Chopsicles

I’ve ordered coffee in quite a lot of places and had various permutations of disapointment, anger and disgust in the process. However, I think today’s experience marks a particularly low point and gives me great compassion for the people of Africa. There is a waiter in this hotel called Raymond who is like my arch enemy in Africa. The other night when I purchased some drinks he overcharged me. Long story but I’ve learned that it pays to get the price up front. Anyway, today I thought I’d get a coffee and went to the bar. There were a couple of people standing around, including Raymond, so I tried to get the attention of one of the others but Raymond noticed me.

“Hello sir”

“Hi, can I just get a coffee thanks”

“A cappucino?”

At this point I recalled the horrible cappucino I’d had the day before with a mountain of foamy, flavourless froth with a sprinkling of cinnamon covering a tepid, bitter shot of coffee.

“No, a latte please”

“A cafe latte?”

“Yes”

I spotted a drip percolator sitting next to the espresso machine. It occurred to me that, in Nigeria, a cafe latte might just be a percolated coffee with milk so decided to clarify.

“Like a cappucino, but with less froth.”

“Yes sir”

“Made from the espresso machine. Just not as much froth as a cappucino”

“I know sir”

So I felt a bit dumb for being so directive. Of course he knows how to make a latte, even if he does seem to look at me with disdain. There was a paper on the bench so I started reading about various things happening in Nigeria and was only broken from my reading when, presented with this monstrosity, I realised that Raymond had struck again:

I call it the crappucino. And to top things off, I’m pretty sure he overcharged me. So much for Everybody Loves Raymond.

Arriving

We arrived in Nigeria on Saturday, flying in to Lagos which was formerly the capital city. Because of overcrowding and insuitability for expansion, a new capital city, Abuja, was built in 1976 and, by 1991, all of the major government offices were moved there. That must have been quite an undertaking! There are over 250 different ethnic groups in Nigeria and I believe that most have their own language so, in this regard at least, having a common language would seem to have assisted in allowing communication between the people groups. Some of the tribal divides seem to run fairly deep and I’ve heard many tales of governments grossly favouring their own tribes or civil wars and other conflicts based on tribal divides.
Nigeria is probably one of the scarier destinations on the itinerary, particularly in port Harcourt where there is a lot of activity in oil and gas exploration. Apparently a lot of white people have been kidnapped as it is supsected that they are oil workers and able to command a considerable ransom. So, if you get a a call from me asking for money, please consider. For this reason, we were briefed on the chaos likely to greet us at Lagos airport and then at the domestic airport for the connecting flight to Port Harcourt. However, it seems that the government has really cracked down on airport activities and after meeting our hosts, Martin and Joshua, things went very smoothly. They had arranged a flight on a smaller propellor plane to Port harcourt. We landed and were met by a large group bearing Australian flags and big nigerian smiles. The kindly provided a police escort to the hotel. The hotel in which we are being accomodated is disturbingly nice, I hate to think of the cost. The Africans we’ve met so far really don’t hold back on their hospitality and it can be a bit uncomfortable, but to refuse would often be a greater error. Best of all, we have constant internet access, though having a link to all that is familiar is kind of strange in an otherwise foreign environment. It makes me feel kind of soft really.
Sound Issues

The church that is hosting us is running a convention for local pastors and we visited their Sunday congregation. These guys are seriously cool and when they all start dancing I feel very white and stiff, but they really know how to have fun. I’ve uploaded a couple of videos.

Getting down

I’m not really into sax, but this guy can play:

Last night we pulled an all-nighter rewiring and reconfiguring the sound system at the church. They’ve got some incredible musos but the sound system really isn’t doing justice to what is coming off stage. The power situation is like one of those joke emails you get about workplace health and safety so the system will suddenly start buzzing for no apparent reason. Several times while we were working last night I’d see sparks flying from one section of the auditorium as the ‘error’ side of ‘trial and error’ came into play in their DIY electrician work. Scary. Before we started some of the guys launched into a jam and it was really pretty amazing, unfortunately I didn’t have the camera with me. There are two brothers, Paul and Abraham, who are just self-taught freaks. They don’t read music but play bass, drums and keys with amazing feel and creativity. Daryn, Trevor and a musician called Panam were also playing. I was very happy to witness it.

