Miss Sarajevo

Because its so beautiful, and because it's been stuck in my head for the last two days...

First impressions: how sad it is that a city - a whole country - can be known for one thing and one thing only: atrocity. It's not fair.

I'm back!

Greetings from Sarajevo - that's right, in Bosnia.

Only three months after leaving Uganda, I've begun another spontaneous adventure. This is as much a surprise to me as it might be to you - I was offered this internship only about three weeks ago, I took a plane on Saturday, and here I am.

For the next six months, I'm going to be working on justice and legal issues - specifically on the war crimes trials being held in the local courts here, which are increasing now that the court in the Hague is trying to wrap up its business within the next year or two. I'm working in a large international organisation - I won't say which one in case I ever want to entertain myself making catty little comments about it here on a future basis. Suffice to say its not the not the organisation I worked for in Uganda... I leave it to your imagination.

I bid Front Line an emotional farewell last week. I can't believe my year there has come to an end already. They were incredibly good to me, and were a home to me as much as an employer - they literally put a roof over my head for a couple of weeks at one point, besides making my Ugandan, Armenian and Swiss adventures possible. As a parting tribute, as a chance to make it public - Front Line and your valient human rights defenders, I salute you!

Hopefully I'll keep up the blogging much as I did down on the equator - I didn't realise how much I'd enjoyed writing until I didn't have the excuse to blog back home. Thanks to my beautiful new shiny Sony Vaio and a pretty reasonably decent internet connection (take that, Uganda!), I'm actually looking forward to trying to upload here without spending half an afternoon on it...

So stay tuned for some musing and updates on this cosy little city.... although no photos this time around I'm afraid, thanks to the asshole who robbed my house in Dublin last week. The robbery could have been worse - I was insured - but the timing could not. Leaving home without a lens has been excruciating. Funny to think how I attached myself so much to that black little mechanical eye on the world.

More to follow soon....

Ireland

I'm home.

There's a whole world contained in those two words, most of which I can't really explain here. If there are any takers out there for a pint and a boozy chat, it might be possible. On paper (can you call a blog "paper"?!) I don't have the time or the energy right now. I would say that I haven't formulated most of it yet, except that - as I always knew would be the case - after only four days back in Ireland, my Ugandan experience is already slipping away from me, and I have a terrible fear that if I don't write about it very soon it'll slip away from me forever.

I flew out from Kampala on Friday night, and arrived back in my small little Irish home town on Saturday lunchtime. By Sunday afternoon I was already on my way to Dublin and on Monday morning I was back at my old desk in the office, fumbling my way uselessly through the same work I was fluent with a few months ago.

There's so much I haven't written about - so many things happening, so many places seen, new people befriended, new journeys made, new events (some magical, some tragic and horrifying). This blog was as much for myself, to remember things, as it was for anyone to read about them. The month of lost blogging thus really does seem a loss - too many things I'll have forgotten, some day. It's not that I gave up blogging the past month, its simply that circumstances conspired against it. Armenia swallowed a large chunk of my Ugandan time - I spent ten days away. I spent a week recovering (literally - a large proportion of the week after I came back was spent in bed recovering from some kind of bug I picked up along the way). I spent another week almost totally without internet in the office, frantically trying to wrap up the work I needed to finish before my successor, Daniel, would arrive for a handover. My last week in the office was only three days long, all of which was swallowed by workshops, speeches and the launch (a big deal) of the Human Right's Centre's first report. And then I spent about a week traveling with two friends through southwest Uganda and Rwanda before coming back to Kampala to fly home.

It would take me days to write about our Great East African Road Trip. Suffice to say it involved:

• Crossing the Equator for the first time. Disappointingly the world is not as upside and back to front down there as one would hope.
  
• A series of long-winded bus journeys, the last of which was ten hours long, which all seemed to involve broken bags, babies on laps, questionable roadside food, near-death experiences on Rwandan mountaintops, Nigerian soap operas, Christian music, the total absence of personal space, amorous Ugandan and Rwandan men, out of date newspapers, postal deliveries and sore bladders.
  
• An inexhaustible succession of Scandinavians of various shapes and sizes.
• Africa's deepest lake, and wooden dugout canoes upon it, and fish inside it, diving into it, and lying in hammocks beside it.
• Day-long card games, which no one ever won.
  
