Overland To Upper Volta.
By Uncle Monty.
.=.
Standing right here at Morocco’s Sunni and mosaic capital of Rabat, we’re now about half way, give or
take, on the first leg of our Swahili's safari tour of
driving another 1,800 miles overland to Ouagadougou,
the French-speaking capital of Burkina Faso that was
once known as central West Africa’s Upper Volta.
.=.
For Maria and I, we’ll go thru three or four more
countries and geographical hotspots like the Western
Sahara, and onto Mauritania (at where the military coup
by Mohamed Ould Abdelazizat at the capital Nouakchott
took place just over a week and abit ago with its elected
President Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi still be-
ing detained by the coup leaders, who have been widely
condemned around the world) and then arriving at Mali,
before we finally reach inside the former Upper Volta.
.=.
It will take us three or four days or more, I
guess, to arrive there in our convoy of seven or
eight British Land Rovers and American Jeeps.
The overland convey includes armed drivers, an
experienced African guide, and a tour navigator.
Plus, an healthy backup of two 4x4 American jeeps in
case we have a mechanical breakdown or a road accident.
There’ll be about 15 to 18 other presently unknown
Europeans and Yankees joining us as global travel-
lors to this rugged frontier of boiling hot days and
its intruding aeon of aridity.
.=.
Being European and American travellors requires great
caution from being sitting ducks for those who may seek
to perhaps rob us on the waffle-like highways of deep
desert and blowing sand storms. In Mauritania itself, a
number of French tourists have been robbed and re-
portedly killed already this year. Worse still is the real
fear and danger of being kidnapped for ransom or
for some political motivation of those African and/or
Muslim rebels who are likely to see us as nothing
more than pawns or pure white “colonialists,” which,
of course, we’re not. We’re just globe trotters look-
ing to experience a new travel thrill with all its
various ambiance and dark entanglements. And
seeking, too, to expand our experience of seeing
these parts of Africa we’ve not seen before.
We come unarmed, unlike our Safari drivers.
.=.
A scaled-down map of where Maria and I
will go overland to Upper Volta from Rabat.
Whatever, we’re right off to Upper Volta and come what may we’ll all surely arrive there hopefully in one
piece. And, hopefully, a lot more wiser about Africa and
her different people and her indigenous culture and her
amazing wildlife by our own first hand and upfront
encounters while journeying thru inmost West Africa.
We will not be hunting the rare and beautiful creatures
we hope to see and photograph. Those who come to kill
by hunting need not come with their rifles and shotguns
near us. We support the preservation of all wildlife
and not the slaughter and wanton killing of such.
.=.
Ah, we do have just one vacant seat left if you’d like to
join us here. But please, don’t bother to come with us
if you don’t have at least a potful or pocketful of Brit or
Yankee dough of about $US6.400 - or £3.200 -- for your
rear seat which is the cheapest. The two front ones, the
most expensive, have already been booked and taken
by none other than Contessa Maria and me. Thankfully,
she’s already paid for them. Such then is not for skinflints.
.=.
So here we come, abit intrepidly I must say, to Upper
Volta’s old tribal capital of Ouagadougou at where at least
44 gold miners died underground last week due to the
bloody goldmine collapsing on them thru very heavy
rainfalls. Sad for them. See ya then, all from there …
.=.
See ya all on my return, Uncle Monty.
+Murdered David Adams, 17, 1985-2oo8.
...
At Morocco's Rabat.
...
I want to personally thank James Higgins of Chamberlain De Broe
for his kind and generous financial gift to me
for my West Africa hols. Thank you so much
James … You’re much like Maria, much too
generous and much too kind to an old and
‘potheaded’ fart like me. Kudos to James ...
:::
Overland To Upper Volta. By Uncle Monty
::
:: BLOG NOTICE ::::
While here in Africa, I shall be taking a much needed
break from my blog for the next couple of weeks unless
something drastic or major happens that will drive me
to instantly blog on whatever that may be. Otherwise, I,
Uncle Monty, bid you all a nice holiday and/or a work
break that we all need from time to time. That time is now for me and perhaps for you.
So happy days are here again.
...
So byebye and toodaloo, Uncle Monty.
+Florence Nightingale, 1910-2oo8.
:::
Yet, another UK immigrant wedding this
week at the same RC church from last week.
Yet, Another UK Immigrant Wedding.
Story and Photos By Uncle Monty.
::
This week’s immigrant wedding was alot less showy and alot less costly than last week’s matrimonial do
costing an estimated $18.000 to do. But, there was
by far alot more folkz at this week's do than last.
I photographed at the same RC Church this week
like I did last week. However, I took my cameras
this time upto a third floor window to view and
photographed from some 150 yards away from the
church itself. Such was unlike standing close to the
parish door like I did before in the pouring rain to
record my first immigrant wedding event in the
UK. So in less than a week I have now seen and
recorded two African immigrant weddings in full
bloom. Both weddings are among the growing
numbers of immigrants marrying in order to
legally stay in the UK.
.
The latest figures are some 35.000 to 40.000 such
immigrant and illegal immigrant wedding taking place
around the country at this British summertime alone.
And, the weddings numbers continue to grow unabatedly.
Black weddings are a booming industry in the UK
thesedays, so it appears, due to the swelling numbers
of masses of Third World immigrants that Britain’s
New Labour has opened the door freely to them.
