Oh dear, oh dear, the airline we love to hate, Ryanair has just got itself into trouble in Germany, for saying that it flies to Dussledorf.

A court in Cologne said that it was deceptive advertising to use the description Niederheim (Dussledorf) as the airport is over 40 miles away from the city. (Is that all? Beetle). Ryanair accused Lufthansa and Dussledorf Airport of supporting the action brought against it by an Unfair Competition organisation. Lufthansa has denied the claim.

And still on the subject of court action, a French court has upheld complaints against low-fare carrier Ryanair and stopped the airline from accepting local subsidies (EUR560,000 (USD$644,000) a year from the local Chamber of Commerce) to publicise flights and build up passenger numbers on the London Stansted – Strasbourg route.

It is the first time a ruling has been made barring the airline from making financial deals with local tourist authorities or airports to boost its passenger traffic. Ryanair says it will appeal against the decision.

1. Tokyo, Japan

2. Osaka, Japan

3. Oslo, Norway

4. Hong Kong

5. Libreville, Gabon

London came 7^th in the list.

Source: http://www.aneki.com/lists.html

OK, don’t look – can you name the five largest lakes in the world? A quick clue, one of them is a sea.

Tanzania has a multi-ethnic and multi-racial population that practices a wide variety of traditions and customs. In Mikindani, the influence of Shirazi Arabs from Persia and traders from the Indian subcontinent combined with the movement and mixture of different ethnic African groups have complemented each other to form a rich cultural heritage. This is something that is not always evident as people go about their daily tasks with invidious alacrity, but on joyous or sorrowful occasions such as weddings and funerals one realises how deep and fascinating the culture here actually is.

One of the most significant differences to European culture is how the concept of extended families and kinship works to benefit the people of Mikindani. It is common to find people living with and depending upon distant relations (“this is my brother’s wife’s uncle etc.), and kin ties through ones parents or by marriage appear to define one's rights, obligations, and opportunities. For example, educated members of the extended family are frequently held responsible for the education and welfare of younger siblings. This concept is a source of strength for the people of Mikindani, and provides a sense of belonging and togetherness that is lacking in our own society.

It is often the case that, in the face of a limited presence of science and technology, an individual person in Africa cannot achieve much without enlisting the support and efforts of others. In most aspects of Mikindani life, the role of men and women is vastly different. There is a clear and ingrained streak of gender inequality, which has dampened the potential, but definitely not the spirits, of the younger women here. Despite this, women remain by far the more jovial and animated members of the community, going about things with a grace, good humour, vigour and vitality that says much about the way in which they share their tasks.

At home, the women work so smoothly and quietly that when you are around, you sometimes wonder how water had arrived, the fire was started, or how the food materialised. Regardless of religion, it is rare to see men and women walking together, and almost non-existent to see a couple holding hands or making displays of affection.

Walking around the dusty back streets of Mikindani, it is possible to see groups of old men playing bao, women plaiting each others hair and younger girls skipping with a piece of twine. It is, however, the talking, shouting and singing that catches my attention. A typical Swahili conversation begins with multiple greetings followed by general banter; often these discourses are held purely for enjoyment rather than purpose. Here, talk, as pure entertainment is the equivalent of the Western vices of television and games consoles.

In Swahili society, much of the knowledge is shared and passed down to descendants encoded in stories, poetry and songs. This is the literature, art, law and science of Mikindani; the libraries and museums are in peoples’ heads. The Swahili language has proven to be a unifying factor in Tanzania, uniting more than one hundred different ethnic groups and forging a common identity. There is, however, a second language spoken in Mikindani – the tribal dialect of Kimakonde. The Makonde people represent one of the five largest ethnic groups in Tanzania, with a population of around one million. The tribe originated in Northern Mozambique, from where people migrated to the higher lands of the Makonde plateau (120km inland from Mikindani).

Many people in Mikindani still use Makonde, and the Makonde culture remains an enormous influence upon the traditions, customs and lifestyles of much of the local population. It is, however, their excellent woodcarvings for which the Makonde are internationally renowned. The skill is passed through the generations from father to son and some carvings provide an insight into the culture of the artists. Inland, many Makonde still practice their traditional religion even though they have been in contact with Muslim traders for hundreds of years. Their religion centres around the veneration of their ancestors, which ties in with the family tree carvings that depict the older generation on the bottom symbolically supporting later generations.

Today, the culture of Mikindani is changing faster than ever. Western influences upon such things as fashion and music are increasingly obvious. In particular, many young men are frustrated, it seems, with the limitations of their grandparents’ culture. The poverty trap and the phenomenon of Americanisation have hit each other head on. Younger children whose parents can barely even afford to buy them a pair of flip-flops draw global brands such as the Nike tick on the walls and doors of houses. Despite this, there is still a strong bond between the people and their cultural heritage; hopefully, as living standards improve and development takes place, that will always remain the same

The UK charity Trade Aid was founded in 1996 by a group of people headed by Brian Currie, a Salisbury businessman. The aim of the charity it to create sustainable employment in a village called Mikindani, a deprived and desperately poor part of Tanzania. The first phase of the project is complete – the renovation of a badly decayed but very beautiful German fort, situated on the side of a hill and overlooking the spectacular Mikindani Lagoon. The Boma, as it is called is now open as a 6 bedroom, country-house hotel. All the staff are Tanzanian nationals and most are local people from Mikindani and Mtwara, the local town. All of the rooms have been lovingly decorated and fitted out by local craftsmen. It’s an easy flight down to the south of Tanzania from Dar es Salaam, and the Beetle can vouch for the hospitality and effort that has gone into creating and running the Boma.

