I am sorry not to have been in touch over the past couple of weeks. I have been in Chad, I have had a momentous time. After the launch of the DEC's appeal 3 weeks ago the coffers have swelled by £6.2m. That's fantastic, but not nearly fantastic enough.
I do not want to abuse my position here, but I am asking any visitor to this site over the next couple of weeks to donate. I can't exactly do a Bob Geldof and ask everyone coming through the door to give £5, but I would like to give it a try for just 2 weeks. PLEASE.
I know I may lose a couple of hits because of this, but do you know what I care about this thing so much that any self-consciousness about asking for money seems to have gone out of the window. I wrote a diary piece for The Telegraph, but as yet they haven't done anything about publishing it. If they don't I will put it here.
I was given the chance to visit the IDP (Internally Displaced People) in the Eastern Region of Chad and see what our money is doing out there. It's doing as much as it can, but it needs a lot more. The big and little picture is that there are loads of people just like you and me who have been terrorized out of their homes and find themselves in a completely alien environment with a ticking clock that they can do about by themselves. The winds and rain that are coming in the next couple of weeks will devastate their lives without some very simple aids. Plastic sheeting to help cover a hut costs £25 a pop. Sounds a lot for a plastic sheet, but these are good plastic sheets, thick and strong and they have to get there. Eastern Chad, as I can now testify is a long way from nowhere. I had to drive from a city called Abeche back to N'Djamena, the capital. 14 hours it took. We were in a four-wheel drive. It was the longest, bumpiest road ever, as far as I was concerned, and it was littered with broken down, over laden trucks, that, even in good working order, would have absolutely no chance of getting through with medical and food supplies. This means that when the rains come the sites get flooded and disease could so easily take hold.
Actually, I am not going to go on about it too much, because if I start there's no stopping me. And as I say, I hope to publish my diary here if noone else will take it.
If I can figure out how to do it, I'll put some pictures up for you to see too. Just as well you be able to smell me though. After 6 days out there, I was as rank as could be.
I only have one message for now, PLEASE DONATE MONEY NOW.
This isn't a matter of monthly donations and trying to sponsor a child through school, this is an immediate plea.
Thank you
Love
Nat xxxxx