August 30, 2006

Some things make me sad, like a sign Rebecca and I saw today driving in central Yaounde. One of the main roads in town is a designated parade route, and there are bleachers and VIP areas lining both sides. There are also signs and slogans. Here's where the sadness came in. There was one building with the slogan "Loyalty and fidelity to President Paul Biya" painted in bright red letters in English and French. Hail to the king.

But then, when things make me sad, there's always something that makes me happy . Hail to the king.

August 29, 2006

I was listening to the radio this morning when I heard about a conference where European Christians are apologizing for slavery and colonialism in Harare, Zimbabwe this week. I tried to find a story online, but I couldn’t. So Google away all you want.

The radio clips I heard featured people on the brink of tears, if not past it, apologizing for the wrongs that their countries did at the 1884 Berlin Conference, where 14 European countries divided up the continent into the truly stupefying boundaries we have today. The believers went on to apologize for slavery and for stealing natural resources. Although they couldn’t speak for their governments, the Christians wanted to make it known that reparations needed to be paid.

It’s all very sweet and nice. But it’s also very silly, ineffectual and totally blind to the way Africa is run now. I hate to be nasty to people who mean well, but I think that their actions are counterproductive.

First of all, they’re doing this conference in Zimbabwe. Granted, Zimbabwe was called Rhodesia until 1980 or so, named after Cecil Rhodes, one of the worst people ever. And yes, there was a violent civil war that shook off a regime every bit as brutal and racist as the apartheid government in South Africa. But ask my friend Fungayi Kapungu, who is Zimbabwean, why he’s working in South Africa rather than his native country.

Robert Mugabe, the tyrant who runs the country now, has committed genocide against a national minority – and no, wasn’t the white people who stayed. He has recently made his country starve, when it once had been a net-exporter of food, by closing down productive farms in the name of land reform. Really, the reform was giving land to his cronies who were unhappy with their cut of the national pie. Zimbabwe has the world’s highest inflation, at around 1000 percent and he constantly makes threats against the democratic political opposition. They’re being told that they’re fomenting a coup.

So by apologizing for past evils in Zimbabwe, these people are ignoring the current evils that are still going on. And while those problems are tangentially and historically related to colonialism, they’re right now the doings of Africans. When does the dictator have to apologize to his people?

Second, people are calling for reparations and restitution. Africa has already received the equivalent of the Marshall Plan several times over since independence broke out in the 1960s. And from my experience, they haven’t done much with it. In fact, there’s a good argument to be made that aid has stunted political and economic growth. Why does a government need to reform if some European or American aid agency is going to come in and rebuild the road that the government is supposed to build? Aid reduces accountability, the argument goes.

Look at the roads in Cameroon. Except for Yaoundé, Douala and a few inter-provincial highways, they’re all dirt. This is a problem in a country that has two rainy seasons and is among the wettest in the world. But why bother changing policies? The people aren’t going to say anything because foreign aid comes in and does enough to keep people alive and provide basic services. That should be the job of the Cameroonian government. But they don’t have to do it.

Granted, people could argue that African countries were meddled with by Western powers when they gave aid. But those people should look at the histories of Greece, Italy and Turkey. All three of those almost “went Communist”. They all had democratic elections overturned. In Italy that gave us the wonderful chaos we have today. In Greece and Turkey, we got brutal military governments.

So why throw more money at this? I think I’m being won over, despite an aid agency paying my rent and beginning to feel like some cranky conservative (I’m not, by the way). I stress, as I always do, that these problems have nothing to do with intellect, talent or culture. They stem from corruption and dictators.

After the story, several people from different African countries text-messaged the radio show to say Western countries need to give more money. How about no.

Is it heartless for me to think that more than 40 years into independence, others have said sorry enough and people in Africa should start taking matters into their own hands?

….

Here’s a highlight from last weekend:

I was doing an interview with a musician, and afterwards someone came up to me and said, “Are you a trumpet player from Iceland? You look just like a trumpet player I know from Iceland.”

That’s a first. People say I look like someone they know all the time. But this was something different.

I, of course, said yes.

August 25, 2006

Good news. My computer isn’t going to burn down my house.

I’ve got one of those cheap-o Sony batteries that are giving Apple and Dell owners heartburn. Fortunately, before we left for Africa, I bought a spare battery at Bec’s urging. It’s not a Sony, so I’ve put it in. The Sony is now sitting harmlessly in the closet.

