North Korea and beyond...
Dochi Township North Korea, September 2007.
I (Andi) tallied up that I have visited in the last nine months - six countries and even more cities, four of these countries in the past two-three weeks. And now I'm home after being away with work and is time for another blog. Is so nice to be back with Gareth who has also been busy recently, organising and leading a global conference with his work.
We are in the midst of heavy monsoon rains and as I write this the water is pouring down the streets and thundering off the roof of the apartment. Is actually quite refreshing as it cleans a lot of things up, cools things down and fills up the tanks for when the weather turns hot and dry again.
So back to the recent trips. I rivaled Gareth's last crazy schedule with one of my own. Heading to North Korea as a World Vision delegation of 3, to assess and respond to the floods which hit the country last month and also check on our shipments. I was curious to visit this secretive, little known country which in 2002 George Bush named as part of an "axis of evil". I don't often quote George Bush.....
Beijing, China.
Is difficult to operate as an NGO here but World Vision have had development programs and relief response to disasters since 1997.
The three of us included the WV DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) National Director who's based in NYC to be close to the UN, is Taiwanese and the Regional HEA Director who's also a friend as we've worked together now for five years. He's British but based with his family in Singapore. Then me.
My journey to get to the country included Bangkok, Singapore, Beijing and then North Korea. You can only get your plane ticket and visa to NK from Beijing. So I was in the WV Singapore office for few days and then Beijing for few days inc a chance to visit Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden Palace. This visit was special for me as this was my first visit to the country my Mum was born in.. Then we traveled onto North Korea.
Forbidden Palace, Beijing.
We were only allowed to visit DPRK for five days as you have to seek permission for NGO delegations. Part of this included inter-agency meetings we had arranged with The Red Cross, UN, World Food Programme etc and visiting some of our field programs, seeing the flood damage and making reports, assessments, gathering footage, photos, stories, interviews etc.
On arrival at the airport our mobiles were confiscated and we were given a receipt to retrieve them on exit, as calls are monitored and you are allocated 'minders' or officials who check your itinerary and again monitor your movements.
I was surprised at how beautiful the country is and the average person was so welcoming, but this is in contrast to the dictatorship, poverty and a crumbling infrastructure and it felt so surreal at times as we traveled and were watched at every move. North Korea by the way has the world's fifth largest army of one million, despite only being a population of around 23million.
On this note I also had a scary moment when a gun was cocked and held at me in the dark, but it all worked out ok and my security training kicked in as laid my things on the floor, held my hands up and kept calm (until I got back safely to my room that is!)
I was also really encouraged when global news agency Reuters offered me a job based on my photos, footage and stories, as we met them and other media to do planned media interviews in Beijing as we exited North Korea.
Then briefly back to Bangkok on route home to Hyderabad, I was up until 4am the night I arrived editing the footage for our global offices/media to use. I have never slept so well on a plane when traveling later that day.
Since being back we've had a Hindu festival in India again. Ganesh took place this Tues, as the night before India had won the T20 cricket world cup and seeing the city light up in fireworks the sound of shouts and drums, bikes racing down the street with flags on the back was really fun.
We've also caught up with friends since we've been back. I had a girls night out here recently for a birthday and Gareth had a boys night out while I was recently away (a night of sport on TV and pizza). Its also been another round of birthdays and different events for us so we've been kept busy gift buying, cooking meals and eating too much!
I could share so much more about my trip to North Korea and China etc, but maybe I'll save it to this short update and update you more individually if interested. On a final note huge congrats to our friends Athena and Paul on the birth of their son William.