• An earthquake. Yes, really, an earthquake. It was a good 5-10 seconds long and as thrilling as it was bloody frightening.
• Crayfish. Oh god, so much crayfish. So delectably good. Sigh.
• Omelets. Some good, some bad, always reliable.
  
• Unfathomable and indecipherable exchange rates. I currently have six different currencies in my purse.
  
• Walking to the Congo, standing and looking at the Congo, and ultimately failing to get into the Congo. Must go back to climb the volcano another time.
  
• Incorruptible Rwandan border guards. We would know - we tried our very best to corrupt one, and emerged morally bankrupt. Absolute shame on us.
• Children - hugging us, squealing at us, being dumped on our laps. Life affirming.
• Genocide memorials. Really nothing witty I can say about this.
  
• Terrorism.

This last one is nothing to joke about either. 76 people were killed in Kampala on 11 July while they watched the World Cup Final. A week later there is still very little I can say about this. All the usual adjectives apply - sickening, horrifying, terrifying - and all of them seem very pointless because they are so obvious. Something like this deserves something more than words, or perhaps something less. Perhaps only silence can suffice.

We were safely in Rwanda when we heard the news, and thankfully no friends or colleagues were affected. This is less surprising than you might think - one of the bombs, at the Ethiopian Village Restaurant, went off in my neighbourhood, Kabalagala (which I've written about before), about halfway between home and the office. I've driven past twice a day for the past three months; I've eaten there before. If I had been in Kampala I probably would have been in a neighbouring bar or restaurant that night - in fact a good friend of mine was in a place just up the street and heard the explosion. But noises and whooshes and bangs happen all the time in Kabalagala, especially on the night of the World Cup Final, and no one took any notice. Fifteen people died in that whoosh.

I've been trying to explain to people that while you in Ireland or Europe or North America might think that these things happen "out there" all the time, in those far flung places whose names are linked to suicide bombings every week, these things did not happen in Kampala. Security concerns in Kampala involved taking precautions against petty theft, or avoiding political rallies and protest demonstrations where rowdiness and beatings are a growing trend in the run-up to the elections. No one worried about bombs and fundamentalism and extremists. Kampala was - and is - a city of bars, and shacks selling beers, and restaurants with live music; a town obsessed with football, where even the rundown local joints screened satellite channels from South Africa; a place where a typical Friday night out involved changing your bar every hour until 5am, before sipping beers through the sunrise and dryly taking a boda boda home after grabbing the first rolex from a street vendor at 7.00.

Bombs in bars didn't happen in Kampala. I only returned on Thursday night before flying out on Friday, but you could see the place was jumpy. People are calling in suspicious packages to the police, and shopping bags are checked by security guards going into shopping centres. The embassies send regular text messages with up dates to ex-pats. Yet even still, town was buzzing. "The jam" was as bad as ever, the street food sellers were doing their usual trade, and although the Western muzungu bars were probably deserted, friends have told me wild stories about spontaneous house parties that were thrown up around town all weekend.

I hated hearing about them: I wasn't there. I was watching soft, gray Irish rain beat off the window panes in Kerry, paying €3 for a cup of the coffee I'd so craved, hearing - before I saw - the girls in fake tans and tracksuits. Well, that's a harsh invocation - Ireland's really not that bad. Today, my second day at the office, was better than yesterday, my first. True, the sun was shining today, and I'd forgotten how beautiful Dublin is when you take the train out along the bay; had forgotten the smell of the sea; was startled once again by how O'Connell Bridge at 8.30 on a fine summer morning has the strange quality of a film set - tidy, vivid, wide, calm. And yet, still, what continues to upset me is not that I'm so unhappy here but the fact that I'm already settling back in; the fact that I can get on very well outside Uganda and that I'm already forgetting it and re-adjusting, faster than I want to.

You don't realise how immersed you are in Africa until you leave it; going to Armenia and then returning was in this sense a very strange and emotive experience for me. Reverse culture shock for me isn't, after all, the unfamiliarity of what should be the home environment. It isn't no longer feeling at home in your own place, amongst your own people. It isn't seeing the same old same old with new eyes, marvelling at what you never bothered to notice before.

Reverse culture shock for me, upsetting and disorientating, is in fact the inevitable, crushing sameness of everything when you come back. Nothing has changed. This is obvious, as much to me as it is to you, reading this, and its the almost-sense of shame and stupidity that comes from knowing this and recognising this, the whole, well, what else did you expect?