Does that mean that I didn’t sit there and think, “You know, my computer was feeling a little warm the other day.” Does that mean that I didn’t wake up a couple of times afraid that the thing had caught fire, which had spread onto my wood desk and then over to the door and then into our room? Of course not. Sure, I know that only nine people have had a problem with their Macs. And I know that the only problem I’ve ever had was with my logic board. My battery never feels especially warm. But that doesn’t mean I’m not next. You see, I’m a crazy person.

But all is well. I just need to figure out how to get the Sony battery replaced from Yaoundé.

Here’s a thought, though, and it’s a little conspiratorial. Sony has been beaten like a rented mule by the iPod. Did Sony do this on purpose to hurt Apple? I live on a continent where hurting other people at your own expense out of spite is totally normal, accepted and even expected. So what if Sony loses untold money and prestige because of this. It makes sense from here.

…

Not only is Paul Biya the Godfather, he’s the Absentee Landlord.

In 2002, the International Court of Justice awarded Cameroon the Bakassi Peninsula, which Nigeria had occupied for several years. It took four years, but in June, the Godfather, President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria and Kofi Annan came together to sign what is known as the Greentree Agreement, where Nigeria agreed to begin getting out in early August. (By the way, it’s called the Greentree Agreement because it was signed at the Greentree Estate in Manhasset, on Long Island. I explained to a Cameroonian friend that this was also a place where many Jewish people had weddings and bar and bat mitzvahs.)

Anyway, the agreement said that Nigerian soldiers and administrators would get out over two years starting Aug. 14. In return, Cameroon got a whole bunch of oil, natural gas and fisheries, plus around 20,000 angry Nigerians who will probably give Cameroon a bad case of natural gas. One rumor I heard (and if there weren’t rumors, there’d be no information in Africa) is that Nigeria gets to keep the money from offshore oil drilling, which has started and is far easier, while Cameroon gets to explore for oil and gas on land. That is far harder and requires dealing with local populations, spreading wealth and protecting the environment. Ask Nigerians how that’s going.

The point here is that the Godfather didn’t even show up. He was in Switzerland, probably shopping with the credit card for his Zurich bank account (we know he’s got one). One would think his country getting a valuable piece of territory would be enough to get the guy out of his mountain hideaway. Nope.

It’s increasingly hard to take the Godfather or his cronies seriously.

Even worse, it’s impossible the opposition seriously. There is a Social Democratic Front in Cameroon, led mainly by Anglophones from the Northwest, although it aspires to being a national party. Back in 1992, when political parties other than Biya’s CPDM were legalized, the SDF was said to be a party of ideas. They had a real platform and even came close to winning a presidential election, people say (I have my doubts). Only massive, obvious fraud kept Biya in power.

Since then, the party has declined to the point where it is fractured and the leader of the original SDF group is being questioned after the death of an activist of the splinter faction. Everyone thinks both sides are on the take from the government, who has shrewdly split the SDF. Now, the best anyone has told me about what would happen if hell froze over and the SDF took power is that they wouldn’t do much. But most everyone thinks they would just continue to rob and steal. The money would just go to a different part of Cameroon and to a different group of tribes.

Sometimes it seems that politics in Africa becomes a parody of itself. Parties fighting over who gets to divide up the spoils; presidents simply deciding they don’t want to leave office; constitutions ignored, ripped up or rewritten whenever they don’t suit the people in power. But then I watch my own government treat its Constitution like a game of Mad Libs. Maybe the joke’s on us.

….

Along with the nastiness I just described, there are people who spend day and night trying to find ways to improve the country. I met with Father Patrick Lafon, the secretary general of the National Episcopal Conference, today. I’m totally serious when I say that the church here does what you’d expect a religious institution to do. They see problems with elections, so the church decides to monitor them. When that doesn’t work, they draft solid laws that establish an Independent Electoral Commission and other reforms that are presented to parliament. Of course, the Godfather and his gang of thieves block them.

And when they see that corruption is making people poor, the church gets up and says, no. This is wrong. “They didn’t like that, but we had to do it,” Father Lafon said.

Plus, Father Patrick is how I imagine Friar Tuck might look now. He’s round and jolly, with a tight beard and wide face and he dresses like Bill Cosby. He laughs loud and a lot. When I asked him why people don’t rise up here, he said, “We have the same conditions that led to war in other countries. But we have enough food and enough drink. So everybody’s too busy drinking.” He wasn’t talking about milk, just like Friar Tuck.

…..

Finally, I should have the dates for my October return to New York set in the next week or two. I’ll keep you posted.

