As a bit of variety, today's corridor pic was taken in the national maternity hospital in San Salvador. It's been an amazing, eye-opening week filming for the NHS in El Salvador. The main impression one returns with is that we really take for granted our life of luxury at home. We understand that intellectually, in abstract, but maybe it's good to see it first-hand from time to time.



It's the poorest and most dangerous place I think I've been. We were cautioned strongly to only eat food that the doctors who accompanied us considered safe, and we brushed our teeth with bottled water etc, but that's not exceptional. What's odd is how quickly I went from feeling very uncomfortable around non-uniformed random people with shotguns hovering around, to feeling nervous unless there was someone armed nearby. We were told that leaving the hotel for a walk was likely a one-way trip, and that leaving the hospital in the city centre without several armed police (especially with a camera) was not a great idea. A bloke with a shotgun supervised our five paces from hotel to load the bus every morning, looking up and down the street.

The maternity hospital was surrounded by a razor wire fence and guarded by a man with a pump-action shotgun. We got the hotel to call us a taxi for dinner one night, and upon discovering this at the end of the meal, our hosts looked a bit disconcerted and rang a driver friend to take us home. We were the only foreigners I think I saw while we were there. By all accounts, a cab ride was likely to end down a dark alley next to a parked 4x4.

It's like this because when the ex-pats who left for the US during the war returned, they imported LA gang culture to San Salvador. It's a regular occurence, if you're in public office, to get a call telling you when and where your kids are after school, and that they'll be killed unless you pay $20k in a week. The busses - the main form of transport - were often robbed by gang members. One of our hosts had been on a held-up bus recently - if you don't look wealthy, you can just pay a dollar and get on with the journey. If you looked like us, they'd apparently kill you for $5. But an average annual salary in El Salvador might be $1400.



So in this context, the maternity hospital does amazing things. They're not well resourced compared to a UK hospital, but they don't only treat the rich, and they're up against tradition. Most women still deliver at home (a lot, as it's a catholic country) and don't attend prenatal scans etc. Mothers are often only admitted when a complication has already become evident. The maternal ICU can take 3 or 4 patients, and the baby ICU has incubators with three babies in each. They're this oversubscribed in a country where home delivery is the norm, and in rural places women go to witch doctors before hospitals. And the maternity hospital was damaged in eathquakes and hasn't been rebuilt, so some areas are abandoned, and some have iron braces propping up walls. So it's amazing to see how quiet, orderly and under control everything seemed, how compassionate the women seemed, changing 200 babies in a room for those kids whose mothers are still in care.

Our hosts were a UK doctor and the government health adviser. They made the whole experience very safe and pleasurable for us, educated us about the country and the issues, found us safe and fantastic food, and generally made it a very stimulating and eye-opening visit. In return, it seems the presence of a camera crew to film an agreement between the El Salvador government and our UK hospital catalysed some action. We met government ministers, filmed in the ministry, and after interviewing the incredibly sharp and energetic 87-year-old Health Minister, each received little goodwill presents with handwritten notes for our departure.

So quite an experience, and one that puts my little everyday problems on returning to England in perspective. As I thought while we stood on the volcano outside San Salvador, doing some landscape shots, I'm pretty lucky to be able to do this sort of thing for a job...

Amid the mad scramble to finish everything before the weekend this week, I had the pleasure of seeing Andy from Bruizer again, on a nice, straightforward little job for the NHS at the Duxford conference centre. Needless to say, had to dive out and take a picture of some planes even though I suspect that's not strictly allowed...

Busily trying to shoot the training videos I wrote last week at the moment. Finished a loooong shoot day in Cambridge, and I'm being sent to Coventry again tomorrow with m'colleague Neill to finish the "live-action" shoot. Bits of animation and screen-shots yet to grab.

It was also the screening of Wasted, the teen drugs and alcohol awareness film I did some work on earlier this year, this week at Cambridge's Arts Picturehouse. Pete had done a great job cutting it, and the kids in the cast and youth workers were all justifiably proud of themselves.

Out and about filming this week, starting in quite a nice hotel in exotic Coventry, then off to enjoy a Premier Lodge in Newbury (this week's corridor of doom above).

Finished up in the Gherkin again, with a spectacular view of London, recording a really interesting meeting about food production (bear with me, it's fascinating) between important folks from the government, NHS, horticultural industry, business and property sectors, supermarkets...

I was shocked at the research on how people actually shop, and how we split our interests in organic, fair trade or locally produced food in a totally illogical way. We're all idiots, statistically speaking. And we leave 40% of all salad produced to be chucked out by supermarkets, and then chuck another 40% of the remainder away ourselves. We're idiots. It's sobering.

Most people wander around the supermarket without even a list, let alone a menu to shop for, falling for every promotional tactic they use. We buy stuff based on pack price, not on price per 100g or whatever. We're idiots. I mean, we don't all do every one of these things wrong, of course, but I worry about the carbon/food miles of a fresh chicken, but don't think about the origin of the tinned or processed stuff. And I still buy "healthy eating" chocolate muffins or whatever. What's wrong with me? Healthy chocolate? Am I thick?

Sounds as though there's some hope of models that we idiot consumers can't break, though, such as M&S's co-op model with dairy farmers, and if more of that can be made to work, we might be able to get our food from supermarkets, but without bleeding the suppliers dry.

Anyway, more enforced education for me, which means a good week's work. Now to finish writing the scripts for some training films I'm directing next week! And at the end of next week, something interesting's coming up...