The Refugees Up Close

Stepping out of a comfort zone, the daily cocoon, is highly recommended. If you find yourself feeling sorry for yourself, or worrying about yourself, go and have a look at how people poorer than yourself are coping. I can tell you my heart really went out to these people today. 'The poor' aren't just a concept, or a category, they are many many different people, with their own hopes, dreams, ideas and difficulties.

And do you know what? They were not miserable - most of them. A lot of them greeted me, some smiled, and called to me when I took out my camera. They were from Malawi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique, Angola, and yes, many from Zimbabwe. There were about 1500-2000 refugees crowded onto the lawns, a sort've backyard courtyard area behind Jeppe Police Station in Johannesburg.

When Chris and I first pitched up we thought nothing was going on, because from the outside the police station looked random and unassuming. There were two strange looking black men, one with a Muslim like skullcap on, standing outside, well-dressed but looking troubled. Behind them was a red ant, a man dressed in a red overall and carrying a green crow bar. We followed him into the building and towards many more 'ants' and a din and then, there they were...a huge crowd...as though Jesus were on the other side, giving an impromptu sermon. What other reason could have brought so many people here together?

Near the door was a young white girl handing out pieces of paper with about a dozen children scribbling and coloring on their paper, sitting quietly around her on the ground. In itself, it was a lovely portrait of man's humanity to man. The crowd was subdued. I have taught classrooms with 30 students that made far more noise than this 2000-strong crowd. They seemed spooked, and disoriented, and dismayed, but not morose or angry.

Chris led me to the VOC, and after speaking to a priest who wanted to refer us to 'someone in charge' we spoke to someone with 'Burger' emblazoned on his chest. Later on we met Sheila, a volunteer from no organisation, who was helping out. She showed us a little boy with an interesting pair of glasses he'd made...and asked if we wanted to take a photo. She said some of the people had been here since Sunday. I asked her where they slept, and she said there were tents around the back.

On the raised patio there was a table, and entry to this higher platform was controlled by a few red ants. We saw a lot of bread, and a few cups with beef soup going up and down steps. People had to fill in forms, I'm guessing, each time they came up to eat. There were a few, a handful of individuals with bright yellow and blue police vests milling between the crowd. I wanted to walk between the crowd, but Chris was concerned for our safety. Sheila, the white women who sort've became our chaperone, said we'd be perfectly safe, and led us down between the people. We walked between pots and pans, the odd fridge, someone cooking pieces of meat on bone and tomatoes, mothers with children, people sleeping in the sun on mattresses, large groups standing around, possibly in prayer, or just listening to someone speaking quietly, between all the human paraphernalia - scattered, you had to guess, you had to imagine, by tempests of violence.

Some refugees I spoke to said they were just sleeping on the open ground. Women and children were in the tents, some breastfeeding, some just lying there, obviously feeling lost and uncertain. How would you feel if all your possessions amounted to a few blankets, a big plastic container loaded with dishes. You'd left your country and now, didn't know where you belonged.

Someone said that there were plans to put everyone in an area together, which made me think that 'integration' hasn't worked in the black townships. It hasn't worked on many university campuses either. South Africans, black and white, appear disintegrated, and to be - as a society - disintegrating further. The countries entire population, even including the flood of immigrants, is shrinking at -0.5% a year.

The tent feels oppressively hot, and on the outside, lots of washing is strung on lines, dripping, causing marshy conditions underfoot. I stumble upon a woman who is about to urinate in a corner where all this washing was hanging, and it occurs to me that after a while, this place isn't going to be suitable for so many people.

I also stumble upon a young Zimbabwean mother, Thandi, and a cute little girl, Diana. She is the only person who is certain that she wants to go back home (to Zimbabwe). She says they have made arrangements to catch a bus. She seems resigned to it, but determined, and in the few moments I share with her, I can't help being very touched by the difficulties just taking the trip home with such a young child will involve. Imagine going back to Zimbabwe now, with the elections imminent and 77 tons of weapons equipment having recently arrived?

A number of older women lay inside a tent; one says to me: "Your brothers did this to us."
It takes a while for the portent of this to sink in. I say: "I think the prices going up, for bread, for the bus fare, that's why the people have become angry. Everyone is struggling. And so they thought they can get rid of you, not because they hate you but because they have become desperate."
I think they might think I am not being sympathetic, or somehow not being supportive of what has happened to them, but they see my point immediately, agreeing that for everyone there it has suddenly become very expensive and very difficult to survive.

I suggest they try to find work on farms, because with food prices going up, probably there will be more jobs. I also tell them about the oil price, saying that unfortunately the future is looking more and more difficult for everyone. But I say, "If we can work on a farm and grow something together, maybe we can be all right."