And even brighter news is that my friend Magnus from Kigali is heading to D.C. and New York come the end of next month. So everyone needs to be on deck to show the man a good time. He knows how to party, but keep your hands and arms away from his mouth when he’s eating.

August 18, 2006

I’ve developed into a world-class schmoozer. (Before I go on, can I tell you how delighted I am that schmoozer is in the Microsoft Word dictionary.)

Last night, Rebecca had to stand in for her boss at a reception featuring some big muckety-mucks (muckety got the squiggly line) from Citigroup. Their head of international corporate banking was doing a tour of Africa, and Cameroon was the last stop. Along for the ride was the head of their Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa division (I think that’s it), the head of sub-Saharan operations as well as the Citigroup Cameroon team. The acting head of mission for the U.S. embassy was there with his wife, Pinky, who appeared to be Asian and not pink at all. Big business people were in town from Douala. Tyco, the company that brought you Dennis Kozlowski and peeing ice statues at birthday parties, has an affiliate here called Security Dog, which as you can imagine is a private security firm. It seems appropriate that Tyco is here. On that note, several Cameroonian government officials attended the event as well, including the finance minister, whose name really is Polycarpe Abah Abah, Jonah.

I was on my game. I don’t think I made a face when I was introduced to Pinky. In fact, I let Rick make the obligatory “like your finger” joke, holding up his right pinky. I mentioned to the big Citigroup guy that my sister can see his office from her apartment window, and that at night it’s quite a view. When I found out that the head of sub-Saharan operations for Citigroup was Czech, I talked a bit about studying in Prague, the neighborhood where I lived and what I was actually there to study (NATO expansion, privatization and the split of Czechoslovakia in 1938). I even wore a tie.

But I remembered Rusty’s rules from “Ocean’s 11”: be funny but don’t be memorable, etc. I didn’t tell the big Citigroup guy that “Pookie” could see the office. I left it at my sister. I didn’t talk to the Czech guy about Jaromir Jagr or Petr Prucha or the Rangers until the end of the night, nor did I mention that what I really studied in Prague was beer and hockey, in that order. I didn’t even talk about peeing ice sculptures with the guy from Security Dog, but that was mostly because I couldn’t say peeing ice sculpture in French. One day.

And then it was time for dinner. At first Rebecca and I were way out at the end of the room, away from everyone. But because a few people didn’t show up, we got put at the table closest to the podium where Citigroup folks gave their speeches. It was at this point that I lost it a bit. As the speakers took their turns thanking honorable government ministers, members of the diplomatic corps and distinguished guests, I had a “what am I doing here” moment. Since when am I a distinguished guest? And then I started to think about clubs Groucho Marx didn’t want to join, which I had already mentioned to Rebecca at the cocktail session. I fought hard to hold back a good, long laugh. I am happy to report that I won the battle.

Bec and I sat with the Czech guy, as well as some other high Citigroup officials and business people, including the Security Dog. The Secretary General in the Ministry of Health was sitting with us, but he wasn’t interested in talking all that much. Mostly because it’s hard to talk to a Cameroonian government official without saying, “You know, if you didn’t steal all the money, you really could develop a working country here.” People tried. The Czech guy asked him about hospitals and the health program that gets the most money thrown at it. You won’t be surprised to hear that more than 70 percent of Cameroon’s hospitals are either run by religious institutions or are private. It’s not that the government doesn’t have the money, of course, but much like the health problem that gets the most money thrown at it, the cash goes to the ministers’ anti-starvation program.

We overheard Security Dog berating the Secretary General about why there are no comprehensive HIV testing and anti-retroviral programs. Six of the Dog’s employees are HIV-positive and the company pays for their treatment, he said. The Secretary’s response was essentially that money doesn’t solve everything. Judging from the ample belly menacing the buttons on his finely tailored three-piece suit, it solves a few problems.

An African guy sitting at our table told us about his father’s cynical political platform, should he ever run for office. Our companion said his dad wanted to publicly state that he and all his ministers, upon taking office, would immediately each take $5 million from the state treasury. I imagine that other appointees would get something less, but we didn’t discuss it. After their version of a signing bonus, each minister would then vow never to take anything again, other than their regular salaries, and to work solely for the benefit of the people and the nation. They would also vow to leave office after one seven-year term.

