28 September 2005

I realized I was delinquent in posting when I got an e-mail from my Dad asking where I was and if I was okay.

I’m back in Kigali and have been running around like a crazy person since returning from Bujumbura, Burundi last Saturday.

Bujumbura is hot and dusty, poorer than Kigali and far less organized. It does seem to have a little bit more life in it than Kigali does, though. (When I said that to some UN security and peacekeeping people I met one night at a hotel bar overlooking Lake Tanganyika, they said that was impossible.) It is a city that is coming out of more than a decade of war (as you will see when my Dallas Morning News story comes out. I’ll keep you posted).

Burundi is essentially the same country as Rwanda. In fact, they were one colony under the Belgians. But even before that, Burundi was the sort of lower provinces of the Rwandan kingdom prior to the European arrival. The languages (Kinyarwanda and Kirundi) are essentially the same, the demographics are essentially the same (84 percent Hutu, 14 percent Tutsi and 2 percent Twa, or pygmies) and the bloodstained history is essentially the same, but in reverse. In Burundi, the Tutsis have controlled the government and army since independence, and as such committed most of the worst atrocities. Between 1.5 and 2 million people died in Burundi’s various civil wars and genocides since independence in 1962, the latest war starting in 1993 taking around 300,000. In Rwanda, the Hutus committed the genocide.

I was there to report on the hopes of the population for the new Hutu-led democratic government that took power at the end of August, and you’ll be able to read my report soon I hope.

I arrived in Bujumbura, at long last, Thursday morning and was greeted by Joelle, a friend of a cousin of a friend who is a journalism student. She set up my appointments, arranged for a hotel, car and driver (her cousin Fabrice who has a fraught relationship with his alarm clock). Joelle spent most of the time I was there taking exams and spending time with her 1-month old daughter, so I didn’t see her much.

I met dozens of people in the two and a half days I spent in Bujumbura, including the Harvard-educated director of an independent radio station, Alexis Sinduhije, that many say is responsible for the Hutu political party that now governs the country becoming a political party, not simply a guerilla movement.

One of Alexis’ reporters took me to the airport to attend President Pierre Nkurunziza, who was returning from Washington and New York. I had an uncomfortable interview with the country’s information minister there, but not for the reason you may think. The man looked just like Don Cheadle. Seriously, I was in “Airport Burundi.” I caught myself almost pulling a Barbara Walters, “So Don Cheadle, if you were a tree what kind of a tree would you be?” kind of question.

Do these newspapers know just who they’re dealing with?

The president’s press conference was for the most part in Kirundi, so I just stood around. I’m looking at my notes and they’re all about a man in the most amazing velvet or sharkskin suit I ever saw. Here’s a sample:

“Is it purple? Sharkskin? Velvet? Is his chain real gold? It’s too thick. It’s like he stole it from Mr. T. Would that little number look good on me?” Yup, this is my job.

I also got to meet Western Diplomat. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you who Western Diplomat is, but every foreign correspondent has met him or her. Nine times out of ten Western Diplomat is from the same country. One really isn’t a foreign correspondent until having quoted Western Diplomat.

Another bit of discomfort came when Fabrice, a frustrated demolition derby driver, kept honking at the military trucks studded with machine guns and demanding that they get out of his way as we left the airport. Despite my pleas to relax, Fabrice would have none of the waiting and not only tailgated a transport truck filled with troops but kept flashing his brights at them. The radio reporter, Serge, sat in the front passenger seat while I discretely tried to lay out across the floor of the car.

The following day was the final of the four elections marking the end of the transitional government period. Few people went to vote, but only because it was the equivalent of voting for city council. After having approved a new constitution, regional councils and parliament, who rushes to vote for the city council?

My flight back Saturday was interesting. I managed to fly standby again. But instead of freaking out, I was calm. And they managed to find me a seat. I was the 19th passenger on an 18-seat plane. When I got on, the co-pilot wasn’t there yet. So I asked the pilot if I could sit next to him and help fly the plane, because the seat looked far more comfortable than the jump seat I was set to sit in looked. He just stared at me. And it wasn’t a language thing. Burundian French is far better than Rwandan. He was just stupefied.

So I spent the whole 30-minute flight staring at the door, and hoping that the ground crew guys had closed it tight enough. I started to sweat with every click I heard, sure that I was going to be sucked out. But I made it. And I’ve been running around trying to get all of my stories done, as well as work on some other assignments, ever since. This is what I thought things would be like here.

