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From Our Own Correspondent: Yemen and France

10/06/2013

Yemen and France

BBC World Service - From Our Own Correspondent, Yemen and France

Venturing into the remote Mahra tribal region; surviving the philosophy bac litteraire

Elisabeth Kendall on travelling into the remote Mahra tribal region and canvassing its residents' opinions for the first time ever; Hugh Schofield on the philosophy bac litteraire

Pascale Harter introduces personal stories, insights and experience from writers and journalists around the world. In this edition, Elisabeth Kendall describes why when travelling into the remote Mahra region of Yemen, an undertaking backed by several tribal leaders is more likely to keep you safe than any number of armed guards. She was there to canvass local people's political opinions, for the first time ever, as part of the Yemeni National Dialogue currently going on. But how to deal with the camel gristle stuck in one's teeth? In a truly different world, amid the urbane intellectual sophistication of Paris, Hugh Schofield has another survival guide, offering advice on how to stay the course on France's notoriously demanding baccalaureat litteraire with philosophy. It might sound like Descartes's Inferno: rigorously demanding and focusing on the very hardest of questions about life, the universe and everything. Yet Hugh says it seems to have made his daughter a happier and more grounded student.

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