The sad part is, I guarantee that political party would win in Cameroon. First of all, it’s far more honest than the nonsense the government here spews about fighting corruption. Second, it’s far less money than the government here steals. Let’s say that 30 ministers get $5 million each, one-time only. That’s $150 million. Thrown in another $50 million or so for lower government officials, again one-time only. That’s nothing compared to the amount of money that disappears from the Cameroonian government’s coffers every year. No one knows how much the Godfather is worth, but it’s a lot more than $5 million. He’s been in power since 1982, and his wealth is probably unimaginable to the non-kleptocratic dictator. Then throw in all the other officials on the farm. It’s staggering.

So Cameroonians would find the $5 million pledge a bargain compared to what’s been happening.

I also became even more firmly convinced that businesses want to help get this sorted out. It’s not out of the goodness of their hearts, but who cares about motivation. We need results. Banks and financial institutions are tired of being left holding the bag for corrupt politicians. That’s not to say that many bankers and banks aren’t happily helping. Enough are tired of being targeted by activists and the press. Also, business people are starting to realize that corruption and unrest are bad for investors, and therefore for the bottom line. Finally, poverty and corruption limits the number of people who can buy whatever it is they’re selling.

I understand that all it takes is a few business people willing to play ball with the thieves to make everything I said seem hopelessly idealistic. It happens every day here. But I really think many are starting to realize that good legal systems, relatively clean politicians and a stable country are good for business. And that, I think, is far more important than any development money.

…..

Here’s more hard-hitting, thousands-of-miles-away reporting on the for DRC elections .

Tomorrow, I go for my first haircut in Cameroon. I got it done in France, so it’s been about two months. I was hoping to string it out until October, when I can go to Astor Place, but I’m starting to look like Chewbacca. Here’s hoping they use scissors.

August 17, 2006

We had our first run-in with the Cameroonian police on Friday night. As Bec, our friend Duncan (the fish guy) and I walked back from dinner, gendarmes at a roadblock. Bec was in the lead and didn’t notice them because of the military fatigues they were wearing. After asking why she did not respect the authoritay (that’s not a misspelling for you South Park fans out there), the policeman proceeded to go through the certified copies of our passports.

“This is expired,” he said.

“No it’s not, it’s good through August,” Bec said, I think.

“Yes, but it’s August now,” the policeman said.

“That’s right. This is only good through the 28th of August,” the policeman said.

“It’s the eleventh.”

Finally, another roadblock officer saved us. Clearly the guy was looking for a bribe. But we don’t do that, and if you’ve got information on your side, you don’t need to. This is how corruption works in Cameroon: change the rules and try to get people to pay when they say they don’t understand.

Another example: our three-month visas are up soon, and according to an agreement between CRS and the Cameroonian government, we should get long-term residency cards after that three-month period. Except they changed the rules, and said we need to be here six months to earn our cards. So we’ll just re-up our temporary visas, and again, not pay.

It gets worse though. Those were two trivial matters and Bec and I have a powerful organization backing us. Someone was telling me that a regional coordinator in the east wanted to have each person involved in a project identifying and helping AIDS orphans come and meet him. That’s code for come and present an envelope with a relatively large amount of money. Without accurately identifying the orphans, they can’t get the help they need. Who’s going to stand up for them?

Don’t forget, the RDPC, the governing party, says no to corruption.

……

My mom was asking me about the weather in Yaoundé. Right now, we’re on the border between a remarkably pleasant dry season, where there were some days where it was downright chilly, and a reportedly remarkably nasty rainy season. Gray is the sky's usual color these days. The air is getting thicker and steamier as we speak, and I’m getting sweatier and sweatier.

…..

I met a man named Lafort last night playing Frisbee. He’s Cameroonian. I desperately wanted him to be wearing one of those foam hats, like a Dixieland band wears. Watch Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid to find out. (And yes, Jon, I know that it’s spelled different.)

August 11, 2006

I can’t believe I did what I did last night. It was one of those last-ditch, desperate efforts a journalist trying to meet people in a new country has to do. It made feel a little dirty afterwards, like I wanted to brush my teeth non-stop or wash my hands until they bled. I almost didn’t want to tell Rebecca about it.

I attended a meeting of the local Rotary Club.

At journalism school, they told us that sitting in on one of the meetings is a good place to meet new people of some influence in the community. They also told us that on the boredom rating, it was somewhere below the meeting of the city council, village advisory board, school board or tenants’ association, but above being assigned to cover the opening of the new shopping mall. They didn’t say what it was like when the meeting was conducted entirely in French.