I've tried to reason it all out the past four days. The obvious answers are: you have changed, and home has not. You have changed, but the people at home have not, and most of them cannot relate, and most of them really aren't all that interested anyway. Other friends who have traveled to the developing world have talked to me about how friends, family and acquaintances project a defensiveness when you return - even if you were never to talk about your experiences, they expect you to, and expect you to express dissatisfaction - which they take to be a criticism of themselves - and expect you, somehow, to project a sense of superiority because of what you've done and where you've been. And even if this couldn't be further from the truth, it won't make any difference to those who'll keep you at arm's length because they expect to find you changed. And you don't want that to be the case; you just want your friends, who you very likely missed while you were away.

Reverse culture shock is all of these things, and yet for me that's not exactly it either. In addition to all of that, there is the sameness of things flattening everything else out. The sameness took the good out of all the modern conveniences that I looked forward to my last week in Africa, trying to console myself at the thought of going home: the long hot showers, the drinking water direct from the tap, the bewildering choice of food, the fast internet, the being able to go out alone after dark. Home is so utterly and crushingly the same, from the instant that you get back here, that all these things are just the same too, unnoticed and unappreciated. I thought I would have forgotten how to drive, or would marvel at the hundreds of choices in Tesco, but I did not. I thought I'd never been able to choose what to eat for lunch, but I just got on with it, and that was what was most upsetting.

No matter how long I'd been in Uganda, no matter how comfortable I felt there, every so often there would come a moment - of beauty, of kindness, of friendship or simply of something random that could only happen in Africa - and you'd jump in your own skin, look around and think - This is amazing. How did this happen? How did I get here? I can't believe this is my life now!

Yesterday, running late for work, lacking change for the bus, getting wet in the rain - that crap Irish half-rain, muggy and humid with mildness - it was my very first day and yet simultaneously so eternally as if I'd never been away. And I looked around and though.... how did this happen? how did I get here? is this really my life?

Because when I thought about where I had been only five days ago - bumping on buses over the Rwandan hills and the Ugandan plains, laughing about nicknames with Jenny and John, being welcomed by the Rwandan border guards who remembered us from passing through on our way the week before, flying on a boda boda through the balmy Ugandan evening, being called Auntie by Mama Sharon and Paul the boda driver, looking at Kampala's twinkling nighttime hills with Paulo, having pizza while surrounded by friends on my sofa, getting ridiculous text messages from Hubert, seeing the tears in Sharon's eyes, guiltily thinking of the people I didn't even get to see before I left, eating chapatti, gossiping over lunch with everyone from the office, listening to the birdsong and the rooster crowing and the call to prayer in the morning, counting banana trees on my way to the airport - I had no idea how I had come from there to here in what seemed like the passing of a few moments. The idea that all of that was over was so deeply upsetting. I wasn't ready for it to end. I still amn't.

I don't know if I'll keep blogging. If I have the time there are stories and thoughts about my last weeks there which I'd like to write about. I wouldn't be surprised if this is the kind of thing which simply loses momentum in the atmosphere of home, although I try to tell myself I'll be different this time. Perhaps this is my last entry, until my next travels; the thought makes me think of the very last anecdote I have from Uganda, and of how perfect - in summing up, and in all the hopes I have for the future - it was.

On my last morning I went to a supermarket to buy an extra bag for my luggage. I took a cheap holdall to the till, where the man whose job is to pack your shopping bags picked it up and turned it over, folded and unfolded it, opened and closed it, and handed it to me as if he'd made it ready for me.

"Thank you please. This is a very good bag," he said, and it wasn't small talk. He really meant it. "You must be planning a journey if you are buying a bag. Eghh. I wish you safe travels ,and good health wherever you will go with it."

Random

Just when you think it's all getting a bit repetitive, possibly a bit stale, maybe a little boring, you have a Tuesday night in Kampala.

The Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs, Michéal Martin, has been on a five-day visit to Uganda. Uganda is Irish Aid's single biggest aid and development program, apparently, and the Irish are well known within Kampala for being one of the most prominent and active of the diplomatic missions here, being almost universally well-regarded. On Monday Michéal Martin announced a pledge of €166 million for Uganda over the next four years, which is an amazing and encouraging promise to make during a year when every diplomatic mission, NGO and aid project is experiencing budget difficulties. All of which makes me very proud; Ireland gives more per capita in foreign development aid than many European countries, and to lose this uniquely generous characteristic due to domestic crisis would be a true shame.