For more information on the work carried out by Trade Aid in Tanzania, see their website www.mikindani.com

Iris, a British lady of considerable character and pluck, is on a 23 week overland expedition from Quito in Ecuador to Caracas in Venezuela. After this, she plans to do a 3-month voluntary placement in Ecuador, and then visit Central America for another overland trip between Panama City and Mexico City, ending up with perhaps another 2-month voluntary placement somewhere in South America again. This amazing journey will take Iris one year. Here is an extract from Iris’ journey notebook.

15 of our overland gang left us in Ushaia – not because they had come to the end of their trip but because they wanted to spend more time in Ushaia and so, at their own expense opted to stay on in hotels longer and to fly up to Buenos Aires (BA) in order to spend more time there as well. They would then join up with us in BA when we arrived there after spending five days travelling overland.

The remainder of us, 8 including our drivers/tour leaders, then travelled up to BA in a marathon 3,000 km plus journey, so that most of our time was spend on the road, with only two short visits to a petrified forest and a penguin colony to break the monotony and to give us a bit of extra comfort, we opted to drive further on one particular day so that we could spend a night in a hotel! The rest of the time was spent in rough camps along the way!

The petrified forest was in the middle of nowhere. It was very low key, just a park warden looking after a solitary outpost, guarding relics from some 5 million years ago and which they considered were the remains of an enormous forest full of gigantic trees which had suddenly and catastrophically been buried after several natural disasters and which had miraculously been uncovered again in subsequent earth movements. It comprised some enormous trunks lying on the surface of the ground over an extensive area and looked to this lay person’s eye like the remains from some ancient logging ground where the chain saws had been removed and the trunks just left fragmented where they lay. But they were of course now turned to stone. We arrived in the evening at about 1800 and had about an hour to walk round and look at these relics, but unfortunately none of us could really appreciate them because we had such little information as to why they were considered so significant. There was a museum housing fauna and flora of the region and depicting the course of events over several 100 million years but as everything was in Spanish and only one sparse leaflet in English, it was rather disappointing that we did not have a suitable guide to explain it all to us.

We stayed that night in a really rough camp site, again, in the middle of nowhere, which seemed frequented more by roaming labourers from local roadworks rather than the normal tourist place. We lit up a barbecue and ate good steaks that night, all the food having been purchased in bulk before leaving Ushaia.

The next day we pressed on, without pause to a place called Rio Gallegos, eating our lunch on the truck. We prepared it too in the truck on the move. Because the truck was so empty with just 6 instead of the usual 22 people in the back, it bumped and rattled and lurched over the rough roads perhaps more than it would have done if it had been fully laden, and so some accidents did occur with chopped salad etc, as we attempted to fill baguettes for the lunch-time snack!) But Rio Gallegos, gave us a welcome respite from camping as we stayed in a hotel that night and so had the luxury of beds and en suite showers! We went for a meal soon after booking in, and chose the restaurant on the other side of the road to the hotel, where family groups were eating three course meals at midnight! This is the norm in Argentina, as people tend to go out to eat in the late evening, but not before 2130 and even later!

Our next excursion was to a penguin colony that was situated near a place called Camarones, where we camped for the night close to the beach. We spent just an hour and a half at the colony. Penguins breed there and apparently stay for three years, growing up, before making any sea journeys. The whole area was full of young penguins, some already moulted, others younger and still covered in baby fur and all sorts of others in the in-between state looking as if they had all rescued their coats from moth infested wardrobes! However, although it was great to walk among them (along a designated footpath from which we were not allowed to stray) the penguins ignored this. They were allowed to stray on to the footpath and so we had a few very interesting encounters, as they are inquisitive birds, totally unfazed by humans walking around, and so they would pause and swivel their heads almost through a full 180 degrees to try and focus on us and work out who we were!

These two visits were the sum total of sightseeing on the 5 days it took to travel in our overland truck from Ushaia to BA and so we arrived in that capital city ready for a rest and some comfortable beds!

Next Month, Buenos Aires and Uruguay.

If you’d like to contact Iris, whether to wish her luck with her trip or to ask questions about her itinerary and places visited, I am sure she would like to hear from you. She can be contacted on: irisej2002@yahoo.co.uk

As a result of the item about place names, Tom from N. Carolina wrote in to add: in the US state of Georgia we have Cairo, Athens & Rome. There is also Moscow in the state of Idaho; Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Frankfort, Kentucky and Odessa, Texas. The state of Connecticut has a bunch of place names reminiscent of England – Norwich, Devon, Stratford, Manchester, Windsor Locks, New London, etc.

Crystal from California wrote in to say: “isn't the joke about Simpsons that they called the town Springfield because there's one in every state? That's the rumour, anyway. Anyone know if there is some truth about this?”

Kim from Massachusetts also spotted Moscow, Russia and Moscow, Idaho and Moscow, Vermont.

Doug from Maine e-mailed the Beetle to say that although he lived for 11 years in London, he and his family now live Maine, topmost on the east coast of the USA. Doug goes on to say that Maine residents came from all over the world over the last 3 centuries, primarily from Europe. Many of those first immigrants liked to name their new homes after their previous homes in the “Old Country.” (Many, many came from Britain and we have too many British town names to mention here.) Some of the more interesting names of Maine towns include:

Carthage Orient, China, Paris, Lebanon, Peru, Levant, Poland, Madrid, Rome, Mexico, Smyrna, Moscow, Sweden, Naples, Troy, Norway, Vienna.

Many thanks to all of those who wrote in.