Preamble

When I was asked to go to Ethiopia, texted in fact, it's fair to say I ignored it. This was mainly as it fell amongst 4 other communications from work that day which I ignored with equal importance. It was the eve of my wedding after all, and it's fair to say I had other things on my mind that day.

So when I got back to work after a few days off I could start to think seriously about what I had been offered. I of course had been thinking about it over those days anyway and as soon as I scanned the word Ethiopia it jumped out at me. I was seven when the Michael Burke broke the story of famine on the BBC Six o'clock news, but I still vividly remember those reports and pictures, if not from then, from repeated viewings on countless telethons.

So that would be by initial thoughts of Ethiopia, and in the preparation of this trip I can see how wrong that is, but I have no other reference point as the tourism and beauty of Ethiopia is always overshadowed by the great famine of 84.

I was unsure if I wanted to take this job on, for no good reason other than it being way out of my comfort zone (Previous work trips this year, Washington, Copenhagen, Holland, Rome, Ireland), Africa would be vastly different, especially as I've never been before. Each person I mentioned it too without fail said I should snap up the opportunity and that if we be an amazing experience. I always knew this underneath and just needed that re-assurance.

And so I said yes, (I always remember being told not to start a sentence with “and”, but it fits, so i'm leaving it in....). The other big part of the bargain, was that I got to work with Mike Wooldridge, a very well respected BBC reporter who was in Ethiopia with Micheal Burke in 1984. Countless people told me how lovely he is to work with, and also how he works non-stop.

So a we had just about two weeks of planning, Mike fielding many calls to aid agencies, and me finding out a lot about vaccinations, the hard way. It's usually a process over month or so. I had 8 jabs in two weeks. I also had to think very carefully about kit. We have a standard kit we take out to shoot / edit and do live video, but this time I needed to have a backup for almost every piece of kit. There is a high chance of us being limited on power, so battery conservation is top of the list.

We have a fixer, Dawit, who will be with us all the time in Ethiopia, I've never worked with a fixer before, but he will be there to negotiate, translate, drive and generally smooth over any problems we may encounter. I already know he is a key part of this operation.

We are here for a few reasons. It's 25 years since the famine report from Michael Burke so we want to look at the progress in 25 years, but we also hear reports still of millions of Ethiopians close to famine still, mainly at the southern end of the country. The Government are worried that the country is only remembered for the famine, which given my earlier writing is a fair point, so don't want to flag up any current famine problems as once again all their positive news and success stories get hidden. They also argue that they want to have the opportunity to help their own people before other countries wade in with aid. We also plan to look at a project known as the “Food Safety Net”, a scheme designed to make sure that the events of 1984 could never be repeated.

So I type on board my 7 hour flight to Addis Ababa, very much excited by the adventures of the next 10 days. We have a huge amount of work to do, but it will be an amazing experience I shall never forget.