to think, but it had always been her dream to come to Israel.
These days Aviva makes Israeli staples such as hummus, bread, pizza and chicken nuggets, but today she wants to make some of her traditional food for us. She cooks injera, made entirely of fermenting yeast, poured out from huge bags of Dutch-produced dried yeast. They look like oddly honeycombed crêpes and taste only of yeast unlike the ones I ate in Ethiopia itself. They're not entirely pleasant, but they are fun to eat. Aviva's parents, her absurdly beautiful daughters and some old friends from Ethiopia join us and we all cram into the sitting room to eat. I ask them about the old times in Ethiopia and how their lives must have changed, but they prefer not to talk about the past. She cries when she remembers the journey she's had and their hard life in Ethiopia.
Aviva gives me some traditional beer to drink. It has the consistency of mud, a taste of salt and a flavour of yeast. It must be extremely alcoholic to be this disgusting, so I drink a huge slug of it. But when Aviva tells me that it's not alcoholic, it's just a traditional drink, I give up. Eventually her eldest daughter puts on some traditional music and we all get up to dance around the coffee table to Ethiopian drum-and-wail. Her daughters teach me how to dance: it's all about the shoulders, apparently. Everyone, including the grandparents, looks funky and cool as their shoulders float around as if they aren't actually part of their bodies, but I just look like Vicky Pollard, shrugging manically. It helps clear the air of sorrow, however, and by the time I leave I am sweaty and exhausted.
The Bedouin
I head into the baking hot, bone-dry Negev desert in the south of Israel to a village called Tel Arad. About 140,000 Bedouin live in the Negev and they were incorporated into the Israeli state and offered citizenship when it was set up, but their lifestyle has made the transformation difficult. And, as they point out, they are Arabs in a new Jewish state.
The Bedouin have lived here for centuries, but their nomadic methods of subsistence, and ancient systems of traditional land ownership (usually lacking any sort of formalized documentation), have made them a thorn in the side of the Israeli authorities eager for land for the continuing influx of Jews from around the world, even in the relatively difficult environment of the desert. Under pressure from the government to become house-dwelling citizens, about half the Bedouin have now sold their land and moved into government housing. Many more, however, have refused to sell and live in what are called unrecognized villages, like Tel Arad.
I'll be honest – I wasn't expecting anything like this. My romantic idea of tents and wandering nomads haven't turns out to be just that – an idea. The reality is a messy wreck of a village, desperately poor and crumbling. The only clues as to its inhabitants are a few raggedy, filthy-tempered camels.
I meet one of the village elders, Hajj Audeh Abu Khaled, who's lived here since he was a boy. Many of the Bedouin are refusing to move from the land they're on until their claims are met. They've been refused access to basic amenities by the Israeli government, and their houses are under threat of being demolished because they either won't move off, or because they've been built without permits (which they say are almost impossible to obtain). It's a stalemate that has been going on for decades.
Abu Khaled says, 'I am an Israeli citizen, but only on paper. They bring in people from all over the world, from Russia, from Britain. Me, whose people have been living here for centuries, since the time of Abraham, I don't have the right to live on my own land or build a house.'
The Bedouin of Tel Arad try to maintain aspects of their traditional culture, hence the presence of camels, which aren't a whole lot of use for anything else. I ask to meet one of the women in the village in order to find out about food supplies, but the Bedouin are very wary of letting strangers meet their women. I persevere and I'm eventually introduced to an elderly aunt called Hajjah Eidah Omm Mohammad who is making the flatbread that's a staple of the Bedouin diet. She rails about Bedouin men: 'They don't get involved at all; they don't touch one single thing. They just bring in the money and everything else is done by the women. Even to do the housework, we wait for them to go out, and then we do everything. They could be dying from hunger and they still wouldn't do anything. Women do everything.
'Life is tough for Bedouin women. I would like to see men share some of the burden.' Blimey, I wasn't expecting that.
Later over dinner (no women allowed), I ask the men what they think the future holds. Abu Khaled says, 'Our future is full of problems, and if the policy of our government doesn't change, it will be even more difficult. Every day that passes is more difficult then the day before.
'What are my dreams? I don't want much. I'm like a hungry man. First of all I have to feed myself. If I'm thirsty then I have to drink. Only then can I have bigger dreams.'
How to Milk a Camel
Abu Khaled shows me the village's illegal water supply – the Israeli authorities have banned water supplies into unauthorized villages, so an enterprising bloke has laid down a pipe and pumps in water and charges for it. Even when people are this deprived, they find a way of making cash. Then I am taken off to find a camel.
Camels used to be the main transport and food supply for the Bedouin, but now they're mostly status symbols. A good young camel can cost the same as a second-hand car. They do provide some milk, however, and it's very high in vitamin C and richer than either cow's or goat's milk so it is often used to nurse very young babies.
We find an exceedingly grumpy camel, and Abu Khaled's cousin shows me how to milk her. The technique seems to be to grab one of her vast teats, and to employ much the same hand action as used with a goat, but all the time, dodging its flailing legs and snapping teeth.
