My life and such like things – Page 3

Angola, my experience of that country at war and peace.

A burnt out village….. All to typical of Angola.

As we went to Angola, we had to get used to burnt out villages, and dead tanks happening all over the place, and the internal airports were a mass of dead fighter planes beside the runway.

A dead tank in the garden……. No gnomes!!

Also their were beautiful bits of country…….

We camped here…… Amazingly beautiful!!

But we were surrounded by the fact that Angola had just recently surfaced from a 30 year long civil war…. The roads were wide, as people tried to avoid landmines, which were planted in the middle of roads, and bridges were complicated as they all have landmines on them. I knew one of the deminers, who described land mines as the dog that didn’t bite. That is where I got malaria which was an amazing experience. (More about that in this post… https://wordpress.com/post/ozthoughtsblog.com/201).

Nathaniel, as a minesweeper. Facing the camera.

Landmines were mostly very/ small….. To inflict damage, but not to kill.

The other thing about Angola, was the rubbish! It was all over the place.

Disgusting………

By and large, Angola was fun to be in, landmines notwithstanding, and the rubbish, but it was really beautiful by and large, and the politics such as it was, was not a problem for us.

La Guillotine, My Experiences with this machine!

I came across this machine in Hanoi, while I was there. It was in a room in what was known as the Hanoi Hilton, a prison that had famously had one of the Presidential candidates while it was still a prison, John McCain. The whole experience of seeing the rooms they were held in was deeply disturbing, and then to find this machine, left over from the time that the French ruled in Vietnam. It was in a room, nearby the cells, and had been in use, horribly, during the French period, and later in the Vietnam period.

I was absolutely horrified at the idea that this machine was used to “punish” people.

Paradoxically, while I was building our house in Australia, I recreated a field of guilleteens. Actually, I built this for the posts that would hold the floor of our house up. So there were about 167 of them…..

So this is what it looked like!

So, this is my experience with Guillotines.

My Tank Birthday….. A Really Good Surprise!!

A couple of years ago, my son contacted a guy who had a huge collection of tanks and armoured cars, and similar war-like machines, and arranged for me to spend a day there…… It was my birthday present!

So, we all went there, just south of Brisbane, and had a really good day with tanks and similar….

To start with, we explored the vehicles he had in a shed…. A vast number of military types of machines, ranging from motorbikes through to tanks and armoured personnel carriers, it was amazing such a collection!

To give you an idea of the scope of this collection!

My two grandsons happily sitting in a military jeep

And to finish it off….. a real tank ride!!!!! We are in the turret, my grandkids and me.

All in all, a real day to remember, and that will certainly be the case!! I was overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of the tanks and other armoured vehicles and the fact that my son found that collection of armoured vehicles for us to visit. And that we got to ride in a real tank!!!! Such a treat! A real day to remember.