It is only during the drive back, through Johannesburg's unfamiliar streets that I start to, recall my discomfort of taking pictures of these vulnerable people to Chris (my cousin, who is a professional photographer) . I recount my impressions of those terrible pictures of the burning man.
I'm clearer now than ever, that their consciences ought to be bugging the hell out of them - standing right there, taking pictures, while a man is burning right in front of you. Look, maybe they did try to help. I don't know. What I do know is, there where we were, I was touched profoundly by my encounter with the human condition. It seemed to me particularly vulgar to walk around, amongst these poor people, taking photos of them.

A few people asked me, "Why do you want photos?" and I took a moment to consider the question carefully. I said, "Because people want to understand, and need to understand what has happened to you. Because people want to know what has happened. I also want to know. And maybe this can help people to see what is happening here."
And so I hope you can see what I saw today.

World's poor pay price

LOS BAÑOS, Philippines: The brown plant hopper, an insect no bigger than a gnat, is multiplying by the billions and chewing through rice paddies in East Asia, threatening the diets of many poor people.

The damage to rice crops, occurring at a time of scarcity and high prices, could have been prevented. Researchers at the International Rice Research Institute here say that they know how to create rice varieties resistant to the insects but that budget cuts have prevented them from doing so.

NVDL: In exactly the same way are ability to combat H5N1's tricks and manifestations is decreasing by the day. The human race has never been more vulnerable to so many converging catastrophes as it is now, and the majority of people still take great exception to that statement, feeling it to be 'negative' or 'doomsday' or an 'exaggeration'. This willful ignorance drives us even deeper and further into the trouble we're due to face, and are presently facing.

This is a stark example of the many problems that are coming to light in the world's agricultural system. Experts say that during the food surpluses of recent decades, governments and development agencies lost focus on the importance of helping poor countries improve their agriculture.

The budgets of institutions that delivered the world from famine in the 1970s, including the rice institute, have stagnated or fallen, even as the problems they were trying to solve became harder.

"People felt that the world food crisis was solved, that food security was no longer an issue, and it really fell off the agenda," said Robert Zeigler, the director general of the rice institute.

Vital research programs have been slashed. At the rice institute, scientists have identified 14 genetic traits that could help rice plants survive the plant hopper, which sucks the juices out of young plants while infecting them with viruses. But the scientists have had no money to breed these traits into the world's most widely used rice varieties.

The institute is the world's main repository of rice seeds as well as genetic and other information about rice, the crop that feeds nearly half the world's people.

But at the International Rice Research Institute, greenhouses have peeling paint and holes in their screens and walls. Hallways are dotted with empty offices. In the 1980s, the institute employed five entomologists, or insect experts, overseeing a staff of 200. Now it has one entomologist with a staff of eight.

"We've had an exodus here," said Yvette Naredo, an assistant geneticist.

Similar troubles plague other centers in Asia, Africa and Latin America that work on crop productivity in poor countries. Agricultural experts have complained about the flagging efforts for years and warned of the risks.

"Nobody was listening," said Thomas Lumpkin, director general of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center in Mexico.

Now, a reckoning is at hand. Growth of the global food supply has slowed as the population has continued to increase, and as economic growth is giving millions of poor people the money to buy more food.

With demand beginning to outstrip supply, prices have soared, and food riots have erupted that have undermined the stability of foreign governments. World leaders are scrambling to respond. On May 1, President George W. Bush asked Congress for an extra $770 million to pay for food aid and to help farmers improve their productivity.

But cuts in agricultural research continue. The United States is in the midst of slashing, by as much as 75 percent, its $59.5 million annual support for a global research network that focuses on improving crops vital to agriculture in poor countries. That network includes the rice institute.

Robert Bertram, who oversees the funding for the U.S. Agency for International Development, said he was still trying to stop the cuts and argued that research to improve crop yields was "like putting money in the pockets of poor people, and I mean billions of poor people."

The Agency for International Development is the primary vehicle for the U.S. government to finance development projects abroad. James Kunder, its acting deputy administrator, said the agency hoped to reconsider the cutbacks if Congress allows extra money.

Crop by crop and country by country, agricultural research and development are lagging.

The biggest cutbacks have come in donations to agriculture in poor countries from the governments of wealthy countries and in loans from development institutions that the wealthy governments control, like the World Bank. Such projects include not only research on pests and crops but also programs to help farmers adopt improved methods in their fields.

Adjusting for inflation and exchange rates, the wealthy countries, as a group, cut such donations by more than half from 1980 to 2006, to $2.8 billion a year from $6 billion.

"Agriculture has been so productive and done so well, people have kind of lost sight of how fragile it really is," said Jan Leach, a plant pathologist at Colorado State University who works with rice.

"It's as if we have lost track of the fact that food is linked to agriculture, which is linked to human survival."

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