Anyway, there was a drinks reception at the Irish Ambassador's residence to mark the occasion. I would imagine most of the Irish in Kampala – and quite a few from upcountry – were there. The Residence is a nice spot: beautiful but not imposing, luxurious but casual. The wine was flowing along with 2-litre bottles of Paddy whiskey, and brown soda bread and smoked salmon was being served on trays. And more wine was flowing. The Ambassador and the Minister made short speeches (a group of Ugandan school girls had sung the Irish national anthem as gaeilge to the Minister at a remote rural school earlier that day, and yes, he made Cork-Kerry football jokes). More wine. We briefly said hello to the Minister and shook his hand. Another glass of wine, and then one for the road.

Who did I meet at the Residence?

An instructor from a teacher-training college in Dublin who was travelling all over the country visiting students who are on placement in Ugandan schools for the summer, and his teenage daughter who was accompanying him.

A girl from Galway who took a year out after her Leaving Cert to come here, aged 17, alone, to teach English. What was I doing when I was 17? As far as I can remember, I nervous about leaving my uncle's shop and getting a job somewhere else in town. Which is more unusual – that I was nervous and shy, or that she is so brave?

Some people I'd met very, very late on Saturday night, who didn't remember meeting me. Enough said...

People who knew Front Line, and my Director in Dublin, and Margaret, and my housemate Sarah. Kampala is a small place.

Another glass of wine.

At about 10.30, we all went off down the road to Bubbles O'Leary's, the Irish bar (yep, everyone I meet down here can mysteriously remember my surname...) There had been wild rumours that the Minister would make an appearance there, but it wasn't meant to be. In fairness, he had flown across the country and spent the day trecking around Karamoja, one of the most devastated and remote parts of rural Uganda, so it was probably a good reason to be tired.

Who did we meet at Bubbles?

A group of Mexicans who were in Uganda making a horror film. Not that they were just in Uganda making a horror film, but they had come to Uganda especially to make a horror film. Strangely I never found out exactly why Uganda was the place for the project. Also with them was a guy from Dun Laoighaire who had somehow met up with one of the crew and had come down here specifically to help out. Makes me feel I really don't ever come across the right people in my wanderings. I'm still disappointed they didn't ask me if I'd like to be a zombie or chain-saw victim or a poltergeist.

Three Irish soldiers who have been sent down here by the Defence Forces to join an EU Joint Task Force to train members of the Somali national army, the training taking place in Uganda. Yes, I did ask the very question – Somalia has a national army? Indeed they do. The problem is that they don't have jurisdiction over very much territory. One of them - of course - was from Killarney, a Ronan Corcoran from Lisivigeen, who knows my uncles (he seemed a bit upset actually that they were my uncles rather than my brothers – I take it I made him feel old...!) Talking about the Spa football team and explaining just where in Tiernaboul Knockeragh is located, in a pub in Kampala, with a guy wearing full khakis and a beret, was one of the more bizarre experiences I've had in a while.

An Irish lady I had previously heard about but hadn't met, who runs an organisation here that works with refugees, with whom I promptly had an energetic argument about the International Criminal Court.

Amongst others.

At about 2.30am, we were arguing with the single taxi driver left outside the bar, who was predictably trying to overcharge us, when a guy we had been talking to inside earlier on came along and told us he was going to Muyenga if we wanted a lift. We had never met him before, and had only talked to him for five minutes that night, but he went out of his way to give us a drive home. Not only that, but it turns out he is from South Africa and works in Kampala training a local football team. So a South African football coach gave us a lift us home on the night Spain beat Portugal. Why not?!

Don't mention the fact that I have to leave Uganda in two weeks' time. It's nights like these, random, spontaneous and beautifully wholesome fun, that makes the idea of it break my heart.

Armenia

In lieu of writing about Armenia, I'll show you a little of it instead...

Island monastery on Lake Sevan

Lake Sevan

With Orsi and Nabou from the Geneva office

Four little Ladas, all in a row... every second car in Armenia is soviet-era kitsch

Still cannot believe how fab this one was!

Armenia: UN expert urges Government to address ongoing obstacles faced by human rights defenders

The extended version of this kept us up late last night....!

