Hate Radio in Cote d'Ivoire

I sometimes sit here and just shake my head. Dumbfounded. In disbelief, wondering if we as a species have learned nothing at all. I have been following the Ivory Coast situation (they are our neighbors, after all) and came across the following today:

Hate broadcasts spurring Ivory Coast attacks - UN

Ivory Coast radio stations are inciting people to arm themselves and attack the United Nations, the world body said yesterday, calling on the government to immediately halt the hate broadcasts. "This is unacceptable and must cease immediately," UN chief spokesman Stephane Dujarric said, calling the broadcasts "particularly disturbing" as a wave of attacks on UN peacekeepers went into a third day.

After close to a million are slaughtered in Rwanda, why do the media, and radio in particular, have to incite such hate? And it makes me wonder if what I do as a journalism trainer is worth it, if it can possibly change anything ? Can we possibly effect change? And then I’m hit with the realization that in some countries journalists are under attack (eg. Jill Carroll in Iraq) while in others “journalists” use their position to access the airwaves in such destructive ways. How sad.

Water

I spilled a few drops of water near (ok, on) my laptop while working yesterday. It appears I’ve fried the backspace button which is a pain as I use it a lot! It would just kind of kick in whenever it wanted to and do all kinds of weird things including not allowing me to access my Benin documents. My computer geek husband (who swears I’m an extremely unlucky charm any time I get close to computers) managed to find some software that would allow me to disable the backspace key. Funny how used we become to certain things. I miss the backspace key. A lot. I’m now trying desperately to get used to using the delete key instead.

Water seemed to be in the stars yesterday as we also ran out of water. But it’s not like Rwanda where if you run out of water you’re SOL. Nope, here you call the Embassy and they send over a water truck to fill up your big black water tank that I’m sure is the envy of Ghanaians during the dry season (which is now). It’s odd -- that coupled with the generator which kicks in when the rest of Accra or the neighborhood does not have any power definitely helps take the “hardship” out of “hardship post”. I mean it’s nice, but it’s definitely a change from my days in Butare when you just made do. Funny that.

Keeping cool in my home office with an ice-coffee as I prep my workshop for next week. I’ll be traveling to Benin Monday to do a 3-day workshop for broadcast journalists. Topic? Election reporting. This is in light of the country’s upcoming presidential elections where the current president has been in power (except for a couple years break) for decades and is being forced out as the constitution says you can’t be more than 70 years old. He’s 72.

What's it like?

I’ve now been in Accra for one month. How time flies. I’m not really sure where to start so I’ll try to remember some of my first impressions.

The house: On arrival I thought we were merely passing the Canadian Embassy. It was dark, I was traumatized (as Zig had been lost) and we were passing a residence where both the Canadian and Ghanaian flags were flying. Then I realized that’s where we were turning in. This was our house! While the Canadian flag was a great touch (Paul’s idea) it struck me as kind of odd that here we were in a US Embassy house and we were flying the Canadian flag. It’s almost like Americans who travel around the world with a small Canadian flag stitched on to their packs so people will think they’re Canadians rather than Americans. But somehow we were taking this to a whole new level. Still strikes me as odd, but I must admit, I love looking out and seeing the big red maple leaf.

Also odd is living in a house with blacked out bulletproof windows (we can see out but you can’t see in). And all the windows have these humoungous metal grates for added security. And of course you can’t live as an expat in Africa without the ubiquitous guard. Ours comes every night at 6pm. Also, odd is having two full-time staff people. It’s like being "Beighley-Betz Inc." or something – I mean we actually have people working for us. Very strange, a bit difficult to get used to, but then you get used to it and, I have to admit, it’s wonderful.

Johnson is our gardener who Ziggy has absolutely fallen in love with. He keeps our myriad plants and trees thriving and the garden looking fabulous. Once we get some seeds we’re going to get a little veggie patch going. Apparently we’ve got a couple little groundnut (peanut) plants and he showed us the groundnuts…very cool.

Then there’s Rejoice. She’s our “house manager”. And she’s awesome. She keeps the house neat and clean (no small feat), does our laundry, ironing and has begun to give me cooking lessons! She will also cook for us on occasion and makes a mean apple pie, a great pasta salad and quiche and wonderful salads. She also takes Ziggy over to see his new girlfriends, Mila and Shopska, two rescued Bulgarian street dogs that belong to one of my friends, Becky who works for USAID. Rejoice will also be staying with Ziggy when both Paul and I are out of town as we will be next week. We coordinated a trip to Cotonou, Benin. He’ll do embassy work and I’ll be doing a 3 day election-reporting workshop for a group of broadcast journalists. There is supposed to be a presidential election in Benin in March. We will be driving to Cotonou which should be interesting as we pass through Togo and part of Benin on the way. It will be my first trip thus far, other than our little day trip to the Volta Dam.

