Weekly Blog. Waterloo Sunset 11th - 17th February

“Love doesn’t make the world go round. Love is what  makes the ride worthwhile.” 

(Franklin P. Jones)

I happened to be in London for St Valentine’s Day en route to Waterloo Station. I was on my way to south west London to the house of a friend for dinner. It was mild and sunny with London luxuriating in one of the first days of Spring. The usual busy, rushed furore that is London was replaced by couples strolling along holding hands, making the city seem more like Paris than London. I   had some time on my hands and so decided to join this relaxed softly murmuring flow of people and took a walk over Waterloo Bridge. I had flown over from Ireland a couple of days previously and had read with interest in a Ryan Air magazine that St Valentine was actually buried in Dublin. However this is not quite true. There is a shrine in Whitefriars church in Dublin with a relic of St Valentine. In 1835 an Irish Carmelite called John Spratt went to Rome and came to the notice of the pope as he was a good preacher. Pope Gregory XVI gave him a token of esteem in the form of a relic of St Valentine. John Spratt was also responsible for building a new church to Our Lady of Carmel in Whitefriar Street, Dublin and that is how a piece of St Valentine came to rest there. 

One of the big pieces of news in London during the week that I was there was the story of how an urban fox had entered a house in south eastLondon.

 He proceeded to try and drag a 4 week old baby out of it’s cot on to the floor. The mother heard an awful scream and when she entered, managed to kick the fox off the baby. The baby sustained hand and facial injuries but is now recovering well.  This has re awakened the debate on the problem of urban foxes and how they seem to be becoming more prevalent in cities and attacking people. The question has been raised of whether there are more foxes in urban areas than before. However it appears that urban fox numbers do not appear to have increased since the last census carried out in the 1980’s. But animal behaviour experts say it is possible urban foxes are coming out into the open more as they become more accustomed to humans and are getting braver down the generations.  Recently in Chadwell Heath, a suburb on the outer fringes of East London in Essex where I was brought up, I had thought that foxes had seemed to be more present. When I was young I never saw foxes in Chadwell Heath. But now when I return to see my parents I see foxes quite frequently - freezing for a second in the middle of the road or in a front garden. They fix me with their intent gaze before sliding seamlessly away.  For me today’s  presence of the fox fills a gap of another much smaller mammal I remember seeing frequently in Chadwell Heath when I was young. Hedgehogs are now on the list of Britain’s 10 most endangered species. I remember seeing them trundling across roads, curling up defensively against eagerly nosing dogs and snuffling around in suburban garden privet hedges for slugs and snails. Unfortunately I would often see their rather mournful looking flattened remains dotted around our streets – their slow, rambling gait making the hedgehog, like the badger an easy victim for cars. Now I never see a hedgehog in Chadwell Heath just as I never see the privet hedges where they used to forage or the grassy squares that made up all of the front gardens at one time. These have all been replaced with concrete on which people now park their cars and gives  the street where I was brought up  in Chadwell Heath a sparse, denuded aspect – no trees, shrubs flowers or grass  - no  green, just the relentless grey of concrete. 

I continued my walk over Waterloo Bridge and then along the Embankment to the Millennium Bridge to cross back over the river to rejoin once again Waterloo Rail Station. I like walking over the Millennium Bridge, standing in the middle and glimpsing St Paul’s Cathedral at one end and the squat, square Modern Tate Gallery at the other. The day continued sunny and almost balmy, provoking tempting thoughts of that always longed for Holy Grail of a hot summer. 

