Well that's a bit bloody disconcerting. There we were taking our afternoon stroll through the bush surrounding the cottage today when we come across this, not more than a couple of hundred yards from the old Home Sweet Home:
 |
| 'It says, "Stand perfectly still" Son' |
Yes it's all nicely marked with signs, mine tape and sticks with the top few inches painted red but the thing that niggles me just a tadge, is that these markers of the boundaries of horrific death only appeared recently, in an area through which we have been strolling for the last two years. I built my cottage here. So why parcel the land off and sell it, and only then decide to clear it of landmines?
Good Lord, you can't seem to escape those bloody landmines no matter where you go!
ReplyDeleteThey are all over the place but I'd be very surprised of there are in any my back yard.
DeleteHoly shit, I see an opportunity to buy cheap land. Get the fellow with the power digger, weld a couple of steel plates around the cab, make sure he downs a bottle or two before going at it and have him remove the top 30 cm of sand. Should be an easy job. Nothing to it right?
ReplyDeleteSo did someone actually find one there or did some wonk from the capital come up with a 20 yr old map.
I think it is a scam to get some land cleared, not of landmines but of trees...
Deletedisconcerting, yes
ReplyDeleteEven though I am convinced there are no mines there, the sign still stopped me dead in my tracks.
DeleteOh God! you're kidding ! Now what do you do? How do you keep little Alex safe now?
ReplyDeleteThe sooner you finish that resort and get out of there the better !
Well his Daddy was a bomb disposal officer and later a mine clearance specialist so he'd best walk in his Daddy's footsteps...
DeleteNot funny. I will never forget that beautiful Cambodian folk music as I walked down a tropical avenue to one of the outer temples of Angkor Wat. And when I reached the musicians I saw that every one of them had been maimed by landmines - lost hands or legs or blinded and scarred. And it's still happening today.
ReplyDeleteWhat's not funny, the diversion of valuable, no doubt donor funded mine clearance equipment to clear some big wig's land of the same type of nuisance trees I have been cutting down by hand on my land or Black Adder?
DeleteI know what you mean, though, after all I was clearing the things in Mozambique and Angola and lost a few colleagues to them.
.........I couldn't live in Africa...or Cambodia or the bloody Middle East
ReplyDeleteMy nerves wouldn't cope with it all
Oh you'd survive, and be the life and soul of the party, no doubt. But if you volunteered to help out in your line of business, it would be very rewarding but would break your heart.
Deletewell, obviously you have been very careful for the last few years! good god!
ReplyDeleteMe? Careful?
DeleteIs it on your property? They didn't tell you that they were surveying for land mines? I suppose they could be anywhere I suppose. Time to invest in a metal detector?
ReplyDeleteNo, it is down the road a few hundred yards exactly where no one would ever bother laying land mines.
DeleteAre they really land mines there? I really hope not.
ReplyDeleteIf they are there how on earth do you get rid of them?
Keep safe, and keep Alex even safer.
Helen
Doubt it very much. There may well be some around the abutments of the Bridge over the Rio Kwanza about a kilometre away but none out in the middle of the bush.
DeleteOh my god. I'm kind of horrified.
ReplyDeleteI'm with John in that my nerves would be utterly shattered if I lived there. I truly don't think I could cope. I get nervous just reading about your life!
Please keep safe.
Cissy. But you are a girl so that's OK.
DeleteYou've just given me an idea. Although whether people would believe me or not is debatable.
ReplyDeleteIf they did, your place could become a tourist attraction defeating the object (assuming I have pegged your idea correctly).
DeleteShit. I think in the UK we constantly forget how lucky we are not to have to deal with that kind of thing. Keep Alex close.
ReplyDeleteAhem, during the 'silly season' (spring, summer and harvest time) in UK, my detachment of the bomb squad in Colchester received dozens of calls per month to deal with unexploded ordnance.
DeleteStuff turns up in my area sometimes as part of gravel dredged up from the Solent, mostly fighter munitions from WW2. Still, if it is a scam as you suspect, then do you know who owns the land?
ReplyDeleteIn the meantime, as everyone else suggests, be careful old chap.
PS. Perhaps it could be a good place to let those dogs you don't like to get there exercise? :)
One of the Administrators, I think. They are going to build a new bridge over the Kwanza and widen the road to it. This land is about 300 metres from the road so if it is part of the project, it's going to be a bloody wide road!
DeleteAnd, in a place where earthquakes were previously unknown, we are now the most active place in the nation. While the politicians wink at each other and scratch their heads wondering if it could be from the oil conglomerates "fracking"? They continue on unabated while cracks appear in everyone's houses.
ReplyDeleteCome on Donna, you lot are just using fracking to excuse buying shoddy houses.
DeleteThese signs have only just appeared and the war has been over for at least 12 years? Didn't you say back in the summer you had the prospect of a job in Europe? I'd move out of there as soon as you can!
ReplyDeleteFor various reasons I'll have to stick around a little longer.
DeleteGet hold of a Giant Viper. Not sure how effective it would be but they're bloody impressive when they go off!
ReplyDeleteI bet you were one of the buggers who had all the fun firing them. I had to inspect and repair them.
DeleteOnly saw one fired once. They were too expensive to use on exercises or so we were told.....
DeleteAfter ghouling the boy of my new girlfriend with cateatingdogswhogettheirbrainsspreadoverpaths....we followup with bangers that create mush...adam is fascinated by UncleTom....when can we go...and can he have a snake like alessandro..and do lions brush their teeth after chewing little boys...
ReplyDeleteNever a dull moment here...
DeleteLooks like staging yard for the equipment to widen the road/open space for the Angolan equivalent of a Wal-Mart? Perhaps Marcia'd better find out if somebody is trying to one-up her shop with a better location?
ReplyDeleteIt does look like the staging yard, just in the wrong place...
DeleteNot heard from you for 5 days…hope that sign wasn't necessary! X
ReplyDeleteIf it ever proves necessary, you will be the first to know as I drop in to tell you all about it.
Delete