21 September 2005 – Pretzels make me thirsty

The trip to Bujumbura has not gotten off to a rollicking start.

To begin with, I’m still in Kigali, which, for those of you not geographically inclined, is the capital of Rwanda, not Burundi.

Yesterday afternoon, after I called to confirm my flight to Bujumbura at 2:05 pm today, I said to Rebecca, “I’m glad I did that because the last thing I want to have happen is that scene from Seinfeld, where he’s trying to get the rental car.”

“You see you know how to take a reservation, but you don’t know how to hold a reservation,” Jerry says to the reservation agent, “and really, that’s the key to the reservation. Anyone can just take a reservation.”

Well, these pretzels are making me thirsty.

I had received confirmation, in French, that my name was on the passenger manifest. And anyway, when one books a ticket through a travel agent, one expects them to make sure you’re on the list. That’s the point of the agency, isn’t it?

I arrived at the Kigali airport at a little before noon for my two p.m. flight. That was the suggestion the travel agent gave to me. It seemed early to me, but it was my first time flying out of Kigali, so I wanted to follow instructions. I got to the counter, where a friendly agent named Goodwin said welcome to AirBurundi, but your name is not on the list.

“What do you mean,” I asked. “I got the confirmation yesterday over the phone. I did it in French. They told me that I was on the list. Did you hear me? I did it in French.”

“But you’re not on the list,” he said, escorting me away from the counter, where I considered reaching for the hand-written list to scratch out someone else’s name and replace it with my own. He must have seen me eyeing it. Or maybe it was that he didn’t want the steam coming out of my ears to singe the rest of the travelers.

So he sat me down, and said he wanted to find out whose fault this was – the travel agent or the airline. It didn’t matter to me, I wanted on that plane. I even filled out my exit card in front of Goodwin, explaining that come hell or high water, I was flying to Bujumbura this afternoon. He smiled a bit and walked away. The important meetings I had set up didn’t really matter to him at all.

He returned, and wanted to know if I understood him when he explained the situation – that I was not on the list and despite my confirmed reservation was flying standby. “I understand the words coming out of your mouth. I understand the language,” I said. “But I’ll never understand why I was told yesterday that my name was on the list when it clearly wasn’t.” This flew over his head.

After talking to Rebecca – who, as always, has been a trooper throughout this whole ordeal – I decided to ask Goodwin if he could call Entebbe, the airport my flight originated from. I wanted him to check whether the flight was full, and how many people were continuing from Kigali to Bujumbura.

He picked up his phone, looked at it, and said with a straight face, “Can I use your mobile phone. I’m out of minutes.”

“No. You work here. You have an office. Doesn’t it have a telephone?”

He stopped, considered my apparently faulty logic, and went and played with his camera-phone with a coworker. As he smiled and mugged, I sat and stewed on a metal luggage counter. I text-messaged Rebecca, and she said that she was sorry to say it, but that was kind of funny.

Anyway, when the flight I was supposed to be on landed, Goodwin came back down and gave me the news I had expected: the flight was full. Neither hell nor high water came, but I was still not flying to Bujumbura this afternoon. I called Joelle, the Burundian who is helping me with all of my arrangements there, to say I wouldn’t be arriving until tomorrow, but that it was AirBurundi’s fault – in the end they said I was on the plane when I wasn’t. She must think I’m a moron.

Bec came and picked me up from the airport, a fifteen-minute drive from where we live and she works, and dropped me off at the AirBurundi office. “Give ‘em hell,” she said when she dropped me off. After yelling, pointing and looking like a fool, I got myself booked on a flight that leaves Kigali at 9 a.m. tomorrow. And it is confirmed.

This trip could be the make-or-break point of our adventure here. It’s my first chance to write for a major metropolitan daily newspaper, and if I do it well, I can probably count on a lot more. Success breeds success, they always say. So I guess that it’s only fitting that so far everything’s gone wrong. I just have to rise above it, and I have no doubt I will.

I’ve also learned a few things. The first, as if I needed more confirmation, is that Rebecca is the most patient and loyal supporter I could have. I don’t know where I’d be without her. The second is that I should make sure I confirm things in person here, because I can imagine the woman on the phone filing her nails, looking at a magazine and saying, “Yeah, yeah, you’re on the list.”

