Happy-Go-Lucky

You always know you're in for treat when you go to see a Mike Leigh film. You don't have to be a great connoisseur of cinema (and I'm not) to recognise a good film, brilliant acted and well paced with just the right mixture of tension and resolution. Basically classy AND enjoyable. The only thing is, Mike Leigh usually makes fairly heavy, somewhat 'dark', films. Admittedly Happy-Go-Lucky has it's moments but on the whole this is one of the most life-affirming, feel-good movies you'll see all year. And it's so much better than you'd get from Richard Curtis or, let's face it, most of Hollywood. Following the irrepressible Poppy as she waltzes and giggles her way through life, this is such a keenly observed and well-set film that if you've ever lived in the south-east of England and work with children you'll appreciate every minute of it. All the cast are great but special mention has to go to Sally Hawkins as Poppy and Eddie Marsden as Scott her uptight driving instructor. I really can't recommend this highly enough (although perhaps I shouldn't do that as it'll be an anticlimax if you do see it). Great stuff though.

In Bruges

In Bruges is a lovely film about two hitmen sent to Bruges for a fortnight in the aftermath of a botched job. I say 'lovely' and I mean it because this is actually quite a heartwarming film in some ways. Don't be deceived though because at the same time it is also one of the most uncompromisingly bloody pieces of cinema you're likely to see this year. Not one for a romantic date but if you want an idea of what it's like then think what A History of Violence or Lock Stock might have looked like if they had been directed by Ken Loach or Mike Leigh. That sort of thing anyway. Brendon Gleeson is absolutely superb as the old hand and mentor to Colin Farrell's rookie. Farrell is overshadowed by both Glesson and Ralph Fiennes (who does a brilliant turn as the gangster boss), but nevertheless manages to show off new range to his thus-far rather limited acting skills playing the ignorant yet sympathetic central character. It's funny, tragic, fairly bloody but strangely likable film.

Possibly the best neighbours in the world....ever?

When Mrs Gingerkidjoe and I were first looking for a place to live we thought perhaps we ought to pray about it. I guess there was a little bit of us that just wanted to be ‘led’ to the perfect house at a discount price (you know how it is, getting a leg up over the heathen in the property stakes: isn’t that what prayer was invented for??). Another part of us was probably trying to rope God in as some sort of extra free-at-the-point-of-delivery home insurance (this didn’t work – we got a brick through the window from the disgruntled, previous tenants two weeks into our stay). However, there was at least a little bit of me that was genuinely excited by the idea of us living together for the first time in a place of our own, all grown up like, and wanting God to play a central role in our new life and home.

So we prayed, and after we had exhausted our wish list of luscious carpets, pleasant decor and a beautiful yet easily maintained garden, we found ourselves asking for, and I quote ‘neighbours we could be a blessing to’. God has a sense of humour. I guess I was sanctimoniously hoping for some troubled, yet honest humble peasant-types unto whom we might shine the light of Christ and lead along the narrow way. What we got was two sets of neighbours who have showed us from day one what God’s love looks like. It turns out that we were moving in after an often noisy and violent couple that had wracked the nerves of some folks. The extent of our ‘blessing’ to the locals turned out to be simply NOT shouting and smashing windows at three in the morning – what a trial the Lord had for us!

Some other ways God has taken advantage of our selfless and heartfelt prayer (Lord make me a vessel of you grace to the poor, lost folk around me….) is with neighbours who mowed our lawn uninvited when I broke my hand, shared their wireless internet with us (yes, knowingly), and who have re-taught us the concepts of hospitality, generosity and word Barbeque. I tell you people, prayer is dangerous. I never imagined that I would appreciate those living around me so much. I’ve grown up in a vicarage and the local community always have a bit of a funny take on a big four-bed detached house in a row of terraces (understandable really).

On Easter Saturday we were privileged to witness our neighbour get baptised just a couple of days after her and husband moved to a bigger house. They’re a couple of miles away now, but you know what, they still haven’t stopped blessing us….. as they have done…… since the day we became their neighbours. We’re going to be moving again in September and I think we’ll be asking God for some more people to ‘bless’ just like before, only this time with a little more conviction.

In the Shadow of the Moon

In The Shadow of the Moon is a documentary featuring the only surviving men who have ever looked at the earth from another celestial body. It received a limited release in the UK last year but got some great reviews and so seemed to be the perfect candidate for a night at home alone with the video projector and a beer.

