Where has Betz BEEN???

Cote d'Ivoire (twice), Nigeria and here in Ghana doing a couple of workshops and some consulting. I think I was traumatized by my last visit to Cote d'Ivoire where I was detained by plain-clothed policemen on arrival at the airport. I had just been to Abidjan two weeks earlier without incident and had the luxury of US State Dept. amenities such as airport expediters and air-con, comfy vehicles to shuttle me around. Then I arrived to do some more training of journalists in how to cover HIV/AIDS (really the only thing US-funded organizations can do with journalists in Cote d'Ivoire while quite frankly some training in conflict resolution etc would be much more useful...tho perhaps the situation is too far gone...).

I really don't want to relive the last Cote d'Ivoire visit as it just left such a bad taste in my mouth (no doubt in part due to vomiting for 24 hours two days before I was to return to Accra) and I'm just tired of telling the story. Long story short, I need to learn to keep my mouth shut but then when someone calls me a racist it's kind of hard....

So, really didn't want to do much writing after that and was just plain busy. Last week I started a project here in Accra with some (small) grant money I got. We're getting a group of 6 HIV+ women to keep radio diaries over the next couple months. Each woman is paired with a radio journalist if any technical, moral or other assistance is needed. I was a bit worried about this project but the workshops we did last week left me feeling much better and actually quite excited about the project. I'll keep you posted ... well, I'll try!

This week will be my last workshop for a while as I will then be devoting the summer to some freelance contracts I have to fulfill. I'll be filing radio stories for a Canadian podcast called "The Green Planet Monitor" (blog for that will be up and running soon). I'm the Africa person and will be covering stories on environment and development and will actually get to travel a bit. My first trip is back to Rwanda and Uganda where I've got some stories to pursue....