Once back in Waterloo Station I went into both of the small Marks and Spencer's shops situated opposite the platforms. They were mobbed – as if the whole focus of St Valentine’s Day was concentrated into these two cramped shops. Everyone had made a beeline for the roses and chocolates section and were milling around like shoals of fish caught in a net. It made me think of what a strange beast love is. How you can take it so much for granted and not notice it even if it is right in front of you, how powerful it is. Take the unconditional protective love of parents, any parents, even fish parents. I remember seeing a pair of angel fish in a tank in India. The female had laid her eggs on a gently wafting frond of one of several plants in the tank. Each time I tried to peer into the tank to take a look at the eggs, the father angel fish would rush in front of the frond trying to hide the eggs from my gaze with his large flat body – protecting his brood. I found it strange and poignant seeing that fierce protectiveness in a fish. It made me realise that the best parts of love are sometimes not the big displays of roses and chocolates that you can buy in places like Marks and Spencer's. These are like the more ostentatious and splendid tourist attractions of London, like Big Ben, the Tower of London, Houses of Parliament – obvious, easy to access, the bits of London people think they should see. Just like the standard fare of St Valentines Day seems to be “roses and chocolates”.  But some of the best parts of London are hidden away in the backstreets. Swoop down a small alley off one of the busiest London streets, Bond Street and you come to the charming village like aspect of Marylebone. Head off left down a dark narrow street off Holburn Viaduct and you find the Old Curousity Shop, unassuming and discreet and yet immortalised within the timeless fame of Dickens. Then there is the OldEnglish Garden tucked away in a corner of Battersea Park.This is truly a secret garden, an oasis of calm where you while away an afternoon sprawled in dozy, somnolent fashion on benches, cleverly placed to catch the sun.

Jostling around amongst the crowds in Waterloo Station I hoped that all the people around me were experiencing love like a native Londoner, eschewing the more obvious attractions such as beauty, charisma, power, financial stability and discovering more unoticed but no less charming aspects like  loyalty,chivalry,  kindness and devotion.

The area around Waterloo Station and Waterloo Bridge were made famous by that song called “Waterloo Sunset” written and sung by the 1960’s rock band “The Kinks”.

View from Waterloo 14th February 2013

Seeing all those couples holding hands on Waterloo Bridge, looking across at the silhouette of Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament and the London Eye in the darkening afternoon and setting sun, I think of the group frontman Davies who wrote the song. He outlines in an interview in 2010, how at the age of 13 he had been very ill and was in St Thomas’s Hospital situated near Waterloo Bridge. The nurses would wheel him out onto the balcony to look at the river and the same sunset we were all witnessing on that late Spring afternoon. And knowing that information, it made   sense of some of the lyrics of that song for me:

“But I don’t feel afraid.As long as I gaze on Waterloo sunset, I am in paradise”

"Waterloo Sunset" by the Kinks

Dirty old river, must you keep rolling
Flowing into the night
People so busy, makes me feel dizzy
Taxi light shines so bright
But I don't need no friends
As long as I gaze on Waterloo sunset
I am in paradise

Every day I look at the world from my window
But chilly, chilly is the evening time
Waterloo sunset's fine

Terry meets Julie, Waterloo Station
Every Friday night
But I am so lazy, don't want to wander
I stay at home at night
But I don't feel afraid
As long as I gaze on Waterloo sunset
I am in paradise

Every day I look at the world from my window
But chilly, chilly is the evening time
Waterloo sunset's fine

Millions of people swarming like flies 'round Waterloo underground
But Terry and Julie cross over the river
Where they feel safe and sound
And the don't need no friends
As long as they gaze on Waterloo sunset
They are in paradise

Waterloo sunset's fine

Hard Choices in Niger

It’s a Sunday afternoon  and  I am  sitting here in a hotel restaurant  in a town called Maradi in Niger. The England Germany football game is on and England have just scored a goal – so it is now  Germany 2. England 1. All the hotel staff are sitting around the TV and I do not dare order anything to eat until the game is over. Here in Niger everyone is very happy because Ghana won the match against USA yesterday.

So why am I here?  I am working with a non government organisation helping them   set up a nutrition here in Maradi .

A village in Niger

 Every day I head off out of Maradi to various health centres. The nutritional situation is not good here, not as bad as back in 2005 but could become like that unless quick action is taken.