The astronauts, who were all members of the Apollo missions to the moon, tell the story in their own words with great lucidity and insight into some of the issues their project raised, accompanied by stunning never-before-seen footage from NASA. But this is so much more than just another telling of events and the crew members really convey something of how their experiences changed their understanding of society, the world and the very origins of life.

I guess I had never really appreciated what a ‘giant leap’ the moon landings were, not just from a technological point of view but in the impact it had on the whole world. This is one of the finest and most engaging documentaries I’ve seen in a long time and one that clearly is worthy of the ‘big picture’ treatment at the cinema. As someone born in the 80s it was a profound experience just watching this and one that is well worth catching even if you’ve never been even remotely interested in space travel. In the Shadow of the Moon is about people and their discovery about the universe and, perhaps more importantly, about themselves. Top stuff.

There Will Be Blood

The great thing about living in Luton is your film-viewing expectations are so lowered that when something good comes along it takes you completely by surprise. Well that's almost true. The reality was I had given up hope of seeing Paul Thomas Anderson's critically acclaimed adaptation of Upton Sinclair's novel and, having heard this was the type of movie you need to see in a quiet cinema, decided I'd probably missed the boat.

So it came as a great surprise when more than a month after it was released, out of nowhere, Cineworld started giving the good people of Luton three (yes, three!) daily opportunities to see Daniel Day Lewis' latest Oscar-winning performance. Perhaps the management was embarrassed into this rash decision by the tripe that is filling the other 10 screens. I certainly can't imagine that There Will Be Blood will be enjoyed by many (or any) of the thousands of teenagers who are currently on Easter Holiday. But that's not the point, really, is it.

My final big fear was that the audience might be full of people who thought the title sounded cool and subsequently got restless and irritating after the first 15 dialogue-free minutes but I needn't have worried and settled down for what felt like the most part of a day (it turned out to be under three hours) to see what the fuss was about.

And you know what, it wasn't what I expected. Powerful, disturbing, deep, and a little bit nuts and hard work for the audience. Not exactly a good one for chilling out in the evening (although after seeing 'Love in the Time of Cholera' last night I would rather watch There Will Be Blood on a loop all week than endure another 10 minutes of that tripe). The most interesting aspect of this film for me was the powerful message about the relationship between money, oil and the church in America. It is a story that despite being set over a century ago, clearly has so much to say about the Iraq war and the relationship between politics, money and religion which drove it.

Let's assume for a moment that the invasion of Iraq could not have taken place without the blessing of the Church, particularly in the Bible Belt. Let's then also assume that oil was one of the primary concerns in the invasion (which isn't too big a leap when you realise the 'dangerous and oppressive regime' that was 'selected' for democracy happened to be the oil-rich one and not the poor African or Asian ones). Then let's imagine that the invasion was sold to the church on false promises (I remember 'opening up of mission fields' being banded about at the time). Most disturbingly, though, if I'm reading this correctly, then the final act of There Will Be Blood (which lives up to it's name) is a worrying suggestion about where this could all end.

Plenty to think about.

Spring

I declare today 'the Beginning of Spring'.

On what basis do I make this bold assertion? I've decided that spring is not something that can be judged by statistics or date, rather it is something you feel, and I felt it just now walking down to Asda without a jumper on (oh yes, dear reader, I know how to live on the edge and I make no apology for that!). It's the feeling that you can imagine drinking cold beer on the garden bench (or in the pub garden) sometime in the near future, going for long rambling walks and watching your team get relegated, promoted or miss out on both.

Having said all that, your avid ginger weather-geek is also here to tell you that things are going to get much frostier soon and there is even a very outside chance of a white Easter! How cool would that be? I advise keen snappers to polish up the SLRs and set the alarms early sometime soon! (Probably*)

Finally, an advanced notice that the 3rd annual fry-up and pilgrimage from Hedley Rise to the Green Man, Great Offley on May Day Bank Holiday looks set to go ahead again so put Pimms and puddings in the diary for the 5th. We may even start a campaign to get the Oreo Cookie Tower reinstated for just one day.

*GKJ takes no responsibility for unnecessary sleep loss and meteorological disappointment

D'oh!

Q: What do Eduardo and I have in common?
A: Football-related broken bones.

(I'd rather go with my injury than his though..)

Kampala

It’s hard to get your head around February in England when you’ve spent a fortnight on the equator. When we arrived back in Sutton last night it felt like months since we set off. I guess this is probably a result of the incredible range of profound experiences we’ve enjoyed (for the most part) over the past few weeks.