I remember growing up and hearing that name – “Volta” and how exotic and African it seemed to me. “Volta” somehow embodied Africa to me as “Congo” does. Maybe it’s the whole river thing, I’m not sure. In any case we were invited a couple weeks ago by one of Paul’s colleague to drive up to the dam and to have lunch riverside. The drive was interesting. The roads are in decent shape and actually go straight (I’m so used to Rwanda’s potholed, mountainous and curvy roads). For me the highlight of the day was taking a little boat trip up the river. It was amazing. Little kids would rush down to the banks of the river and wave at us grinning. Men would canoe by in their fishing pirogues and we scanned the river banks for monkeys and birds; with the hum of the boat’s engine it had an almost meditative effect.

The dam itself was an impressive piece of engineering and its construction left behind the world’s largest man-made lake – Lake Volta. We managed to somehow get in to the actual site (a little bribe, or “dash” as it’s called here definitely helped) and we were able to drive in and take a walk on the dam. Down on the lake side, the “party boat” had just returned from its afternoon revelry complete with lots of booze and music.

We finally decided we should probably hit the road before the drunken partiers did so we left the dam and headed home.

Ziggy is...

Saturday came and went and I kept hoping the dog was ok but also realized it was completely out of my hands, out of my control – difficult for a control freak to deal with.

We were picked up Saturday evening and headed to the airport. Alex, the Ghanaian expeditor for the US Embassy, and I headed into the baggage claim area. I waited. Finally I couldn’t believe it --- there was Ziggy in his crate just outside the baggage claim building. I called to him. He saw me and barked – that high-pitched nervous/I see you/I’m scared bark. I asked the baggage guys to please bring him in the terminal so I could get him. To my horror they said they couldn’t; the dog was cargo and had to be shipped over to the cargo area and I would have to get him there. I couldn’t believe it. I thought how can I possibly be this close to finally getting my traumatized dog and now they were saying I couldn’t have him…yet…without jumping through a bunch more hoops. How incredibly, intensely frustrating.

I watched helplessly as they took the dog away.

We headed back to the car, left the airport and went to the cargo area. After visiting several offices, several different people, handing out bribes and waiting and waiting and losing it completely. By now I thought I would never see Ziggy again for we were at the cargo area but the dog was. I was convinced they had left him at the baggage terminal – alone, forgotten just as he had been in Amsterdam.

The cargo guys kept assuring me the dog was coming. I told them I’d heard the same thing the day before. I was not amused. Far from it. I was pissed. I was scared and I was on the brink. I vaguely remember threatening to run past the guard, onto the tarmac and down the kilometer or so to the main terminal. Paul told me not to be stupid. So did Alex, who by now thought I was a complete, raving lunatic (I was acting the part, after all).

We continued to wait. A few more bribes exchanged hands. And I kept playing the part of the crazy white woman waiting for her dog in a country where dog was, in some places, served up for dinner.

The waiting was excruciating. It had already been more than 90 minutes since I’d last seen my dog. I couldn’t believe this was happening.

Finally, finally, a tractor arrived with my “cargo”. There was my dog. I couldn’t believe it. He was panting like crazy, completely disoriented and freaked out. I took him out of the crate and he almost bolted before I got the leash on him. I asked someone to get him some water as his water bottle was trashed and I had given my bottle to the guys who had him at the baggage terminal.

Ziggy pulled and pulled at the leash. I just wanted to go back to the car (wherever it was) and leave…but apparently we weren’t finished yet. There was more paperwork and a few more bribes left to be handed out.

Another 30 minutes passed waiting, waiting. At least I had my dog and there was no way they could take him from me – or they’d be taking me too.

Finally we got whatever permission we needed and we headed to the car. Once loaded up we headed for the exit. The guard asked for some papers. We couldn’t find them. I couldn’t believe it. He told us we had to go back and get the proper papers. I was so close to grabbing the dog and just jumping out of the car and making a run for it. We’d been playing this game for over 2 hours and it was getting really, really old. We finally found the paperwork we’d been missing and hallelujah – they opened the gate!! We were on our way home.

It’s now 2 weeks later and Zig has adapted pretty well to his new home. He’s made some new friends, chased his first lizard, chicken and goat, had feral dogs chase him as we went for walks, continues to mark his first ever yard and in the words of our housekeeper: “He’s now an African dog”.

Yes he is. Yes he is!