::
My question, among others, is where do they get all of
the money from to pay for such expensive weddings
when they have arrived from their Third World habitat
to the UK mostly penniless and without jobs just only
a couple of years ago? I just wonder how they get the
money to do it all? Other than that, how come that the
UK is now being swamped by immigrant and foreigner
weddings? Here I present some of the following answers
as to why ...
::
Three major demographic factors have
simutaneously occurred in Britain under New Labour’s
governmental and state control, and their wreaking tenure,
that has decisively and negatively altered forever the very
character and very essence of England during the past
ten years or so.
::
First, the black ghettoization of most of our
country’s larger city and towns is by New Labour.
Secondly, the foreignization of almost every aspect
of the British job market has resulted with the huge
influx of foreigners and immigrants of every type
from all regions of the world to the UK. Again, such
is due to New Labour’s insatable aim and desire for
a multicultural and and multiracial "New Britain."
Today's school kidz in Britain speak 240 different
languages with English not being their Mother
Tongue for the most part. And thirdly, the horrid
Eastern Europeanization of England by our un-
voted membership in the European Union (EU),
which New Labour first promised to let the people
vote on, but then renegued on it much like much
of New Labour’s constant zigzags and U-turns on
so many of their potty and grandiose political, social
and economic pronouncements. No wonder more than
a quarter of million Brits, each year, flee and forsake
their own country to go and live any where else but
inside of New Labour’s Broken -"New Britain."
...
Family and friends waiting for the bride and groom
to take their stretcher limo ride to their honeymoon.
In the meantime, more immigrants and foreigners are marrying
like crazy all over England. Some estimated 10,000 marriages are
bogus or sham each year by immigrants and foreigners in the UK.
And, of course, they're having their pounding pregnancies and
big babies at England's expense and far above and beyond
what their demographic numbers and representation
should truly be. The UK has now become the modern
concubine of the world, too. The number of babies born
out of wedlock to immigrants and foreigners in the UK
is almost an affront to the moral and responsible
decency and social properness to those who are first
the home grown English people and now imposed host.
...
Friday, by the way, instead of the usual weekend, is
now also finding to be more the day when weddings
take place in the UK, according to the Ecclesiastical
Insurers Direct. So expect to see more useless and
upperty immigrant and foreign couples choosing to
then tie-the-knot on such Fridays in the future.
The vexing problem with such people is that they
always use more of our resources and our wealth
than what they are worth and more than whatever
peanuts they bring with them. The focus of improv-
ing the quality of our society is the least thing to
concern them and their desire to grab whatever they
can get for free is all they care about. They always take,
but rarely give back unless it's of a negative kind like
all of their growing street crime, all of their dangerous
diseases, and all of their dreadful and alien cultural
mishmash. Many of them are little more than free-
loaders, spongers and scumbags. New Labour
seems propelled to rewards those like them.
That's why they still keep coming to "New
Britain" by the illegal truckloads and what
have you. They then help to make Britain
even more broken than it already is.
.=.
Now taking a needed break, Uncle Monty.
+Wm. and Catherine Booth, Founders
of the Salvation Army, 1912-2oo8.
...
...
Parker House's StreetwisePunk Jay Thompson, 40. ::: E-MAIL LETTER FROM NEW YORK.
From my Aussie buddy Earl Hemphill.
---
G'Day Monty, I went on a free walking tour yesterday of
the financial district in NYC and got a lot of insider information
about how something called the "stock market" works. If only
you knew what our churches were playing at .......... New York
is going well. The weather has been not too humid which is good.
As well as my wife settling into her job we have managed to find
a flat in Queens - I claim the title as the "Earl of Queens" -
apparently the TV networks over here are not so keen on a
comedy show with this title however ("King of Queens",
hope that wasnt lost on you). Hope the (big) issue is still
selling and that you have picked up more customers.
---
It is really the plastic society over here. They double bag
everything. We bought some toothpaste the other day and
they double bagged ! it. We go to eat somewhere, while ad-
mittedly cheaper establishments, and they will serve the
food on plastic plates with plastic cuttlery. If they have a
green revolution in NYC they will have to start by single
bagging and charging for an extra bag. While I have
always known from my previous visits to this country
that it is a tough society to live in for the maganilsed,
an interesting report in the NY times today
illustrated this. It was talking about an avenue which
extends through harlem and has many fuel stations.
While these fuel stations are self service people will go
to the pumps and offer car drivers to fill their tanks
with fuel for tips. I am also surprised at the lack of
charity outlets we see here. In London before leaving
we dropped much stuff off at the local charity outlet.
We are wondering what we can do in NY - the salvos
in Manhatten are all we have been told about or
seen at the moment.
---
America offers a lot in comercial
products. A good ex! ample is the footcare I could
easily find here in terms of availability of different in-
soles when I hurt my foot as apposed to UK availability.
While everyone expects (or at least me) that America
is the world leader in everything they have a long
way to go in commercial transactions. For instance my
wife is currently getting paid by check, not for want of
a bank account. Unbelievably to get the bank account
transaction setup we needed to get froms filled out
from the employer and bank so that this transaction
can take place. Fortunately we got the internet up as
soon as we moved into the flat. Anyway its a strange
and unforgiving place but I call it my home away
from home ..... is that the UK, Ireland or Aus .....
I cant remember now. Oh yeah thats right
I say. G'Day Monty. Catchya Earl ...
---
Just got Earl's unedited comments above on arriving
here at Morocco's capital of Rabat. It was so good to
hear from him after being such a good friend and
customer at my Covent Garden pitch. Glad, too, he
arrived okay at The Big Apple at where I once lived
for awhile myself at the Upper Eastside.