This past week we were in and around Kampala, Uganda. The landing at Kampala is dramatic as you approach low over Lake Victoria wondering whether you should start reaching for the buoyancy aid under the seat. The pilot either out of complacency (or maybe because of the altitude? – more of this later) attempted the fastest landing I’ve ever experienced but it was smooth and we successfully stopped, after a painfully long drawn out breaking process, short of the end of the runway (and the Lake). Welcome to Uganda.

Having left Nairobi, the first things that strikes me about Kampala is how incredibly green it is. Not in the eco-friendly sense (I’m not sure many of the vehicles would pass the MOT emissions test) but there is just an abundance of vegetation everywhere. (Note to self, the rainy season must be something incredible). Actually, I learned Kampala is the most thundered-over capital in the world so maybe that’s why it’s so green. What isn’t green is orange, mostly the roof-tiles and, of course, the famous African soil. Green, orange and also the faded blue of the hazy sky. Kampala.

There’s so much I could blog about it’s hard to know what to talk about. One of the most unexpectedly profound experiences of the week came when we went into one many slums. Not as big as Nairobi’s legendary monsters but equally impoverished, it’s hard to expresses quite how upsetting it is to spend time in these places. Part of me just wanted to weep, another part just to leave and pretend I’d never seen what I’d seen. In the end, I just left suitably humbled and disturbed that so many in the world live out their lives in these rancid, disease-ridden hell-holes. The incident that took the biscuit was being summoned by a woman sat at the side off the road, if you can call a mixture of mud and raw sewerage a road, who petitioned us to take her baby away from her and with us out of that world.

Having gone through that, the truth is that most of our time was spent in appreciation of the great beauty around us and the work of organisations like the Tigers Project who are working to rescue lives from the abject poverty of slum-life. There are numerous NGOs in Uganda and a big expat community who were very welcoming. We enjoyed time staying with Jen and Nathan at Tudabujja, a halfway-home where former street boys are rehabilitated and prepared for reintergration into mainstream society either through returning to their own families or being fostered. Tudabujja means ‘we are being made new’ in Luganda (the local language) and sums up what is being done there. Situated on the banks of Lake Victoria, the centre consists of housing for 32 boys, an education centre, and a model farm complete with crops, chickens, rabbits, cattle, pigs (who seem to be named after various staff members) and much, much more. There is also the all-important football pitch which has always been central to Tigers ministry.

It would be wrong to leave a report on Uganda without a mention of the transport infrastructure. There are two types of roads. 1) Roads used for CHOGM (the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting) held in Kampala last November which were done up to impress the queen and other visiting dignitaries, and 2) The Other Ones. 4x4s are advisable for the city and essential for the countryside. The driving is a wonder to behold and I now understand why Uganda has the highest vehicle to accident ratio in the world bar none. Lorries, buses, and cars all jostle at unnervingly close proximity frequently exchanging paint but the icing on the cake are the infamous ‘boda-bodas’, unlicensed motorbikes driven by daredevils, who, in their thousands, weave in and out of the tiniest of spaces between the rest of the traffic with one or two passengers often carrying large ungainly items, including plate glass windows, telegraph poles and, my personal favourite, a bed. We had one go (Mrs Gingerkidjoe’s first ever ride on a motorbike – I’ve never heard such language!) and arrived at our destination safe having seen our life pass before our eyes (well my eyes at any rate – hers were firmly screwed shut) just the once.

Despite the dangers and bad driving, everybody seems ridiculously relaxed about things and there was one surreal moment when a man playing chicken with a car, walking across the road so slowly that it actually hit him sending him sprawling onto the bonnet, simply got up, dusted himself off and, unperturbed, held a calm and highly polite conversation with the driver before both continued on their journey as if nothing had happened!

Luganda has few words for time and urgency imperatives and the attitude was summed-up beautifully when after a delay in getting underway on our return flight, our captain informed us that one of the engines was reluctant to start and in any case air traffic control hadn’t decided which runway we should leave from. One hour later, the bolshy engine had finally started at the fourth attempt (apparently it’s an altitude problem) and we set off from hot, sunny, green Uganda. Back to February.

The Refugee Camp

This morning a few of us headed up to Molo (the nearest town to Turi) to visit the refugee camp there and see if we could organise a few games for the kids. I mentioned yesterday that there are 16,000 displaced persons there but when we arrived we discovered that the figure now stands at 46,000 and that is just counting those in the town itself.