It wasn’t so bad. First of all, they said the meeting started at 7 p.m. My experiences in Cameroon so far have been that that means around 7:30, 8 or 8:30. These guys said 7, and they started at 7:10. Plus, they were genuinely welcoming. Sure, I had to sit and listen to a speech about the crisis of falling membership or something, but I got what I was after: phone numbers. The president of the Bastos Collines chapter is the director of studies at the Bank of Central African States – the common central bank for Cameroon and its neighbors. One of the members is an economic analyst for the government. Yet another is a presidential spokesman. C’est le but. (Goal.)

This week hasn’t been quite as busy as last. That happens. I think it’s more likely that my time here will be somewhere in between last week – when I had three stories published and was running around the whole time – and this week, where I had a conference to go to on Monday and then I sort of stumbled around for the rest of the week. An editor at an American paper dinged a story idea because they have a story on the same topic from Liberia coming up, so I’ll send it elsewhere. Plus I might have a different story to do for the same editor. I’m not going to jinx either of those, but by the end of next week I expect to have a good idea how the next month or so will look.

I was supposed to travel to Buea, in Southwest Province, for a journalists’ training on Wednesday and stay there through tomorrow. But a couple of things got in the way. One, the trip wasn’t confirmed until Tuesday morning, so I made other plans for the week – including the Rotary and getting started on one of my story possibilities. More importantly, I was just pushing back my Annual Intestinal Invasion. I didn’t want to be in a car for four hours with danger lurking around every turn, if you catch my drift. So I said I couldn’t go.

I was just planning on going to meet people, talk to them about life in Buea (pronounced Boo-ya) and twiddle my thumbs. Apparently the organization I was going to go with had other ideas. I’m not sure what they were, but here are two monkey wrenches for them to consider next time. First, I’m not doing a journalist training session for anyone unless I sign a contract and get paid. Not to sound mercenary, but I did my free training for African journalists already. Second, I won’t do any paid work for them because if I do I can’t write about them for CNS. It’s just not worth it, because this organization gets involved, somehow, in almost every single church development or human rights project in Africa. It’s not worth it for a one-off training session.

Apparently me being ill was not a good enough reason, so I got a phone call telling me how annoyed the organizers were. I thought about offering the aggressor the opportunity to come to the house and take a stool sample, but have decided to take a more mature revenge. The guy who bugged me doesn’t get into any stories. Ever.
…

My friend Dennis was describing what one of his teachers called moral economy. Basically, what it was describing was the zero-sum nature of human relations. It’s applicable in Africa – if someone else succeeds, it means that I’m failing, and if I’m failing it’s obviously because someone else is succeeding – as well as many other parts of the world. Bec likes to tell an (I assume) apocryphal story from Russia. A peasant sees that his neighbor has a new cow that’s producing a lot of milk. A second neighbor comes to ask the original peasant what he thinks. The original peasant says he’s jealous. So the questioner asks if the peasant wants a cow to produce milk. No, the peasant responds, I want to kill my neighbor’s cow.

Dennis, who is doing a master’s thesis on Cameroonian music, was telling me about a band he knows that a French producer wanted to sign to a contract. The producer went to the band’s manager, who proceeded to ask for the equivalent of around $40,000. The producer said they’re good, but not that good. The band stagnated. This is another example of the zero-sum social relations that I think make development in Africa, the Middle East and other parts of the world particularly difficult. It’s even starting to make its way into American politics.

If someone else’s success necessarily means your own failure, what interest do you have in working with other people? And at the same time, what incentive do you have to not take money from your government/business/NGO and use it yourself?

It’s extremely easy for me to moralize like this. I’ve never had to wonder where my next meal is coming from, or if there would be another after that. But economies only work if there’s a certain amount of trust, even if regulatory bodies like the FBI and SEC enforce that trust. But if the trust isn’t there to begin with, than those institutions can’t develop. How does a country and economy develop if everyone is not only out for number one, but would almost rather see someone else step in number two?

August 8, 2006

I think I may give up journalism and become a professional baseball player.

No, that doesn’t mean I’m coming home. And no, that doesn’t mean the annual intestinal invasion I’m currently fighting off has caused me to revert to being an 8-year-old.

It means that despite my inability to hit or catch and throws rivaling Chuck Knoblauch’s when his Yankee career ended, I have the potential to be an all-star second baseman in the Yaoundé baseball league.

What? Baseball in Cameroon?

I was invited to play softball by a friend who is starting up a digital recording studio in Yaoundé. A person attached to the US Embassy runs a game, and since so many people were out of town, they needed an extra person. So at first I thought I was going to be playing with the Marines and some members of the embassy staff. I was a little concerned about standing in the way of the shots the Marines stroked, but Dennis told me they can’t hit. I thought that was part of basic training.