Armenia - UN expert urges Government to address ongoing obstacles faced by human rights defenders

YEREVAN (18 June 2010) – The UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, Margaret Sekaggya, urged the Armenian authorities to publicly acknowledge the role and importance of human rights defenders, and to address the ongoing obstacles faced by them in the country.

The Special Rapporteur welcomed Armenia’s commitment to promoting respect for human rights, as demonstrated by its ratification of a wide number of international human rights instruments, and acknowledged the challenges faced by the Government of Armenia and its law enforcement officials.

“I am worried by documented cases of ongoing violence, assaults, intimidation, harassment and stigmatization of defenders, in particular journalists,” the UN independent expert said at the end of a five-day fact-finding mission to Armenia*, which was the first visit to the country by a UN Human Rights envoy since 2000.

Ms. Sekaggya noted that “these cases would seem to illustrate an apparent culture of impunity in Armenia which impinges upon the work of human rights defenders. This impunity appears to be closely related to the deep-rooted problems within the police system as well as with the shortcomings of the justice system.”

The human rights expert urged the authorities “to undertake prompt, thorough and transparent investigations of all human rights violations, in particular attacks against journalists, in order to create a safe and enabling environment in which human rights defenders can carry out their activities.”

“I would like to reiterate a request I made to the Prime Minister during my meeting with him asking him to publicly acknowledge the role and importance of human rights defenders in achieving a flourishing, pluralistic and democratic society,” she said.

The UN Human Rights Council envoy also drew attention to “the significant constraints imposed on the exercise of freedom of assembly in Armenia,” noting that “in a democratic society, the right to hold peaceful, open and public demonstrations, including indoor assemblies, should be available to all individuals without undue restrictions.”

“I also add my voice to those who have already expressed serious concerns about the amendments to the Law on Television and Radio. If signed into law by the President of Armenia, these amendments will further restrict and seriously hamper the plurality of voices and opinions available to Armenian society,” Ms. Sekaggya stressed.

In this context, Ms. Sekaggya recommended the Government “to implement a comprehensive programme of reform within the police service, to immediately take steps to address the shortcomings of the justice system.” In her view, “this should be carried out in conjunction with the implementation of an extensive anti-corruption strategy in order to ensure accountability within government structures.”

The UN independent expert emphasized the need to fully consult, include and incorporate the views of civil society and human rights defenders in decision-making processes; as well as addressing the specific needs of human rights defenders, including women defenders and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) defenders within the National Action Plan on Human Rights.

The Special Rapporteur will present her report to the United Nations Human Rights Council at its sixteenth session in March 2011, and will make further recommendations for the consideration of the Government and other stakeholders.

Margaret Sekaggya, a lawyer from Uganda, was appointed Special Rapporteur in March 2008 by the UN Human Rights Council. She is independent from any Government and serves in her individual capacity.

(*) Read the full statement by the Special Rapporteur:

http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=10168&LangID=E

OHCHR Country Page

–

Armenia: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Countries/ENACARegion/Pages/AMIndex.aspx

Real Armenian Kitchen

Top Five Things About Armenia

• Long days: at 10pm it's still bright, 27 degrees, and people are swimming and lounging around on sunbeds beside the pool (In Kampala it gets dark at 7pm all year round)
• No mosquitoes!!! In Uganda, lounging around a pool after 6pm would involve so many mozzie bites that it wouldn't make life worth living
• Strong showers. Showers in Africa dribble, for obvious reasons
• Fast internet. My god, its life changing. In Kampala I usually read newspaper articles or go off and watch the kettle boil while waiting for emails to open or attachments to download...
• Coffee. Coffee, and wonderful bread. And mezze. And dolma. Fruit. Salad. Fresh cherries. Cheese. Copious amounts of vegetables, in all the colours of the rainbow. And did I mention the coffee?

We had lunch Sunday, our only free day, at "Real Armenian Kitchen", a restaurant recommended to us near the hotel. Because it was Sunday and we're in the government/business district it was very quiet so we were the only people there besides some people who knew the owners - everyone was sitting around watching the football on a flat screen tv. We had an overwhelmingly warm welcome and service from them, but the problem is we have no idea why. There were three possibilities:

• Armenians are genuinely lovely, warm people who treat guests with great generosity
• The restaurant owners were good businessmen who were upselling hard and wanted us to come back and bring more business
• They don't see many Africans around here (we have two - Margaret, who is Ugandan, and Nabou, who is from Senegal)

Which do you think is more likely?!