And, I get to go to my French class tonight. Here I thought I was going to miss the whole first week.

Next time you hear from me, I will be home from Burundi, slaving over my Pulitzer-winning story for DaMN. (The acronym DaMN uses on its contracts is TDMN. How boring.)

20 September 2005

Well that was kind of a waste.

The first part of my trip to Burundi took me to Butare, in Rwanda’s southeast. It’s Rwanda’s second city and the home of the National University. It’s a sleepy little town, even with all of the students – there are over eight thousand of them.

I was supposed to interview refugees as they prepared to head back to Burundi early Tuesday morning, and take a visit to the Rwandan grand seminary to do a story on training priests for conflict resolution. Neither of those happened.

I got off the bus, and as I waited for my friend Igor called UNHCR. They had cancelled the convoy for this week because they were finishing off their census of refugees. Mind you, some of these people had been there for about two years, and UNHCR was now just figuring out that there were some people who kept coming back to get the repatriation supplies – three months worth of food and other goodies. The people who are doing this are dirt poor and probably didn’t have three months worth of food to begin with, so I hardly blame them. But the UN, as always, has proven to be a model of efficiency.

So, long story short, I got an interview with the head of UNHCR operations in Butare and discovered the situation in Burundi was not as dire as the refugees claimed. None could point to any particular violence or threats, but in an uneducated population where there is a long and storied history of violence, it would be foolish on the refugees’ and the UN’s part not to take the rumors seriously.

And then there was the seminary. Igor tried for over a week to get this set up, and they kept saying to call back. Finally, the priests and the rectors didn’t answer the phone. The seminary is 10 km outside of Butare, and Igor doesn’t have a car. We decided to chalk it up to a loss rather than get kicked off the property. I know, I don’t usually admit defeat that fast, but the shoestring has already lost the little plastic thing at the end and is starting to wear thin. With my trip to Burundi coming up tomorrow, and DaMN not picking up the expenses, I have to go with things I know are going to happen.

The trip wasn’t a total loss, though. I had a good time with Igor and laid the groundwork for two or three more stories. I’m not telling what they are, because I want to keep you guys guessing. I also discovered that Johnny Cash is the perfect music for rolling through the dusty old-West villages of rural Rwanda on a bus. And I had a transcendent moment when the U2 song “Where the Streets Have No Name” reached its full-throated melody and the bus reached the top of Rwanda, seemingly the top of the world. The sun’s rays illuminated small patches of green mountains, and it felt like I was flying.

Of course, the guy sleeping next to me then decided he needed to spread his legs as wide as they go and stretch. I’ll always have that moment though.

By the way, here's the link to Rebecca's photo page. www.flickr.com/photos/rstich She's quite the shuttterbug.

15 September 2005

While I have often felt rudderless with my rudderless schedule, it does have its benefits.

Yesterday, after making some calls to get my Burundi trip set up – and yes, UNHCR did make the trip harder to get done than I would have liked – I rushed to send off some e-mails for the trip, and then to get my visa. I didn’t remember my two passport photos, so I had to fly home to get them before the visa office closed. I almost said visa line, but unless you’re a returning refugee, there’s not much of a clamor to go to Burundi. After the visa fiasco, I went to The New Times office – the main English paper here – to get some good contacts with the reporters, and the good contacts they have with the government.

But you’re wondering, after all that rushing around where the benefits of the rudderless schedule come in? After my New Times meetings, it was time for lunch. On the way to Baba’s, the African buffet near Bec’s office, I stopped by a traffic circle where Rwanda’s first public art show anyone can remember to see if the painters I knew were there. I wanted to see how the show was going, if the president had arrived, how much of the art they had sold.

They weren’t there. I continued down the hill, dodging traffic as I left the circle, and headed to Baba’s. That’s where I found Sekijege, a Rwandan painter, and Juuko, a Ugandan who helped organize the show and is an established painter himself. I sat down with them, and we started talking. The conversation spun from music to movies to what not to eat in Congo (actually, what I learned was don’t eat in Congo), what crocodile tastes like – a cross between chicken and fish, but a little sweeter – to freak-show American celebrities like Michael Jackson and Mike Tyson. Eventually Sekijege’s friend Norman, another Rwandan, joined in the discussion. We had a long debate about whether hyenas are the smartest animals on the savannah or the stupidest. Norman and I came don on the side of intelligence. Why? They sneak into where a pack of lions are eating, change their voices and pretend to be lion cubs. They rarely hunt, and food is essentially provided for them. You be the judge.