On Sunday, a friend from the embassy picked me up and we drove to the field, in the shadows of Yaoundé’s main football stadium, the Omnisport. When we got there, Tad looked at the dirt that was meant to stand in for grass. “Nice field,” he said.

“It’s a lot better than the fields I played lacrosse on in high school,” I said. “There’s no broken glass or syringes.”

Tad told me Cameroonians played, but I took this to mean a few attached themselves to the American softball game. I was wrong. There was one team taking batting and fielding practice, decked out in pinstriped shirts and black leggings. Someone in Korea donated the shirts – they had the logo of the LG electronics company on the left side, numbers in the 60s and 70s and the names on the back were written in Korean characters. They all wore matching red caps and had a coach who reamed them out for every mistake.

A second team, most of them wearing yellow, non-matching shirts and mismatched caps, were sitting on the bleachers, messing around. Some of their players – both teams had men and women – wore green football jerseys and most of them, but not all, wore a hat of some kind.

In Cameroon, the rules of baseball are still the same. It’s still three strikes for an out, four balls for a walk and three outs to an inning (which I believe they called an attaque). A full count is a balle de match. The bases are still around 27 meters apart (90 feet) and the pitcher’s mound is still just under 19 meters (60 feet) from home.

There were ratty old gloves and ancient metal bats with little or no rubber grip. Two rubber bases were laid out at first and third, with a proper second base bag in between, and there was a rubber pitching slab.

An umpire stood behind home, decked out all in red – pants, helmet, mask and chest protector. He stood with his hands crossed in front of him for some reason and had clearly heard the caricature voices of umpires in the U.S. He had just the right gravel and theatricality in his voice when he called “strike” and the appropriate melancholy when saying “ball.” His strikeout calls were gleeful; his “walk” had a slight hint of mourning to them.

But the ump had an African stoicism missing from American umps. He took a solid shot in the nuts on a foul tip without even flinching. He just stood there and said “foul ball.” Yes, he was wearing a chest protector that covered the area, but I’m sure he wasn’t wearing a cup. Even in their suits of armor, an American ump would have been hobbling up and down the first base line for a few minutes after a shot like that.

The original plan was for the American team to take on the Cameroonians to give them some practice before the opening of the season on Aug. 20. But for security reasons – there was a club football match and some genius thought it was a risk for Americans to be in the area – the embassy team didn’t show. It was just Tad and I.

So Tad went with the Cameroonian equivalent of Earl Weaver, the longtime, unhinged manager of the Baltimore Orioles, and I went over to the Bad News Bears, in their appropriate yellow.

We were up first. Earl Weaver, who was around my height and a bit broader, was doing his Randy Johnson impersonation. Both Tad and I were expecting a leisurely game of softball, so we were a bit surprised at the heaters this guy was unleashing. I was also a little unnerved at how wild he was. In French, a “heater” is a chauffer I think. I never learned how to say “chin music”, but I certainly learned how to get out of the way of it.

I originally put myself into right field, not wanting any part of actually playing the field. That’s always where my coaches hid me in the mighty New Rochelle Youth Baseball League – the kind of league with no try-outs. But since no one took second base, I moved up to what was my position at the end of my baseball career and with the Riverdale Press softball team. Earl Weaver had his team running on everything. Each person on the other team stole second and, when the catcher bounced the throw over me and the shortstop that had only learned baseball within the last month didn’t back me up, would take third. Eventually I told our pitcher, Blaise, that all he needed to do was look at the runner to keep him on first. But the first baseman never held the runner on, so it never worked. We’re learning.

Our third baseman, Tindang, didn’t know that you had to tag the runner at third if it wasn’t a force play. So he’d stand there with the ball in his glove and have the runner beat by 10 steps, but the runner would be safe. (Bec didn’t know what a force play was, so for those of you who haven’t wasted your lives watching the Yankees, a force play is when a runner has to run. Only one runner can be on a base at a time, so if a runner is on first, he or she is forced to run on a ground ball. The same holds true if there is a runner on first and second and less than two outs and there’s a grounder. The runner on second has to go to third. Now, if there’s a fly ball….And we wonder why the rest of the world doesn’t pick up baseball as their national pastime.)

As I said, we’re learning. Tindang was in his fourth week of playing.

