Saturday 25 July 2009

Euro tunnel



Having spoken so much about blind children in Malawi and my field tips in the rural areas in line with VISION2020 requirements ,which now has its own blog that i will talk about later ,
I am attempted to talk about the Euro link –the train that takes coaches, cars with passengers inside from one side of the tunnel to the other side but I am afraid that people will look at my blog and laugh at me as to why am amazed with this. But let me explain then maybe you may not laugh.

Having been born in Malawi and brought up there , in a rural area called Ezondweni in Mtwalo ,Mzimba we were so much used to seeing cargo ( a few pieces of firewood or a few bags of maize) been carried on an Ox-cart driven by two fat bulls and we could admire how they managed such a lot of work .But recently when I arrived at the French English border by Euro line ,I was told that we would while still on the bus go on the train and that this train would take 20 of such buses with 60 people in each and cruise at 120 km per hour to cross the tunnel .For once ,my simple arithmetic told me that the weight of one bus and passengers was around 10 tonnes and that the weight of 20 buses would be around 200 tonnes .So how could such a big and long train be able to carry such a large cargo and still cruise.
I was on the coach and saw it being driven into the bigger train ,and in front of us there were several buses . Eventually the train closed, and there were announcements that all the buses had to have their engines switched off and hand break on ,and that crossing over the tunnel would take around half an hour while cruising at 120km/hour .

To cut the story short I ended on the other side safe, one by one the buses started coming out of the train and when our bus was out the driver started the engine and off we went.
I have been on a ferry before in Mombassa, Kenya but I tell you this is nothing compared to the Euro Train. Up to now we are still using oxcart in my village, hence this was a good surprise. And when I finally saw tower Eifel ,I knew I was finished .

The trip gave me more reasosns to continue fighting for blind children in Malawi.

Should we still be using oxcart in Malawi ?
Do you agree that I should have been surprised?

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