The conversation turned serious when we started to discuss the nasty buffoons in charge of the American government, and then the politics of Rwanda. In general, both Norman and Sekijege said that their current president and his government do a lot of good work for Rwanda, but he has some warts. Juuko started to ask about political rights in the country. There are rarely demonstrations, and people seem reluctant to speak out against the government. From my discussions with people, there is no viable political opposition based on ideas. There are opposition rebels based outside the country, but they are the same people who brought Rwanda the genocide, and therefore, in my mind, don’t count as a political opposition. All they are are murderous thugs with a racist ideology – essentially African Nazis, and I don’t throw that term around lightly.

Juuko said Rwandans needed to stand up and peacefully disagree for real democracy to develop. Sekijege and Norman said that 11 years after the genocide was too soon. Even environmental demonstrations were used by the previous regime to stir up anti-Tutsi anger, and that led to the bloodshed, they said. It was hard for Juuko and I to understand what it felt like to even discuss the genocide, we hadn’t lost any family members to it, and we couldn’t understand what it meant to put the country back together again, according to Sekijege.

Juuko insisted that he wasn’t talking about anything except Rwandans regaining their rights, and learning how to use them. I sat, watched and listened, throwing in a question now and then. “How will you know when it is time to allow open politics to develop?” I asked, and neither Norman nor Sekijege could answer concretely. There may not be a concrete answer. Maybe eventually people will know, and it will be time. Maybe it never will be. This is the first time two ethnic groups have been forced to live together in the same tiny space after one tried to eliminate the other.

In their own ways, I think both the Rwandan tandem and Juuko are both right. People do need to claim their political rights, but when they’re ready. And if people are still scared that a peaceful demonstration can lead to the machetes coming out, then it probably isn’t time. I certainly don’t think I’m in the position to tell them.

By this time Sekijege had to leave the table, while Norman stayed. We all decided that it was time to change the topic, and I asked Juuko how he could wear a turtleneck sweater in the middle of the afternoon. It was in the mid-to-upper 80s outside. He said he was cold.

And the next thing I knew, it was after 5 p.m. I had been at that table for over four hours. I imagined that this is what life was like for Hemingway’s lost generation in Paris – journalists and painters sitting, discussing anything and everything for hours on end, not realizing just how many had passed. Except we were sitting on a dusty porch over bottles of Coke and water with a grand view of a traffic circle and well-paved road, rather than overlooking the Seine with glasses of absinthe. Not a bad way to spend a year, especially when you’re finally producing stories.

I also noted that, for the most part, all of our friends are African – mostly Rwandans with the odd Ugandan thrown in. And I like that. You get a much better feel for the country, and I can hang out with Americans in America.

Right now, Bec’s in Kibuye, helping to training to rural folks in a savings program. She says she’s pretty much along the shore of Lake Kivu, Rwanda’s answer to a beach resort. The water of the volcanic lake is an astonishing crystal blue, Bec says, but that she hasn’t had a chance to go for a swim yet. She has to give two presentations en francais, and she’s done one already. She’s nervous, but I don’t think she needs to be. She knows the topic cold, and the language will come. She’s her own toughest critic.

So the house is a little empty, and it will be almost all next week when I’m gone. At my suggestion, Bec took the Gameboy. Since we don’t have TV, I don’t have much opportunity for mindless entertainment here. Icky.

13 September 2005


Now that I’ve got my first story up and published, I thought it would be a good idea to get a second one out there. So, here it is: http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0505175.htm

That Belgian priest may be my ticket here, since that trial, once it starts, is going to last for a long time. Who said there were no stories here?

And, to top it all off, the Dallas Morning News says that it wants a story from me from Burundi. How cool is that? Well, it’s so cool that it means I don’t have a choice; I have to go.

That’s easier said than done. I’m working on getting the UN to approve me going down to Muyinga, where the refugees are returning to in Burundi. We seem to have had a miscommunication, but at least we’ve had that miscommunication done now, not when I tried to get on the bus. Once I get to Miyunga, I have to find my way to Bujumbura, again, easier said than done. I thought that I would be able to bum a ride from UNHCR (the refugee agency), but that may not be the case. I may have to hire a driver. Between CNS and the Dallas Morning News (from which one can get the acronym DaMN), I think my expenses are covered. I’ll keep my loyal readers posted.