When a camel has a calf, the Bedouin traditionally reserve one row of teats for the calf and one row for themselves, although no one seems to have discussed the tradition with this particular camel. I finally manage to get one enormous gushing squirt of milk into a cup and take a good swig. It has a deep, gutsy smell to it but a surprisingly clean taste, like cow's milk.
Gaza
Sderot is the closest major Israeli town to the Gaza Strip and for the last six years its residents have been the target for Kassam missiles – home-made rockets that the Palestinians regularly fire over the border. Since the intifada ended, they are the Palestinians' main weapon of attack on Israelis, and also Israel's current main cause of bitterness towards the Arabs. Whilst I'm here, they are frequently mentioned in the papers as a reason not to negotiate with the Palestinians. Most Kassams land in open ground, and are simply a psychological weapon, but they do also kill.
I meet Avi, the head of an ambulance unit that's deployed whenever a missile lands. His home has been hit twice by missiles and he's lost a good friend in one attack. We drive around the town in his ambulance, and he shows me where rockets have landed and where people have died. He then takes us to a hill from which we can see Gaza.
The boundary fences are a kilometre away and the army patrols them, but Kassams can travel up to 16 km, says Avi. The missiles are just lobbed over, really, and there's no telling
where they might land: Avi's kids' school was hit that morning. The trouble is that access to Gaza (and hence all trade) is completely controlled by Israel, and since Hamas started to take control (refusing to recognize the right of Israel to exist), all payments to the Palestinian Authority have been halted, causing horrible hardship in the tiny Gaza Strip. The Kassams are terrible, random weapons, but many people see them as an expression of frustration and humiliation as much as violence.
I have a chat to Kirsty Campbell, the spokesperson for the World Food Programme in Israel. She also seems to be in charge of security, love and affection for the WFP's embattled staff around here. She's a welcome relief from the usual official in Israel – she's friendly, frank and reasonable, happy to tell us her feelings off the record, as well as the official UN line.
We're standing about a kilometre from Karni, the main crossing for all the goods that keep Gaza alive. This is effectively Gaza's main artery, and the only way that its residents can sell goods to Israel and vice versa. It's also the only route for food aid into the strip and today, as on many days, it's firmly closed. This is nothing short of disastrous. Eighty-five per cent of Gaza's population relies on food aid.
'There are around 850 million people around the world who are hungry, meaning that they can't get a nutritional meal on a daily basis (on average most people need around 2,100 calories a day to function properly). It's actually a bit more complicated than that – as well as macronutrients such as carbohydrates, you need micronutrients like vitamins and minerals,' says Kirsty. She tells us that although some Palestinian women may look fat, it is often because they have a terrible carbohydrate-only diet, and they are actually malnourished because they can't afford fruit or vegetables, and suffer from vitamin deficiencies.
Out of these 850 million, the WFP help about 80 million through school food projects (a free meal at school is often enough to get kids into schools and out of the fields), work-for-food projects and, where absolutely necessary, simple food-aid handouts. The trouble about food deliveries, though, is that they create dependency and destroy local farmers' ability to sell any produce. Gaza, with few jobs, little land and a large refugee community is heavily dependent on WFP help.
As we talk, we hear the constant rattle of machine-gun fire, and the sounds of rocket-propelled grenades and explosions. Just over the fence Gaza is disintegrating as Hamas blast their arch rivals Fatah out of the few buildings that they still hold. The viciousness of the rout is fuelled by the fact that Fatah is itself accused of staging a similar coup against Hamas in the 1990s, so vengeance is sweet and bloody.
We look over at Gaza City from the perimeter fence of the kibbutz. It's a pile of crumbling concrete buildings over there, and I can't imagine what misery and terror the people must be feeling. Our news correspondents say that the only people on the streets are gunmen, that there's no food and much fear. I can't help wondering how Alan Johnston must feel (it's now 95 days since he was kidnapped) to hear all the shooting and explosions around him; he must be wondering if the worst is about to happen.
Right now, there appears to be a meltdown in Gaza with factional war between Fatah and Hamas causing mayhem and reports of 40 dead on some days, up to 65 on others, and hundreds of wounded. Today Hamas has taken control of most of the Gaza Strip, wiping out a large proportion of the militia belonging to the more moderate Fatah.
It's hard not to feel exasperation at the chaos here. The last Israeli settlers were evicted from the Gaza Strip in 2005, but instead of a rebuilding of the Palestinian territories and an improvement in living conditions and Palestinian pride, the place has descended into internecine chaos, nasty politics and violence aimed at Israel.
Kirsty is equally frustrated with the situation. The WFP simply carries on sending food over, watching conditions deteriorate. Chaos gets worse, and everyone throws their hands in the air. Then everyone starts sorting out the mess all over again.
Suddenly a Kassam rocket whizzes close above our heads. I'm shocked – I thought they were too busy shooting at each other in there – and I decide to leave.
So that's it, is it?
