April 2007 London meeting
Despite the hot weather this months meeting was well attended, the members listened to two excellent talks.
Our first speaker was Jessica Boyd who showed us the Zabbelan, or garbage collectors of Cairo. Originally this population of Coptic Christians, who live in an area north of Cairo’s Citadel collected rubbish to feed their pigs.
Nowadays Jessica explained that they are responsible for collecting 3000 tonnes of rubbish each day. The rubbish is brought back to their suburb by the men and the next day the women sort the rubbish so that it can be processed for recycling.
The Kings of this are the families who specialise in plastics; they even have shredders and cleaning processes and employ workers, where there’s muck there’s brass or Egyptian pounds at least. Other groups recycle paper, cloth and even shoes. The Zabbelan are doing what the western world is trying to achieve, Cairo actually has one of the best records for recycling the city’s trash in the world.
However the Zabbelan’s livelihood is being threatened by multi national companies brought in by the government on a commercial basis, one example being that the Zabbelan now have to pay to collect rubbish in some areas, while the government pays a multi national to do the job.
After the break our second speaker was Jonathan Kaplan, whose talk was entitled “A surgical sojourn in the Kurdistan Mountains”. Jonathan showed us the reality of working for an NGO in a war zone as a doctor. Just getting into Iraq meant an awkward journey via Syria and Turkey, his mission to set up a forward treatment centre.
When he eventually managed to meet up with his colleagues from the French NGO AMI, they started work using a tent as a field hospital, treating injured combatants who in some cases had been carried on their shoulders comrades for days over the mountains in order to get treatment.
Jonathan told us he soon learned that there are limitations as to what he can do in these conditions, patients died under the knife, where as in a conventional hospital with proper equipment they may have lived. He realised the injured chances of survival would be greater if he were to set up on the other side of the mountains.
Once in Iraq they set up in a fort, however getting equipment in was another headache as a gung ho US helicopter crew managed to throw out their pallets of equipment along with food aid attached to parachutes, they saw their precious equipment and drugs smash all over the mountain side. But they salvaged enough to start up and were soon treating the wounded. They also treated civilians; many children had to have toes amputated after a frost bitten trek over the mountains.
Before he set off, Jonathan had asked his surgeon father for advice, his father gave him two pieces, Fill your stomach when you can and empty your bladder when you can! Jonathan has written a couple of books about what he termed his questionable career choices, they are The Dressing Station: A Surgeon’s Chronicle of War and Medicine and Contact Wounds: A War Surgeon’s Education
By Padmassana
London meetings are held at The Church of Scotland, Crown Court, behind the Fortune Theatre in Covent Garden at 2.30pm the first Saturday of each month. There is no London meeting in August, but we will be back in September. For more information, you can contact the Globetrotters Info line on (+44) 020 8674 6229, or visit the website: www.globetrotters.co.uk
You don’t need to worry about getting your newly acquired purchases home as PNG Arts has a reliable packing, crating and shipping service, which the Beetle has twice used and all items arrived safely in London, taking about three months – see the very exciting picture left.
Anyway, down to business, this is not an ad for PNG Art, the Beetle wants to talk about Rabaul. Rabaul is a natural harbour on one of PNG’s islands, this one is New Britain, part of the Bismark Archipelago, which is immediately north of the main part of PNG. Rabaul has a sheltered deep harbour which allows good anchorage for large cargo and cruise ships. The harbour itself is a massive flooded caldera of an ancient volcano – it here that the Beetle did many fantastic dives. See the picture above right of a very undignified Beetle hanging on to some dead coral for dear life as the currents threatened to wash her away.
From 1910 until 1937 Rabaul was under German control and the base of Japanese activities in the South Pacific during World War II and there are many remains and relics to be seen as a result of this and subsequent Japanese occupation. 
If you have an interest in WW2 artefacts and wish to gain a better understanding of the events in this part of the South Pacific, there is no better place to visit than the Kokopo war museum. It is largely set outdoor amidst beautifully manicured gardens with a gorgeous collection of frangipani ad star fruit trees. 
German colonial period, pre-war and WWII Japanese occupation such as tanks, search lights, munitions, motorcycles, half-tracks, guns, artillery, machine guns, and the wrecks and partial wreck of many Japanese aircraft. 
Japanese War Memorial A war memorial was constructed by the Japanese after WWII as a peace memorial, and in memory to those who lost their life in and around Rabaul. It is on a hill above the town, with a fabulous view of
the area that was once occupied by thousands of Japanese Navy and Army personnel. The memorial is not without a little controversy. The huge map of the Pacific with New Britain and Rabaul at the centre forms the background of the memorial also
shows the sites of Jap
anese conquests. This elicited a response from the Australian government that the memorial signified Japanese occupation rather than promote their subsequent peaceful intentions. You can see in the Beetle photo left that there is a hole that lets the sun shine directly onto a simple pillar shrine.
The Japanese used forced labour to build a series of tunnels through many parts of Rabaul. You can still see these tunnels sixty years later. Some of the tunnels were used to live in, store munitions and guns, and others were used to house barges. The Beetle photo left shows the remains of one such barge. One tunnel in particular is large enough to have stored five landing craft. During the war, these were carefully lifted out of the tunnel using a hoist system, taken across to the cliff face where they were lowered into the water. 
ooks dim. But the story here is Greek Macedonia, one of the most beautiful regions of Greece, and an area which will grow in importance as the commercial and cultural centre of the Balkans in the years to come. 
Founded by King Perdikas in the 7th Century BC it was formally known as Aigaes and was the first capital of Macedonia. When the capital was moved to Pella it was continued to be used as the royal burial grounds. In 336 BC, King Phillip II was assassinated by one of his seven bodyguards while attending the wedding of his daughter Cleopatra in the theatre.
Ancient Dion was an important religious centre for worshipping the Gods of nearby Mount Olympus. This is where Phillip II came to celebrate his victories and his son Alexander came to make his sacrifices here before going off to conquer the East. While most of the statues which were not only found virtually intact, but with traces of colour, are in the nearby museum in the town of Dion, they have been replaced with copies. The Sanctuary of Isis is perhaps the most interesting discovery so far. An earthquake had displaced water and mud and the building was hidden for centuries under 6 feet of water which protected it from vandals. The temple still sits in the water and a copy of the statue of Aphrodite can be seen there. 
The Capital of Macedonia moved from Vergina to Pella in the 5th Century BC and was in effect the capital of Greece. Many people come here to see the exceptional mosaics discovered in the remains of houses and public buildings. The museum is one of Greece’s best on-site archaeology museums with a display of pottery, jewellery and mosaics found at the site. The remains of the buildings have impressed archaeologists and led them to believe that the Macedonians enjoyed a high level of wealth. 
Site of the famous battle where the armies of Mark Anthony and Octavius met and defeated the armies of Julius Caesar’s assassins in 42BC. Brutas and Cassius committed suicide and the victors spent a fortune on Philippi, granting it the status of Roman Colony, providing us with the impressive ruins, and artefacts which are now in the museum. In 49 AD Saint Paul came to preach to the inhabitants of Philippi and ended up in prison. Despite Paul’s misfortune Phillipi was the first European city to accept Christianity, though the first two churches they built suffered some bad luck. The first was destroyed by an earthquake right after it was completed in the 5th century and the second collapsed before its dedication in the 6th Century because it was too top heavy. The remains can both be seen, as well as the ancient theatre built by Phillip II.