Mon morning- somewhere over the Indian ocean.
Well, it seems like in the last week or so I’ve said goodbye more times than John Farnham but I’m finally on the plane out of Australia. Currently flying at an unnaturally large number of feet above the ocean, scheduled to hit Johannesburg at about 4pm local time which is 8 hours behind Melbourne time. We then fly out around 1am (!!) to Kenya, from where we board a plane to head into the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) arriving about 9am local time. After that point, plans are pretty hazy, I don’t have much idea of what to expect there. Despite having a week off, last night involved a seemingly endless last minute pack (thanks Mum and Dad!).

Tuesday - Kinshasha, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)

Well, I made the mistake of not journalling for a few days because so much was going on and since I didn’t have internet access. When we arrived in DRC, our bags didn’t. Recently the DRC has had a number of aviation safety issues and, landing at the airport and seeing some of the planes used for internal flights, it didn’t seem that surprising. My Congolese history is fairly rough but, from what I could understand, the Belgian colonial government pulled out some time around the 1950s and, since that time, the country has struggled to find a stable and responsible leadership. The result is that the country resembles the images I have seen of Cuba (although with newer cars), and it seems that very, very little of the public funds have been put into maintenance or development of infrastructure.
On arrival, there was some confusion with our hosts about the time of arrival for our flight and so, for the first half hour, we had to try and negotiate customs unaided. We had a few problems with yellow fever certificates which disappeared with appropriate recompense. Whilst others were following up on the paperwork, I went through to make sure the baggage was safe. The baggage room was an exciting chaos. At one point one of the customs officers was dragged off by several police officers which didn’t calm me greatly. Anyways, after the baggage carousel stopped, I was still minus guitar and my main bag. They turned up 3 days later, all intact. Apparently Kenya Airways don’t do connecting flights particularly well.

The roads in Kinshasha are in a fair state of disrepair and, together with the overpopulation of the city, it makes for an interesting driving experience. At first I was pretty unsettled but after a while got used to the tailgating, swerving etc. Its like a country where everyone drives like me. After checking in to the hotel we met with the vice minister for foreign affairs and the head of immigration to thank them for their assistance in gaining entry to the country.

Wednesday

On Wednesday we visited a number of facilities that are supported or run by the church who had invited our group to DRC including a school, a children’s hospital and a public hospital. The school had just purchased about 20 second hand computers for about $9000 USD. At time of visit they were not fully set up and there was no immediate plan for internet access, as it would cost several thousand to install and an ongoing $350 USD a month. It seemed to me that, in a country where there is such great need for education and training for the rebuilding of infrastructure, it would still be such a worthwhile investment.

Thursday

On Thursday I was nauseous and vomiting in the morning but picked up enough to join the group in a visit to a prison. The church group regularly goes in and takes food to this particular prison and we had the opportunity to go in and meet a bunch of the prisoners. Our guide for the day, Brother Desiré, had been working for the previous government when the president was assassinated and was thrown into jail for 2 years before being released so he knew quite a lot of the inmates. The ward which I visited with Su seemed to be for the children and some of them were ridiculously young. Its a bit much to process really. In the afternoon we were asked to visit the minister for culture (I think that’s the translation) which entailed visiting the presidential grounds. Its a bit complex but ended up meeting various people there. The grounds are quite magnificent but it’s clear they would have been stunning before maintenance had decreased. The view of the massive Congo river is amazing, I’ve never seen such a wide and fast moving body of water.

Oops, its now ridiculously late and I have to be up at 4 to fly to Nigeria. There is much more I could write about DRC and the wonderful hosts we had there but better get a bit of sleep. Staying tonight in Nairobi, Kenya. I’ve uploaded a couple of photos to flickr

Well, sold the postie today in preparation for the trip, but not before grabbing this video, which I’d always wanted to do. I also managed to drop off the drum kit to Daniel who’s going to use it while I’m away. Thanks to all who have offered to put towards the project in Cape Town, I’m just trying to find out whether it can be done in a tax deductible manner. Also managed to upload a whole bunch of old photos that mum scanned in.