We called in on a site just outside Molo where the Kenyan Red Cross, UNHCR and UNICEF are setting up a large tented village which should open sometime soon. This kind of site is the image you see on the news. What I hadn't appreciated is that most refugee 'camps' are merely areas around churches or police stations where there are just unusual concentrations of people, many of whom settle down to sleep at night by the side of the road. Not very safe and not very visually impressive - just a real mess.

Five 'wizungu' were of great fascination to the kids who flocked to see and greet us. It really reminded me of our experiences working with kids in Kosova - all smiles and excitement and polite welcomes. It's ridiculous really, you visit a bunch of people living in horrible conditions and they are just so pleased to see you and treat you like royalty.

We headed to the stadium while Simon (the local Red Cross co-ordinator) went to fetch kids from the seven nearby camps. A slow trickle began with many parents in tow. It was encouraging to see that there were clearly several adults from the camps who have been organising activities for the kids. Simon told us that at least fifteen teachers from amongst those displaced had come forward to run classes in the camps.

The trickle turned into a flood and soon there were several games of 'granny's footsteps', 'duck, duck, goose' (and it's watery equivalent 'drip drip drop' - which was the cause of much fun amongst the children and mirth among the watching parents) and balloon games (which didn't translate quite so easily. We left as a game of football was getting going with much shaking of hands and waving goodbyes.

It's hard to describe this experience. It is embarrassing how ‘worthy’ the trip sounds as I write it up. We really did very, very little and took nothing to give to those in desperate need. We swanned in and left less than two hours later to return to our hot showers and food from the fridge. The trip cost us nothing and we clearly benefited from it more than those we met.

On the flip side, it helps to have seen things with our own eyes and perhaps most excitingly, three of our party, who are teachers at St. Andrew's International School where we are staying, were inspired to see about going back with some of the privileged kids they teach (Kenyans, East Africans and some Brits) to run more activities in the stadium. Now that really would be something worthwhile, both for the displaced children and the students. If any good is to come of this situation it must surely be in initiatives like that.

Lake Baringo

Our East African adventure continued over the past few days with a stay on Island Camp, Lake Baringo. A three hour drive north of Nakuru, Baringo is a beautiful sanctuary a little out of the way of the tourist masses and the Camp (essentially a tented village on an island in the middle of the lake) has got to be one of the best ways to experience it. Our ‘tent’ (a huge canvas structure under a solid roof) was located on the very end of the island on rocks surrounded on three sides by water and included bathroom, solid wood double bed and an unparalleled view of both sunrise and set. The wildlife was incredible (if a little scary at times – I’m very jumpy when it comes to small crawling things) and we had lots of lizards, exotic birds spiders and insects which, for the most part, remained on the right side of the canvas. I had a couple of bad spider moments and narrowly avoided stepping on a scorpion in the shower this morning but otherwise got through feeling a lot less scared than when we started. (That’s half a lie. I still jump a mile when taken by surprise by even the most innocuous of creatures).

We had a boat trip around the lake and saw crocodiles, hippos and fish-eagles which were lured into the water by our guide with bait – will try to post some photos soon. This trip also gave me my first experience of driving in Kenya. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be in our battered old Toyota 4x4. The main trick was avoiding the pot-holes and other road users (lorry, car, bike, foot) simultaneously. Actually the biggest menace were speed humps that appeared (or rather existed invisible to the naked eye) for the most part around villages, but occasionally in the middle of a perfectly decent stretch of rural road! With the help of my vigilant (and slightly wired) passengers we managed to spot most of them before impact although I did hit one rather dramatically right on the equator (which lies between Turi and Baringo) causing us to literally take off from one hemisphere and land in the other.

It’s interesting getting used to Africa again. There are many strange differences from life in England but at least as many bizarre similarities – in some respects, it feels far closer to Blighty than Europe does – especially at Turi.

We still haven’t seen much evidence of what went on over the last month. Things remain calm for now. We did see the remnants of a few roadblocks on our way north but people seem to just be getting on with life. In fact it’s hard to believe that just three miles from where I write this in the comfort and security of the school there are 16,000 displaced persons settling down for another night in the refugee camp. Tomorrow I hope to visit to see first-hand the impact of the last month and hopefully to just play a few games with some of the kids who have lost the comfort of home, routine and so much more besides. I think some realities of life just have to be seen to be believed and I would find it hard to leave the country on Saturday knowing that I had blissfully avoided facing what is really happening just up the road. I wonder what we’ll find there.