Extreme Mountain unicycling
Sometimes you watch clips that impress you. In this case it’s a clip that scares me. I wouldn’t want to ride a unicycle down that type of landscape. Would you?
Whilst doing my work last week in Geneva I was told that I had to include footage from the Film “Henry Dunant – Du Rouge sur la croix”. I didn’t get to watch the film until today but I enjoyed it. it’s an interesting film for anyone who has been brought up in Geneva to watch.
There are two cities in the World that have the United Nations, New York in the US and Geneva in Switzerland. Both these locations are important but Geneva is seen by some as the capital of Human rights.
Henry Dunant is an important figure in the history of International Human Rights (DIH) because when in Solferino after seeing the ravages of war he wanted to help anyone affected by conflict, no matter the nationality, religion or ethnic background. In effect for him they were “brothers in arms” to quote the film.
The film itself is well shot, has a good rythm and a good pacing. It tells the story without getting bogged down in details and serves as a taster for those who would like to do more research on the subject. The acting is good and it’s amusing to see the old town of Geneva in a film, especially since those are the streets around which I have spent many hours on a number of weekend evenings.
I love the international aspect of Geneva. I’ve done work for the International Committee of the Red Cross, the International Labour Organisation, I’ve been accredited to the United Nations on three seperate occasions, each one for over a month and I’ve done work for the World Health Organisation.
I have been through Two International Labour Conferences, the first ever General Staff meeting of UNAIDS and on the lighter side I’ve been to two Student League of Nations as a precursor.
This is part of the reason for which I see Globalisation not as a form of corportage agrandisement but rather as a coming together of the world’s population, living according to specic rules and guidelines which means that we are compassionate about ethnic diversity and co-habitation.
Where are you from is not to find out what village or town you’re from but what country. This is because we follow world news and international politics. We are aware of every continent and aspects of many cultures. That’s why we watch BBC World when we have the chance and read the international newspapers.
If you have the opportunity of seeing Henry Dunant then do so, it’s worth it.
When the temperature drops and we find ourselves living beneath the clouds for weeks or even months going up to the mountains to get above them is always pleasant. Another option is to take advantage of the cool temperatures to explore caves where the conditions are constant year round. For Halloween a group of us went to have a bonfire and barbecue at the entrance to the Big cave of the Grottes des Fées.
[caption id="attachment_2665" align="aligncenter" width="660"] Improvised BBQ[/caption]We explored both caves. We explored the large cave as far as it was possible to do, had a snack and then we went to the second smaller cave. The video below shows the entrance to that cave.
The video above is from when the snow melts. As the snow melts so much water is released at once that it floods the cave around once a year.
The cave system has 21 kilometres worth of tunnels, passages and more. Animal remains were found within, mainly fossils and cave bears. The earliest records of  this cave system date to the 1700s with more exploration taking place in the 1800s with notable water flow in the 1950s and again in the 1990s. Over the last decade people have explored the cave system using wind as a way of seeing where new passages could be found.
We see in many of the accounts written in french that an important aspect of cave exploration is finding the wind. It marks where big chambers are and where excavation of debris can take place to clear paths wide enough for people to cross through.
The large cave is easy to explore as it is possible to spend most of the time and there are no or at least very few squeezes. The large cave terminates at a metal door where progressing further is not possible unless you are with a trained guide to introduce you to the really interesting parts of the cave.
The small cave is more interesting to visit because it gets cramped and there are moments where you have to worm your way along. Either your arms are ahead of you or behind you. There is no way to move them once you cross through. In total there are two or three such passages. As it widens after these squeezes the motivation to explore remains intact.
Tomorrow we will finish exploring the little cave and in future, maybe in summer we will find a guide to help us explore the rest of the cave system.
Today I went for my daily walk and I came across a couple of pheasants. One was female and the other was male. I was actually standing right next to the female and didn’t realise until she flew away from me. I was startled but no more. I was more focused on the male pheasant.
I walked closer, to try to get a clearer photo but didn’t succeed. Instead it went into a field with some cows and when one of the cows noticed it went up to investigate. I thought it was chasing the pheasant and eventually it was. It was an amusing sight to see. A cow running after a pheasant.
it got better. When the pheasant went into the next field the rest of the herd came across to look at the pheasant.
A tall slender woman was sitting on a chair by the podium where her husband was delivering a presentation to a hall filled with people. Each group of four people had a white board in front and on this board was the name of the deleguation. Canada, USA, France, Lithuania and more. In the balconies NGO names could be spotted. The location is the general assembly hall in Geneva and the occasion is Abdullah Il bin an Hussein the second of Jordan speaking to all these deleguations. I was the cut away camera and I was told to focus on cut away shots.
This took place on my second year of working for the International Labour Conference, general meeting of the International Labour Organisation. My job during this time was to cover the plenary sessions. Whenever a deleguation requested for their presentation to covered I had to be there and record it, either on VHS or Beta, depending on what the client wanted.
When the ILC began you would always find every seat was filled but as breakout sessions took place so the general assembly hall would empty. You would find only three or four deleguations at a time and quite often you would spot them leaning back in their chair with a beige object over one of their ears. This was the simultaneous translation. Quite often the deleguate would have both eyes closed. Was he sleeping or focusing on what was being said. I’m not sure.
You can see diplomacy in action in such halls. Occasionally there would be an important person speaking and many other deleguations would come and listen. Once the speaker finished talking everyone would get out of their seat and go and congratulate them on their great oratory and the things they had brought up. Some of these speakers did deserve the praise but most of the time they speak in droning monotonous voices, hence the closed eyes I described earlier.
Occasionaly I would get something fun to do like press conferences. There are two press conference rooms where i might have gone. Room 1 and 4. Room 1 is an informal room with tables and the personality would speak at the head. Each of these rooms had a breakout box so that placing a microphone was not necessary. Room 4 is one you have seen many times in news items from Geneva. That’s the room with the blue UN logo repeated over and over again. Above is a mural. The drawback to working at the UN is the long corridors you walk down to get from place to place. When you’ve got a camera, two batteries, a tripod and two or three tapes you’re lugging quite a bit of wheight. Add the summer heat and you see why it’s not to everyone’s liking. Personally i miss it.
Once the press conferences were over I’d head back to the general assembly hall and sit through ten more plenary speeches. Occasionaly i would take the camera and the tripod and walk around the room getting cut away shots. That’s quite fun. You look at people and you see what they’re doing. You isolate people. You see a person writing something down, you get a shot of that, someone else yawning you get that. If someone is focusing on the speaker you get that. In certain cases you get shots of the deleguate and the board saying which country they represent. Other times you’d get a behind the shoulder shot looking up at the speaker.
There are some press conferences that are emotional than others. I remember taking one of the nicer cameras and recording a press conference about slavery. During that event some experts talked about the situation in certain countries before getting to the special guest. One of these guests started to talk and described her ordeal, how she had left her country of origin only to end up as a slave in a western country and how she was never allowed to leave. Hearing someone speak about this and not having a television screen or monitor to separate you from their reality has a powerful effect. Such occasions take certain things from being abstract to reality.
When I went to Tanzania I was one year away from completing the IB and I saw such a different way of life that I wanted to stay there. I was impressed by the improvisation and happiness of those children. I also liked having to walk for fourty minutes through banana plantations and fields to get from one place to another and experience their culture, at least fleetingly. If there’s anyone reading this that needs to cover the humanitarian work that they are doing to bring awareness to their work then let me know and I’d love to be part of those expeditions.
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Lunatics! Very silly lunatics.
I know, that’s not something you would see me do. I can’t ride a unicycle on a flat road.