I've had a warped view of the world over the last two years. I've poked my nose into its grimmest, poorest, most miserable and damaged corners. At first I worried that I would lose empathy, become desensitized by what I saw and pessimistic for the future. I worried that I was a poverty tourist, a disaster entertainer, and that meeting people living such difficult lives would be patronizing and insulting, but everywhere I went people wanted me to tell their stories, to show me their homes and meet their families. And when I came face to face with the worst deprivation imaginable it had the strange effect of making me certain, deep down, that life for these people will get better. Because when we learn about real people rather than just the politics, the disasters, the ideology or the oppression that symbolizes them, we begin to care a little bit more and eventually that care will lead to change. I also realized that pessimism is an admission of defeat, a self-fulfilling prophecy, and a luxury that we mustn't choose. We have to believe that the people of Cite Soleil will emerge from hell, that democracy will re-emerge in Burma, that refugees in Uganda will return home, that the corrupt will be destroyed by their own rottenness and that eventually . . . eventually, some wealth will filter down from the rich to the poor. If we are defeatist about these things, we do people an injustice.
It is generally agreed that the planet will need to produce more food over the next 50 years than it did over the last 10,000 years combined due to population growth, industrialization and medical advances. The pressure that this puts on people and the environment is going to cause food and water-related wars, environmental degradation, widespread hunger and a desperate need for solutions, all of which will be compounded by unsustainable soil management and an agricultural switch from food production to ethanol production. The world and its people need our help, our concern and, hell, even our fascination if that's what it takes.
For me, that fascination came when I saw myself reflected in the people I met: I saw my weaknesses, my sense of humour, my aspirations, my frustrations and my love for my family reflected in Odwa, Anna, Theo, Sabra, Maye and Fate. I am deeply sad that I may not see some of them again, and I know that my life will be the poorer for it.
A note on sources
Population: the national statistics bureaux for each nation, or, in their absence, the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs 2007 mid-year estimate.
Percentage living on less than $2/day according to Purchasing Power Parity, the International Monetary Fund's World Economic Outlook Database April 2007. (N.B. this is calculated by taking into account the differing cost of living in different countries. However, because many chapters are concerned with issues of international trade (which PPP does not help with), the nominal GDP is also given – see below.)
Percentage living below the poverty line: the CIA World Factbook. This is a relatively unreliable figure, as all countries judge their poverty line differently (rich countries tend to offer a more generous definition), but in the absence of better statistics, I've had to use these.
UNDP Human Development Index position: the UN Development Programme's Human Development Report 2006. This looks at three basic dimensions of human development: 'a long and healthy life, knowledge and a decent standard of living'.
Corruption Perceptions Index position: from Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index 2006.
GDP (nominal) per capita: International Monetary Fund's World Economic Outlook Database April 2007.
Malnutrition: percentage of population suffering from undernourishment in 2001-3 as stated in the UN's The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2006 report.
Thanks to
Marc Perkins: brilliant series producer, stress-bearing girder, drinking buddy and great friend. Thanks for bringing me back alive, if a little hungover.
Everyone at BBC Current Affairs who worked on the TV series, yet is criminally under-acknowle
dged in the book, especially the eminently huggable Will Daws, Karen O'Connor (still got those pictures of you frying my testicles), Alex Mackintosh, Colin Pereira, James Jones, Nadia Beginin, Mark Collins, Ruhi Hamid, Chris Alcock, Olly Bootle, Julie Noon, Callum McRae, Susan Crighton, Jane Willey, Nigel Read, plus many more too numerous to mention.
The fixers who sorted and translated and calmed us down when things were getting hairy: Dawit Nida (Ethiopia), Aleem Agha (Afghanistan), Yoon-jung Seo (South Korea), Mario Delatour (Haiti), Efrat Suzin (Israel), Alaa T. Badarneh (West Bank), Yan Yan (China), Louis Fon and Joseph Danjie (Cameroon), Bitek Oketch (Uganda), Ilyena (Ukraine), Black Tom (Burma), Louise Murray (Arctic), Luisa Ortiz Perez (Mexico), Sandra La Fuente (Venezuela), Richard Broadbridge (Fiji), Ralph Steele (Tonga) and Anuj Chopra (India).
The many organisations and charities who helped and protected us, and especially the World Food Programme in Afghanistan, Uganda, Haiti, Israel/ Occupied territories and Ethiopia, MJNUSTAH forces in Haiti, the US army in Kabul and the Karen National Liberation Army.
For this book, thanks to Nicky Ross, Christopher Tinker, Gillian Holmes and everyone at Random House, as well as Borra Garson and Michelle Kass.
Thanks also to Mimi, Erica Sutton, Eliza Hazlewood, Loris, Eve Perkins, Tom, Stephan & Sylvie and Joseph Mitchell-Krafchenko for the armbands thing – a debt I can never repay.
And of course, thanks to my long-suffering family, who had to endure sixteen versions of the phrase, 'Now listen, Daddy's got to go away again tomorrow . . .' To my magical, gorgeous nymphs Georgia, Daisy and Poppy. Thanks for letting me go, and for making me feel so desperately, unbearably homesick whilst I was gone.