In other Africa news, I got my passport back with the Nigerian visa today and confirmed I’ve got a working webcam for calling home. I met with Ruth from the school in Kenya on Monday and it sounds like there is heaps to be done there with setting up computers and similar things. Apparently the weather is quite hot so I’m really looking forward to some good physical work and might be staying there for 3 weeks or so. Still haven’t had much luck nailing down details for Cape Town but, from speaking to some people who’ve been there recently, it sounds pretty exciting.

Well, its something fairly difficult to do, but we’ve been having trouble getting the gear together to donate to the project so I’m putting it out there in case anyone is able to help out. I’ll be trying to rustle up a bit myself but any assistance would be a big help and would, of course, go wholly to the project. Here’s an email summarising the situation - I’m the ‘friend’ Daryn refers to.
–

Subject: FW: An Opportunity…

Date: Thu, 04 Oct 2007 08:50:56 +100

Hi all…

As many of you know, I’m heading off to Africa in a couple of weeks (actually October 15th is when I leave), to work on a number of community projects in South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria and Congo.

One of the projects I’m involved with is called “Restoring the Sound”, based in the poverty-stricken suburbs of Capetown, South Africa. Started by local Capetown musician Trevor Sampson, it is a music-based program that provides musical training for kids, most of whom face an uncertain future due to poverty, lack of education and violence. The vision of this program is to be a vehicle for these students to develop their musical gifts and break the cycle of poverty over their lives.

I received an email from Trevor just today, and give this extract to give you an indication of the kind of impact he is having there:

“I will be taking two of Macassar’s worst drug addicts, both 21yrs old to a drug rehab 800km’s from here tomorrow morning. These were the guys i took the knives from a couple of weeks ago. When they are so drugged up they just get very violent and rob people and do the evil things. They came to me saying that they are tired of their lifestyle and want to change can I help. I managed to get sponsorship for them both about R70 000* worth for the 12 months.

The deal is if they come clean and finish the programme, another four can come and when they are done the number can be doubled. So they have a huge responsibility to prove themselves.”

(*R70 000 is about AUD$14,000)

There is no website for me to refer you to in relation to this project but here is someone who is partnering with RTS to help provide musical instruments.

http://www.opendoorsmusic.org/content/2/0/

A friend of mine is accompanying me with the intention of staying for a couple of months to set up a website for RTS, as well as compiling and editing video clips, to help promote this work and raise more support.
In addition, my friend will train some of the kids in video editing, again to provide a skill-base and therefore some hope for a better future.

So, aside from letting you know part of what I’m up to, I also seek your assistance. We’d like to donate a computer, preferably a Mac, to RTS to facilitate this video editing and website development. Your opportunity for involvement is this: do you or someone you know have an iMac or similar (obviously needs to be capable of video editing) that could be donated? Or would you be willing to contribute money to for the purchase of a new iMac (about $2000)?

I’m generally averse to asking for such things, however I am very keen support this project [hence I'm forking out the money to go there!] and hope that maybe you might be in a position to help out in some way, big or small. Of course, if you want more information about any of this, come and have a chat to me about it.

Regards,

Daryn

Well, nearly finished work now, with only 2 days to go. It’s been quite an interesting time, and my first government position. As expected there’s a fair bit of red tape around but I found it to be a pretty fun work environment. Because my contract was supposed to finish last Friday we had my going away lunch then. It was at the Water Rat Hotel and I was given some lovely presents and a great card, including an amusing poem about my ‘huge’ motorbike etc… On the planning front, things have been getting really hectic leading up to take-off, sorting out all those last minute things. I try so hard to be organised but it eludes me
The project team hard at work -

I’ve been going through the old videos that we’ve done at various times. Here are a couple of my favourites. I think I’m going to add a ‘videos’ page and put them up there, via youtube. I’ve also just added a photos page tonight. In other news, Geelong thumped Port in the Grand Final yesterday. I watched it with Mat, Stew, Johnny, Stacey and Sam down at Merricks. It was noice, different.

60 minutes

Crikey