Meanwhile, back in Kigali…. I’ve made contact with the local English language paper here, which is independent of but tied very close to the president. I may do some work for them, I may not. But the court reporter is going to keep me posted on interesting trial (which are all done in Kinyarwanda, not French. Good for Rwanda, bad for Evan). And the political and investigative desks are going to give me a hand. All I had to do was e-mail an editor whose contacts were in the paper. See, all you have to do is ask and look pathetic.

I’ve started taking the minicombi buses that I’ve written about before. It’s quite liberating; I can get anywhere in Kigali for about 200 francs, which is about 40 cents. Taxis were running me between $4 and $6 a pop. I’m usually the only umuzungu on the bus, which can elicit a few stares and laughs. I don’t mind. I’ve got someplace to be. Rather than a dinger, like on a New York City bus, people knock on whatever metal they can find to get off where they want.

The buses can probably safely hold about eight people. They don’t run until there are 14 passengers, a driver and a conductor. You really get to know your neighbors on these buses.

But each has its own personality. I was on one today that had fake leopard skin seats and blared calypso music. Others make their ceilings look like a kitchen floor from the 70s, with the rollout tiling all over the place.

And back to wildlife. I forgot to mention that I have seen a monkey near our house, on one of my soul-crushing runs. And there were goats knocking on our neighbor’s gate. Seriously, it looked like they wanted to get in.

It has not started raining here yet. But it’s only a matter of time. I think the lack of sun – we won’t really see it once the rain starts – may be hard to take. But we’ll make it through. We always do.

So, that’s about all from here. Talk to everyone soon.

10 September 2005 -- Elation


Well, your humble correspondent is now officially your humble foreign correspondent! Check it out, my first story is here, although it's not the one I wrote first. http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0505144.htm

Take that, stupid child-eating bird! (That'll make so much more sense if you read the post from yesterday.)

9 September 2005 – Frustration

Rwanda is home to some spectacular wildlife. It is famous for its gorillas – this is the land of Diane Fossey and the gorillas in the mist – as well as its chimpanzees. There are zebras and something called an okapi, which I can’t really describe except to say that it is a mix of several different hoofed beasts.

So far, I’ve only seen some of the more domestic beasts. The mosquito, fruit fly, gecko, lizard and cockroaches that are so big they might squish me appear in our house or yard. There are also some really interesting birds around here. A small black and white one that flies low and walks funny alights our porch and gate regularly. And then there are the birds that have caused Bec to come home and say in a state bordering surprise and fear, “I saw the biggest bird I’ve ever seen in my life outside my window.” These are hide-the-children-it-may-be-hungry-sized birds.

I feel like one of those birds may have come after me. My story that I submitted nearly two weeks ago still has not been edited, and without any explanation. Other Africa stories have since appeared on the Catholic News Service Web site, possibly more pressing stories, but still. It’s been entirely too long.

There’s also the problem of finding my footing here. I still haven’t been able to get the mobile numbers of the government officials I need. And the sources I do have don’t do what they did back in the Bronx, which is tell me when news breaks. The latest example is that yesterday, a Belgian Catholic missionary was arrested at the Kigali airport for possibly playing a role in the 1994 genocide. One would think this is a story that the Catholic News reporter would want to know about, but none of my sources in the church here thought to let me know, and the other reporters I’ve met didn’t see fit to drop a line about it. It’s a good thing that I can at least understand BBC French.

With Rebecca’s help – she had access to a phone book – I tracked down the government ministries involved, and none of the people I spoke to knew what I was talking about. These were just the people who answer the phones who speak only French, or the Rwandan version, so they had no idea what I was talking about and wouldn’t transfer me to the people I needed to speak to without knowing their names. Positions didn’t count. I think Kafka would have understood reporting in Kigali.

I won’t let this happen again, and I may have had another breakthrough (stop me if you’ve heard this before). On my way to meet Bec and an American named Laura who just landed and was introduced to us by our friend Eric, I saw a man walking along with a breadbox-size tape recorder and bulbous microphone – the telltale signs of the radio reporter. I stopped Gilbert and gave him my card. I expect to meet with him sometime this week or next, and hopefully he’ll either give me numbers or let me know when something big happens. That’s the way it’s done here for foreigners.

