Morocco!

5500 km of road...
14 hitches...
9 nationalities of drivers...
5 and a half days...
3 countries...
and 2 ferries later...

WE'RE IN MOROCCO!!!

A big thank you to everyone who made it possible to be here, especially Kate and everyone at Link Community Development, our Nominated Contacts, our parents and families, everyone who donated to our trip, to all the nice people who helped us and showed us so much kindness, and of course our drivers, wherever they may be by now. A special thank you to Mairin Hennebry for responding to my panicked phone call asking how to write "service station" in Spanish. All of you have helped make a big difference in the lives of many children in Southern Africa, and to the lives of two idiots from Singapore.

I'd like to sing Xin Hui's praises: she was a rock throughout this trip. While I wear my emotions on my sleeve, and alternately laughed and raged and hoped and worried and got depressed, she stayed steady and calm and kept us going. All credit to her: she was the one who really made this trip a success.

EDIT: On 24 April, we crossed the £2,000 mark for donations to charity! Thank you so much everyone!

The Morocco Hitch

Dear readers of Confucius at Oxford,

The question I got most often after completing my Channel Swim was, "So, what are you doing next?" or "What's your next challenge?"

I've resolved to do a fund-raising event for charity every year, and I am pleased to announce the event for 2006: The Morocco Hitch.

In April, Xin Hui and I will be hitch-hiking to Morocco to raise funds for Link Community Development, a UK charity that works for the improvement of education in Southern and Eastern Africa.

Please consider donating to LCD. You can visit our website for more information, or go straight to the donation portal if you'd like to donate straightaway.

Just £5 could pay for education support workers to visit a school; just £10 could pay to train a teacher at an HIV/AIDS workshop or a literacy workshop, or buy a desk for a child who now studies on the floor.

Thank you so much!

EDIT: As you may notice, the datestamp on this entry has been changed from the 10th to the 7th. That's because we will be setting off on the morning of the 7th instead in order to try to get to Morocco before Spain comes to a complete standstill around the Easter holiday.

Please visit the Morocco Hitch blog for updates on our adventure. We also have a friends-only blog which we will be continually updating through the day. You can get access to this blog with just a small donation of £10 to Link Community Development. Go to www.JustGiving.com/Morocco06 to donate. To follow us on the road, please go to http://www.lcd.org.uk/events/hitch/hts.html and search for "Thum".

So far, we've raised a whopping total of £1,652 (not including gift aid) for LCD! £700 of that has been online and the rest came from offline donors. It's a fantastic amount and will make a huge difference in the lives of many children in Africa.

Wish us luck- here we go!

Singapore History III

I read the following today while doing research at the UK National Archives at Kew (what a terrific place!) in a file entitled "Singapore Constitional Conference 1958: Internal Security Arrangements" (CO 1030/438). The context is that in 1958, Lim Yew Hock took a small group to London to hammer out the final details of the new constitution for Singapore, the broad details of which had been agreed upon at the Constitutional Conference the year before, and which would grant Singapore internal self-government from 1959. I read some of the minutes from this meeting, which also involved Lee Kuan Yew.

One clause which the Secretary of State for the Colonies (Alan Lennox-Boyd) wanted was to ensure that anyone who had previously been imprisoned for offences against the state (such as sedition) or under the Preservation of Public Security Ordinance would be disqualified from public office. The Chief Minister (Lim Yew Hock) objected on the basis that this was contrary to normal democratic practice. Then I read this:

MR. LEE KUAN YEW said that the condition was disturbing both because it was a departure from democratic practice and because there was no guarantee that the government in power would not use this procedure to prevent not only Communists but also democratic opponents of their policy from standing for election.

I offer this selection without comment.

Seperately, a British official in Bangkok who met Lee offered the priceless observation that, "he carried a chip like a cross." If there has ever been a pithier description than that of Lee, I'd love to hear it.