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I wondered what I had done when I looked at the face of Mengistu, a middle-aged farmer from North West Ethiopia. His face had transformed from quietly friendly to savagely upset and I was responsible.
Mengistu comes from the village of Zaha about five hundred miles north of Addis Adaba and life there is not very rosy. The rains have either failed or come late for the past four years and nearly all local crops have failed. A wide river sweeps past the village on its way to the Nile but has not been much help to the villagers. They use buckets full of it for drinking water and washing their clothes but have not been able to get it to their fields. Mengistu had told me that what they always wanted was a big irrigation scheme that would mean they were no longer left at the mercy of the rains.
I was on assignment for the Today programme compiling a series of reports on the problems caused by water shortages around the globe and issues like this were just what I had come for. So, I asked him: Did he know that one of the reasons why international funding has not been offered to build big irrigation schemes here is that down-stream Egypt does not like the idea? (Most of Egypt has a very fast growing population, virtually no rain and is almost totally reliant on the waters of the Nile. It therefore doesn't like other Nile basin countries using the river's water for large scale irrigation projects in case this reduces the amount it gets. It has even threatened to send the tanks in should other states use the Nile in this way without its agreement.)
All this was new to Mengistu. In between muscular spasms and eye popping rage he admitted he had never even heard of the country of Egypt never mind been aware that it had, as he put it, been stealing his river's waters. Jabbing his fingers at the river below us he screamed; If I had known I would have stopped the waters flowing! The thief always comes in the night when you are not aware. War is always wrong, Mengistu continued to thunder, but the battle against hunger is even worse. So we are prepared to fight to get our water back!
So, five minutes ago he had been hungry but relatively resigned to his fate and now he was calling for some form of watery Jihad against Egypt. What had I done?
Given that there was little I could do to calm Mengistu I did resolve to at least leave out his declaration of war from my report for Today. After all, would the Today programme ever be forgiven for starting world war three? Would I ever be forgiven for putting the kibosh on the licence fee once and for all?
I can reveal another few incidents that never quite made it to air. One involved a trip into the desert to visit a new town that is Egypt's answer to Milton Keynes. It lacks the roundabouts and telly tubby green mounds but it too was built to order in the midst of a wilderness. Noubarya, about 100 miles north of Cairo was nothing but sun-scorched sand until 1987 when settlers arrived with irrigation pipes from the Nile and loads of bricks and mortar. The Egyptian government was keen for me to see it. This was partly to show what an enterprising, go-ahead bunch they are and partly because it would show me how careful irrigation has transformed an area where it never rains.
When I got there it was pouring. A mini-rapids gushed down what passed for a pavement, the road was almost a lake, and the locals cowered in their doorways not daring to go out. Perhaps this really was Milton Keynes. Ignoring the weather a local official began talking of the miracle in the desert, how without the Nile's vital waters this desert town would sink back into the sand within days. It was at this point that my producer, Ed Main…not to be confused with the other posher and perhaps more spiritually and financially endowed man of the same forename, pointed out that all this was going to be very confusing for the TV camera. You see, to make best use of the 91Èȱ¬'s bucks we were covering the story for tv as well. But pictures of rain soaked streets and soggy people looked likely to confuse the viewer.
But this will be the only rain of the year! Shouted one of the town's community leaders. All the more reason to broadcast this, I replied. But then I tried to think of the script line….I am standing in a town that was created in the middle of the desert that would not exist but for the life giving water from the Nile. Well, it would today, but it probably wouldn't tomorrow. Or at least, so I am told… Just image explaining that to Kevin's tv equivalent never mind the audience.
Meanwhile, back up-stream the Nile, I was booking into my hotel in Addis Ababa after a late flight from Cairo. As I approached the reception desk I was thinking of how much sympathy I felt for Ethiopia's problems. More than nine million people rely on food aid. This is mainly because the country's rains are becoming ever more erratic and farmers there do not have enough water to grow their crops. Plus, perhaps more importantly of all, they do not have the money to harness the waters of the Nile. But such sentiment took a bit of a knock on being told that my room was not ready and I would have to sit down and wait. But it is one thirty in the morning, I protested, you have had since yesterday morning to make the bed. Well, would you like me to cancel your room? asked the receptionist. I was beginning to resemble Mengistu. How long do you need to make up a room, I spluttered, after all you've had one whole day and nearly half the following night? Pause. Would you like me to cancel your room, sir? Resistance was useless, unless I fancied kipping in the pot holed car park outside.
Then, when it finally came to head home from Addis Adaba's airport an even bigger problem occurred. You can not leave the country, I was told by an immigration official clutching a sheet of A4 paper. Why not? I asked. Because you did not have a permit to make programmes in our country, replied the languid official. It says here in this letter from the interior Ministry that I should not let you leave until you get one. But I was told by the head of your foreign press bureau that I do not need one, I grimaced with one eye watching the departure time getting ever closer. Before you can leave you need to get this permit, came the reply. But it is five in the morning I pleaded and your office will not open until nine. Then go at nine, he answered. The fact that my plane left within the hour seemed to be of little consequence, well, to him anyway.
I tried the do the, you know who I am line. That didn't work so I tried the do the, you know who I have just interviewed line, unleashing the name of Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi, with a triumphant flourish. All to no avail. Finally, after some frantic phone calls, a very nice man from the UN's World Food programme arrived and cleared the matter up. Fees were paid, permits stamped, planes boarded and everyone was happy. Well, apart from Ethiopia, Egypt, Mengistu and me.
Mike Thomson
You can read Mike's report and listen again.
Mike is one of the reporters for the Today Programme.
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