It was quite endearing, they were so excited to see us. They kept bringing us food. As we tried to decipher the menu and decide what to order, they just started bringing food to the table ("Appetizer! Is appetizer!") and they kept on going. Plate after plate, after plate. ("Is ok, is appetizer!").

First an overflowing basket of four types of that wonderful bread (flat, white, black and plaited). A plate of three different types of cheese (sheep, goat and a yellow one, cow I guess). A plate piled high with cucumber, oddly phallic hot green peppers and fat, rich, ripe tomato - made me think straight away of pomidori, almost exactly the same as the great Polish summer tomatoes, which make you realise that we've forgotten what real tomatoes taste like in Ireland. A plate of two types of dried/cured beef ("Is Armenian. Is good!"). A bowl of cold stewed aubergine, tomato and sweet peppers, sort of a pepperonata or ratatouille ("Is homemade!"). A plate of "greens", but what a lovely plate - radishes, spring onions, bunches of parsley and other herbs, and a mix of dark and green leaves.

We didn't order any of this: when the first plates began to arrive ("Is appetizer!") we thought, ok, that looks nice - no harm to have something to pick on, to start with. But as the table started to fill up and we began to run out of room to fit all the bowls and dishes, we had to start turning them away. Another plate of cured meat for example. Pyramids of asparagus. And they were very upset that we refused soup ("Chicken soup - is very good! No? Asparagus soup? Bean soup? No? No? Yoghurt soup then").

On top of all this - and it would have more been more than enough - we had main courses coming. I had beautiful dolma - meat and rice mixed with herbs, onion and garlic and wrapped up in vine leaves, with a yoghut and garlic sauce. Yum yum yum. Orsi had the dolma filling stuffed into vegetables like courgette and cabbage rather than vine leaves. Nabou had veal stew with flat bread. Margaret had the brilliantly-named "domestic chicken". Domestic chicken turned out to be tiny, not much bigger than a pigeon, spatch-cocked and laid out on the plate with its little legs thrown up in surrender. She said it was tasty but labour-intensive in terms of deconstruction.

Then the presents began. A jug of strawberry wine, which was ludicrously delicious, like a concoction from a fairy tale or a children's movie where they drink something utterly scrumptious that couldn't seem to possibly exist in real life. Also a jug of dark red juice, half full of cherries soaked and bloated which were put out in a bowl for us when the jug of juice was drained. I think it was cherry juice but I'm not sure if it was a mix - it was slightly dry and tart like cranberry ("This from us, this present - you try!").

Halfway through our main courses he arrived with another plate of cured meat. No, no, we couldn't possibly - we already had more than enough food. "No, you try," he insisted, putting one piece on each of our plates. "Is from chef. Is Armenian! Is very good. You try." As if it was of such good quality that we really had to try it for our own good, he knew better than we did that we needed to taste it, it'd be good for us. He seemed terribly relieved when we all brightened and smiled and agreed it was very nice.

Dessert? Absolutely not - we couldn't possibly. Full stomach gestures all round the table, comical and absurd. No! That wouldn't do. He dashed enthusiastically over to a table in the centre of the room where a few dishes of cakes were covered with cling film. "No no, you try, you try!"

No, really, we were full (we also had no idea at this point how much anything cost or whether they were just ripping us off).

"Is present!" he cheered, full of excitement and joy, like a child giving a gift he has made himself. Plates were whipped away, new ones appeared from cupboards, and a dish of pastries was placed in front of us. We didn't have a chance to pick up our spoons before a second guy was bringing over plates of stiff yoghurt and a bowl of honey. ("Is Armenian. Is natural. Is homemade!"). The yoghurt was really like ricotta, stiff as ice cream so that a spoonful sat up by itself, pert on the plate. I can't bear dairy but even I thought it was lovely; with the honey in fact it was almost immaculately beautiful. There was something ancient and ancestral about it. Just a spoonful made you think of the farmers and the hills and the countryside, and of the timelessness of so simple and perfect a recipe must be unchanging, of all the generations and the peoples over all the hundreds of years who must have eaten food just exactly like this.

And in fairness to them, everything was a present. They didn't charge us for drinks or desert or the things they had pressed upon us as gifts. And after fierce hand shaking and wild gesturing and profuse, broken English, we stumbled outside laughing and tottered back to the hotel to fall into a happy food coma.