Since I stopped playing organized baseball after eighth grade, and only started playing softball in college where we discovered the beautiful mix of softball and beer, I forgot one very important fact about baseball. It’s boring out there in the field. You stand there, and even at second the ball rarely heads your way. You can switch from foot to foot. You can draw lines in the dirt. You can tap your glove and scream all the chatter you want (they didn’t teach baseball chatter in my French classes), but it’s boring. It’s a lot more fun to watch because you can get up, go to the bathroom, buy a hot dog or change the channel if you’re at home. You have to stay out in the field if you’re playing.

I went one-for-three on the day, including a walk and a contested triple in the ninth with the game out of reach. I sent a deep shot to right that I actually thought was going to make it to the street – there’s a short right field wall – but it landed a few feet short. I watched it all the way in. It landed on the line and then rolled. I didn’t really start running until I saw it land after I had turned at first. The ump called it foul. My team called it fair. Earl Weaver called it fair, saying it rolled foul. The right fielder, Tad, said he didn’t see. Coward. They compromised and put me on second.

We got crushed. Mostly because the other team didn’t stop the stealing even when the score got to be something like 17-2. I tried to explain to Blaise that the appropriate thing to do in this situation was to send a pitch inside at Earl Weaver or to drill him in the ass. But somehow, “Mets-la dans son derriere” just didn’t have the right force to it.

Does anyone know how to say, “to plunk” in French?

August 4, 2006

Yesterday on my Google Alert for Cameroon, I came across a story where a Cameroonian newspaper – which is banned by the government because the paper has a long history of being a hate rag – had an article calling for the completion of Hitler’s work and naming the Nazi a saint.

In all likelihood, the article was written by a black man. Women tend not to be quite as vitriolic, and Cameroonians tend to be black. Maybe I should’ve been annoyed, angered or frightened. Instead, all I thought was, “Hey, Cameroonian guy. He didn’t think much of you either.”

Anyway, on a lighter note, here’s another story I wrote yesterday for CNS
. I told you I’ve been busy. There’s more to come.

August 1, 2006

A year ago today, Rebecca and I arrived in Rwanda.

We actually landed in Africa the night before, but since all we saw was airport, road, hotel, road and airport, I won’t count that as our official arrival.

So today is the anniversary. Time sure does fly when you’re…well, um, er….

Kidding. I’m just kidding. In many ways I’m having a lot of fun. In many ways, it’s been really hard.

You’ve read in this space about the characters I’ve met – both the wonderful and the decidedly not – so I won’t bore you with that. It would give at least one of those decidedly not wonderful individuals entirely too much satisfaction.

On a personal level, tagging along with the luggage has given me a chance to advance far more in my career than I would have had Rebecca wanted a more conventional job. It’s good to be portable – I don’t have to worry as much about money as most freelancers do. I’ve been able to see history happen in front of me and how other cultures operate. Instead of reading the stories that other people are writing and thinking, “I wonder what that would be like,” I’m the one writing those stories. It’s really cool. I’ve been published in one major American paper (DaMN!) and the folks at the Catholic News Service have been nothing short of wonderful. A friend in Kampala, who has since gone on to Ghana, said that you want editors who are tough on the copy – journalists’ jargon for articles – but good to the reporter. That’s CNS in a nutshell. I’m lucky they gave me the chance.

And I’m pretty busy right about now. In fact, I had two CNS stories published yesterday, here and here. (You may be wondering how I covered the Congolese elections. I am everywhere at once.) I’m slowly building up my contacts, getting my pitches ready and hopefully that will result in some more work to come. Fortunately, the Catholic Church here in Cameroon is extremely active, so that makes for more and better stories for CNS.

I’ve had the chance to learn a lot more about Rebecca. You know what, she’s really cool. For most of the time we’ve really only had each other. Which brings me to one of my major complaints about the time on this continent, and you’ll be surprised to hear it. I’m bored. We’re starting to pick up friends and things to do, but on weekends and at night, Bec and I often sit there and say, “Well, what do you want to do?”

Jerry Seinfeld says that at about 30, a person isn’t taking applications for new friends anymore. In a way that’s true, although not entirely. It’s just harder to find something in common. I’ve found that it’s been easier to find good people to spend time with in Yaoundé than in Kigali, which isn’t to say I don’t have friends there that I’m in regular contact with. But it’s still hard.

And we’ve gone a year without regular access to television. I don’t really miss it. But every once in a while, it’s nice to have it around when you don’t feel like reading, there’s not much to talk about and the idea of watching a movie on a tiny computer screen doesn’t feel good. We’ve got so much to buy for our apartment that the TV and cable come way down at the bottom of the list, where they should be.