And I still may get a story out of this Belgian priest fiasco. I had arranged a meeting with the Rwandan Conference of Catholic Bishops for this afternoon, and I can do a church reaction piece. We’ll see.

In other news, the planning for my trip to Burundi is going well. The UN refugee people are pretty much taking care of my contacts, at least with the church, the non-government groups and the refugees. I’m heading down on a refugee convoy on Sept. 20. And from there it’s another three or four days in the country, where peace may be breaking out. It will mean missing my first three French classes. I was placed into an upper-level beginner section.

That appears to be the extent of the action here for now. A lot of frustration, but the trick is working around that frustration. I’m getting better about that.

1 September 2005 – One month in

Today is a momentous day. Rebecca and I have survived one whole month here in the land of the cracked windshield (seriously, everyone's is). Sometimes it feels like time has flown by. Others, like this morning when I decided it was high time to iron all the shirts that had just been hanging in the closet after about a month in suitcases, it feels like it’s dragged on.

Still, life is taking on a rhythm right about now. Things more or less work in the house now, which is a good start. I’ve started to learn the mini-combi bus system here (the shaggin’ wagons I wrote about earlier) and am starting to take fewer taxis. I’m also riding the back of motorcycle taxis again, despite Rebecca’s pleas. It’s a helmet versus lice issue.

Here are some random thoughts on our first month. Kigali is insanely expensive, comparable to New York, often can't find what you're looking for, or when you do find it, the thing breaks within a few days. And there are no bagels. I could really use a bagel. A CRS person who lived in Rwanda for six years and is here for a week is in the process of showing us where to shop better and cheaper. One of the places we do our shopping is called the Gallette, which is attached to the German Butchery. Bec and I find the German Butchery endlessly amusing. (On a related note, I think that the German international development agency needs to rebrand itself. The initials spell D-E-D, and the acronym is pronounced “dead.” It just goes with the whole German Butchery thing.)

Socially, well, it’s been a slow to start. Bec and I really enjoy each other’s company. But we need to start meeting other people. Somehow, we always manage to find something to talk about, but it’s been a month, and we’re starting to run out. Sometimes we just look at each other, shrug and say, “I got nothin'.”

I may be starting to play in a regular football game with the BBC correspondent here. I think my accent will make me the last player picked, and rightly so. At least there will be people there.

Work is coming along. Some of you are probably wondering what happened to that story I filed earlier this week. Well, I am too. I e-mailed the editor in Washington yesterday to see what’s going on. Barb said she was all by her lonesome on foreign news, and would be reading it yesterday. Last time I checked, at about 7:30 last night, no word. My fear is that she hates it and doesn’t want me to write anymore for CNS. That’s probably not going to happen, and she is backed up. I find it hard to believe that my story comes in after news from the Vatican and the 25^th anniversary of the Solidarity trade union’s recognition by the Polish government. I guess I’m in the minority on that. (Update: It's now 4:20 p.m. Kigali time, 10:20 in D.C. Still no word on the story.)

I have a meeting tomorrow with the president’s communications guy. I'll have a better handle on what's going on here, and I’ve worked out getting a list of all the government ministers’ mobile phone numbers. I’m not giving up my source on that, and none of you can make me. I could really use a phone book. And yes, they have one here.

So now it’s just a matter of figuring out what’s next. Burundi appears to be the best option; lots of stories there. I just need to get CNS to pay for my trip, preferably in conjunction with another news organization. I’ve got other Rwanda stories that I’m thinking about, and which may be interesting. Of course, I can’t really do good pitches until CNS puts my story up online, to show what I can do. Ugh, I feel trapped. I actually sent one on Tuesday, to Atlanta. I certainly do have a good sense of timing.

Bec’s been working like crazy lately. She and CRS are facing US government funding application deadlines. It’s quite a process, and she’s at work until around 7 or 8 many nights. But it’ll calm down soon. I’ll let her tell the rest of her story.

So that’s the deal from here after one month. I’m starting to get used to the crazy taxis, the flickering power, the language – everything except having a guard. No Mo, he’s not a manservant. We’re building a life here, as hard as it is. But we’ll do it. We don’t have a choice.