Diaries about Water

The first full day in London started off with trying to do some form of reading for the up and coming assignments due in three weeks time (emphasis on trying). Anyway after realising that I would have to do that reading tonight I left the house and set off for the RGS building in Kensington.

Harry, Viv and Paddy, the family friends I am staying with kindly lent me one of their oyster cards for the tube so I feel like a proppa saf Londoner now (at least when whipping the card out, otherwise not that Cockney).

Getting off the tube I immediately remembered why I love London so much: street musicians. In the underpass a violinist was playing some classical music, further along and up the steps a guitarist was singing a Beatles song. The guitarist had picked a picturesque spot in front of an ice rink under trees that were decorated with so many fairy lights, it made my room look less ultra-basic girl. It was a marvellous soundtrack for walking along Exhibition Road, passing the Natural History Museum and Science Museum.

Arriving slightly early at the RGS building just opposite the road of Hyde Park, I had an hour to kill before the evening lecture would begin.
The gallery next to the entrance hall exhibited a selection of images from one of the early British Everest expeditions, in 1921. The expedition aimed at mapping out different approach routes and would lay plans for future attempts of climbing Everest.
The prints shown in the exhibit were made from the original negatives, and as squashy-old-photo as that may sound, it was as if I was looking through a collection of black and white photos taken on a recent NatGeo expedition. Only the climbers, wearing rope around their waists as support, hinted at the fact that the pictures stemmed from almost a century ago.

With this taster of great expeditions the doors to the map room opened and tea and coffee was being served. It was a slightly surreal situation at the beginning as a group of army cadets, all dressed up in uniform were gathered in the room as well, taking a break from their memorial service. Slight fear and amusement of being underdressed to the nines or having crashed a Poppy tradition crept up but, luckily, at the little water dispenser I met Naomi Hart.

She is an artist, working mainly in painting and drawing, who collaborates with scientists for inspiration and projects. Something I hadn’t thought of in that way before but in a way makes complete sense. On Sunday she will be talking about the use of art within expeditions to portray the cause.
Emily Nagel, who returned from her Volvo Ocean Race around the world race just this July (it took her 9 months to complete) was also in the map room and stated that she really loves boats and will be talking about them tomorrow.
There were several other people I briefly met, such as Andrew Pindar, who organises logistics for sailing expeditions, and Ceri Lewis, a marine biologist from Exeter University, who studies the impact of microplastics on the Ocean‘s biodiversity.
So many people and that was just the tea and coffee bit...

Finally the bell was rung by a man in a suit walking round the room, and we were ushered into the Ondaatje Lecture Theatre. I was sat next to two women, who turned out to be the first main speaker’s mother and aunty, flown in from Ireland.
The purpose of this first lecture was to give an introduction on expeditions and also to introduce projects supported by the RGS Land Rover bursary.

The winner of the bursary from 2018, Dr. George Busby introduced his Mobile Malaria Project. The project will run from February to April 2019 in an adapted Labrover. The team will drive from Namibia over Zambia and Tanzania to Kenia, promoting and communicating their research on molecular surveillance of malaria, in hope of minimizing the disease. By trialling their process of genetic sequencing and doing so in a mobile manner, the team are aiming to empower local researchers.

The concept of travelling with purpose has been stated from the get go of this seminar and was carried on through the first main speaker’s address. Fearghal O’Nuallain, an Irish geography teacher working in London presented his Water Diaries.
His introduction to his life of expeditions started with a 30.000km cycling endeavour.
After having pedalled around the world, and proven for himself that Earth is in fact, round, he returned home with a shifted perspective on life, something he called the ‘overview effect’. This effect caused him to realize no boundaries, seeing human conflicts as frivolous and enabled him a deeper empathy for the world around us.
He also recognized the difficulty of exploring in a non-imperialistic way. There were moments he felt embarrassed coming into a country as the white explorer.

As the winner of the bursary in 2017 Fearghal had returned from his expedition as was now presenting it. The aim of his project was to learn about current water issues and to bring these findings back to his classroom, so an education-focused approach rather than highly scientific. A series of expeditions would lead up to the sponsored one in Jordan.

The first began up a 6088m high mountain in Bolivia and, following the natural course of water, led down a glacier, along streams and rivers straight into salt flats, where the water evaporates and is carried back to high grounds, closing the cycle.This is where water issues for local communities became clear, as the people of the Las Pas glacier in Bolivia, rely on the glacial melt for their water supply. Due to the glacier having melted completely, leaving nothing but dry rock, the Las Pas people are struggling for water.

A second expedition to New York State would clarify the connection that could develop to a physical feature such as water. When travelling with the Hudson river for such an extended amount of time, Fearghal slowly started giving the river a personality, from it‘s young self to it‘s aged form by Coney Island before merging with the sea.

The reason for choosing Jordan as a destination for the Water Diaries Land Rover expedition was the immense pressure on water resources the country is facing. With its increasing population and the changing precipitation patterns it presents an ideal land when addressing water shortage issues.
The Land Rover acted as a mobile classroom and compiled information on water stress and receding glaciers and their impact on dependent agricultural communities.

A question asked at the end of the talk was, what the contrast from travelling with a vehicle to cycling was. In short, the answer was that walking would enable the explorer an intimate understanding of their surroundings, cycling would broaden these impressions slightly and driving would put particular locations in focus. For this cause of collecting information on the ways of water and bringing these findings back to a classroom context, driving would enable the locations rather than the journey to be focused on, brain power would be fresher and kit choices wouldn’t be as restricted.

So why water?
It is the most basic and precious resource. The issue of water shortage is not spoken about enough, despite it being an implication of climate change besides CO2 emmissions.

All in all, the message of today, for me, was how important travel with purpose is, how many purposes there are, and that these aren‘t necessarily the imperialistic white saviour of the day missions that I sometimes worry I dreamt about when I was little.

Most importantly that we must explore, stick our finger into the world, rummage around and report back, because after all, who believes in things they have never seen or heard of before?Read more