I feel like I’ve missed so much at home since I’ve been in Africa – births, weddings, new jobs and life changes, the Rangers making the playoffs, Miami Vice. But at the same time I’ve gained a lot. As hard as it’s been at times – and I only barely got out of Kigali with my sanity intact – I’m really glad we’re here. And I can hear your snarky comments about my sanity from Yaoundé.

As much as I’ve missed at home, I’ve learned on this continent. I have several cool new stamps on my smaller new passport. I’ve learned how to edit, run and not run a newspaper. I’ve learned how to get around in developing countries without much guidance and little or no support. I’ve grown up.

I’m not really sure what I expected about Africa before I got here. I definitely didn’t expect parts of it to be as orderly as it is. I can remember being surprised at the sight of license plates on cars. In Rwanda those mean a lot more than in Cameroon – you can buy them on the street here. I also didn’t expect parts of it to be as disorderly as it is, because I had no frame of reference. Three months in Cambodia only helped prepare a little.

There are some things that I don’t think I will ever get used to on this continent – the position of women of women in many countries (very low), the attitude towards homosexuality and other differences (very much opposed) and the violence that lurks just below the surface. Rebecca and I have been lucky in that for the most part we haven’t been in situations where violence was going to break out. But it’s always there, and situations can devolve extremely quickly. Someone you know and like and is extremely gentle one minute might be outside taking “Jungle Justice” – that’s an indigenous Cameroonian term, not mine – with a machete the next.

Africa is a complicated continent. I hate to generalize like that, as well as write clichés. But it is. While there are running themes throughout the continent – poverty, corruption, dictatorship, ethnic problems, good music, hopeful people – each country has its own special blend, like the rest of the world. My friend Ryan begins sentences “Africans do this” or “Africa is this or that”. That’s just wrong. There are too many differences between regions, countries; even regions of countries, to talk like that. This is yet another thing that I’ve had to learn.

While Africa is rich, it is very poor. And if people keep trying to say Africa should be rich because of its natural resources, they’re just blind. It’s what a country does with those natural resources that makes it rich. The United States didn’t get rich simply because it had natural resources. Along with slavery – is there another continent that history and the world has left more scarred? – the U.S. made its money by producing things from those natural resources. That led to farmers needing to get their products to market. That led to transportation networks, which led to businesses springing up around those transport hubs. Eventually financial institutions developed to process profits from those natural resources – farm products, coal, oil, whatever. And then cities grew, etc. I know. That’s way too simplified, but there’s a lot of truth there.

I just don’t see that happening here. First of all, many of the governments won’t let it happen. At least at its inception, the U.S. was known for its dream – all it took was hard work. Hard work doesn’t get rewarded as much here. Governments don’t want to give up power by letting money flow through their economies. Many government officials – and this is especially true in Cameroon – are much more concerned with their time on the farm rather than the rewards the peasant farmer is getting. One friend here said that the Cameroonian government is scared of having too educated a population. They’re probably not alone.

So there are few small and medium enterprises to create jobs and innovation. Without that, there’s not much happening in an economy.

And while Africa gets the short end of international exports because of farm subsidies in the U.S. and Europe, which just need to stop, the continent doesn’t make it easy on itself. The cost of trade between countries in Africa is ridiculous, so there isn’t all that much. Between the bad roads, corrupt officials and high tariffs that are basically official corruption, trading among African countries is stifled.

Which then brings me to one final thought on all of this. I’ve come to think that many development organizations have stopped thinking about development and only think about their organizations. How much more food aid needs to be shipped here before policy makers realize that it’s not helping? Maybe they do already, but buying all that surplus grain sure does bring in the votes and coming to visit some poor African village sure does provide the great campaign photo op. And don’t forget the guilt factor.

I don’t mean to sound cynical. Actually, I’m not. I see that many people – both Africans and international development workers – are starting to come to this conclusion. Aid is needed in many cases, but it needs to be changed. Unless it’s an emergency, cut off food aid. And stop sending all those old clothes. Instead, development should focus on development – helping people to create businesses and to stand up for themselves to fight for decent, representative governments. In a perfect world, organizations like CRS, CARE, Save the Children and the myriad others should want to go out of business because their jobs are done. Sometimes I think they’ve forgotten that goal. They certainly didn’t develop South Korea, Thailand or Singapore.

This has been a long posting, but I guess that’s appropriate since I needed to wrap up what’s happened over the year. There’s only about two to go. And then it’s my turn. I’m trying to get Rebecca to understand the beauty of a Brooklyn brownstone (goddam yuppie!). Anyone care to help?