Farmer ploughing with a camel

 Every day at the health centre we are finding many malnourished children. I feel so happy to see that at least something is starting up for them. We have to do what is called an appetite test with the malnourished children. If we see that they are eating the Ready to Use Therapeutic Food which is the nutritional treatment for the child and they are medically not too bad then they do not need to be sent to hospital.The health centrecan give them the medications and a week's supply of Ready to Use Therapeutic Foods and tell then to return every week for follow up.Normally when we do he appetite test the child can sometimes start crying because f being in unfamiliar surroundings etc. But here the children are so hungry that it overomes  their fear and they just gulp it down. 

Child with severe acute malnutrition being treated at health centre

We had one child who came back and when we did the appetite test with him he screamed and screamed. I was trying to work out whether he was screaming because he was afraid or because he was sick. We asked the mother to go to a quiet corner and try to calm the child and feed him the Ready to Use Therapeutic Food. I could hear him continuing to scream and scream and suddenly I heard nothing.I was worried something had happened. So  I raced outside to see the child calmly eating the paste surrounded by the mother and other mothers all laughing and giggling. Over in another corner some of the elders of the village were in a huddle talking seriously. Then they gave a nod to the mother and the mother and all the other mothers started to whoop with joy waving their hands in the air. It turned out that the nurse had been giving the child the packet of Ready to Use Therapeutic Food to eat with his right hand. In fact the child was left handed and once they let him eat with his left hand he was a happy as a sandboy. However in an Islamic country like Niger ,eating with your left hand is forbidden because that hand is used for going to the toilet. So the elders had to gather in order to discuss and decide whether in this instance the child could eat with his left hand. When they gave the nod to the mother it was to say that they had agreed to let him eat with his left hand.

However although we try as far as possible to let the mothers bring the severely malnourished child home to give him the medications and Ready to Use Therapeutic Food – there are some children who are too sick and they have to go to the hospital. In this instance we try and make sure her family are provided for during the time she is in hospital. The other day we encountered a child almost comatose with dehydration  at the health centre. He had to have an emergency intravenous infusion (which can be very risky in very malnourished children because it is easy to overload their little bodies and send them into heart failure so you have to watch them like a hawk) The child came round a bit and because of that the mother did not want to go to the hospital. She had 5 others at home that she needed to provide for. Her husband had migrated to find work in nearby Nigeria and was not around. Eventually she agreed to go to the hospital and  that the children could stay with her sister The non government organisation   would give some  grain,sugar and oil enough to feed the other children and also to compensate her sister for looking after the children. ( Everyone is trying to scrape a living together so the mother could not burden her sister with extra mouths to feed without giving her sister something) So we zoomed the child to hospital. On the way the mother was sick in the car all over yours truly. Heat of 40 degrees centrigrade, sweat, dust from the desert  and encrusted vomit are not a good combination to be wallowing in! I am not sure if the child was Ok or not. There are  so many malnourished  children it is difficult to follow them all up.

At the hotel here there is a stork that has made himself at home in the grounds. He potters around and is delighted when it rains. He hops  gleefully  about  in the puddles with his long legs and curved beak  pecking and splashing around. I was told that  these birds which are called chamoix in the local language which is Hawsa are very much loved and respected by the people here for two reasons. They  only arrive here if there is going to be good rain. People are happy if they arrive. This means that they  are able to plant the main crop which here in Niger is millet which is more drought resistant and so have a good harvest in 3 months time. The second reason is that these birds leave the  newly planted millet alone and do not eat it. When the rains stop the birds go away again.

Sometimes as I go along in the car I see flocks of chamoix flying overhead and my heart lifts to see this good sign of rain.  I see the women tilling their newly planted millet crops in the  harsh,dry sand lift their heads, screening their eyes against the sun, calmly looking at the chamoix swooping overhead. I cannot read minds but I wonder if they are  looking at them with relief – at  these good luck harbingers of rain and hope of a good harvest and so, of life. I wonder ,if  as they gaze at them, they are sighing with relief that this year unlike the last famine in 2005  they may not have to make that awful choice –  of helplessly  leaving their youngest malnourished child  at home to die, so that  their other children may survive.

The hotel stork - fortuitious harbinger of rain