27 March 2006

Long time, no read everybody. Sorry I’ve fallen off the face of the earth (I do live in Rwanda after all), but at least I come armed with excuses.

First, my computer is still not back from Kampala. The logic board is sitting in Ugandan customs, just waiting to push its way through. The computer store guy said he expected that to happen today. After they get the part, we’ll see if they correctly diagnosed the problem. I’m fairly confident they did.

The only obstacle standing in my way is getting the computer from Kampala to Kigali. I’m still working on that. One option would be to go up there, but I really only have time to do that if I’ve got other stories to do. I’m still waiting to hear about a few pitches, and will keep you posted.

A second option would be to have a friend pick it up. That may happen also. The third, and least appealing, option is Elite Computers DHLing the thing down. That would cost millions of dollars and probably hundreds – maybe thousands – of lives as I fought through Rwandan customs, so here’s hoping that we don’t have to go that route.

So, how does me not having my computer prevent my loyal readers from wasting time at the office reading this nonsense? Well, Rebecca has kindly lent me her laptop for the time mine is in sickbay. But because she is working on a major project for CRS, she needs to use the machine at night and on weekends, prime blogging time.

There is excuse number one.

Excuse number two is Focus eats up a whole lot of time. Editing stories, working with the reporters, taking advantage of the free Internet access all take more energy and thought than one would expect. Fortunately, the hard work is starting to pay off. We’re at the beginning of Hell Week, where a group of stories, opinion articles, editorials, photos and just a smattering of advertisements become a newspaper.

But unlike past editions, we’re actually a day or two ahead because of cooperation from everyone, and I’ve calmed down enough that it looks like I won’t have pop an aneurism. We intend to come out every two weeks now, so let’s all keep our fingers crossed.

My schedule is so packed that I haven’t even had time to tackle a story that DaMN asked for, or pursue an opportunity that came up suddenly at the end of last week as much as I’d like. Again, since I don’t want to jinx this, I’ll keep the opportunity a secret. All I’ll say is that if it works out I’ll be converting from pounds to dollars.

I left off my three-part extravaganza on the trip to Uganda at a discussion of the elections there. I trust you’ve all read my DaMN piece, so I won’t go into anymore. But it looks like in some ways I was right, and some ways I was wrong. A Canadian guy I met in Kampala who writes for the Economist and the Washington Times got kicked out for being a “security threat” and other journalists told me they’ve “been warned.”

But you don’t want that. You want the Complete Idiot’s Guide to covering an African election. I am your complete idiot guide.

Unfortunately, over the month that I’ve been back in Kigali I’ve forgotten much about the little things that happened, but I’ll try to remember a few.

What do the boys on the bus talk about when traveling from Besigye campaign rally to Besigye campaign rally? The Winter Olympics. More specifically, biathlon and skeleton. My mom’s theory about the beauty of the skeleton is that it looks like you could just throw a dead guy onto the sled and send him down the chute – a Weekend at Bernie’s situation, if you will.

As I was advancing this theory – which met with great approval – we got word that the Ugandan military had plowed through the cheering throngs (I wrote about this on March 8), killing four people. As I wrote before, nobody got killed. I did see one guy who was run over, but nobody got killed.

So one would think that after this potentially important incident – hell, we even got off the bus and investigated – we would be talking about what it all means.

“So how did they figure that going head-first down the chute was a totally different sport than going down on your back?” either Rob or Hans, my fellow travelers, asked almost immediately after getting back on the bus.

I wrote earlier that the elections were basically a journalism convention. I met the New York Times correspondent (I even got to ride in his car), the NPR and Christian Science Monitor correspondents (who took me to Jinja, on Lake Victoria, and didn’t make me pay) and ran into my friend Fred from Human Rights Watch.

When all the journalists heard my deal with DaMN, they said I needed to find a new string. (“They don’t pay expenses? How do they expect you to do anything?” was the common refrain.)

The Friday nights I spent in Kampala were neat bookends. On the first one, I had to wake up at 4:30 the next morning for the 75-hour trip to President Museveni’s ranch (okay, it was only six). The next one, I was out until 4:30 in the morning with the rest of the hacks. That’s when I found out that Times reporters were not allowed to expense prostitutes, but some creative ones have managed to expense items like Russian sable coats. I don’t need a sable coat, but I could sure use an expense account where I can exercise my creativity.

So, that, in a nutshell, was my Kampala experience. Sorry that I forgot all the good stories. Next time you see me, corner me and I’ll make something up. Now get back to work. And congratulations, Maura and Kelly. Welcome aboard, Julia.