Vendredi at Volume 5

Because of travel and other work related headaches I didn't get a chance to post last week's installment of Vendredi at Volume 5. I'm terribly sorry to have deprived you of the pleasure. I'll try to get back to regular posting sometime soon, but in the meantime here's this week's clip. This video is of higher quality than I'd usually like to post. It looks like they may have hired an actual film crew with adequate equipment rather than just placed a video camera on a tripod, which is my preferred method of shooting a video in the third world. Anyway, this song is huge right now. You hear it several times per night in the dance clubs here. Other than the fact that it's Ivoirian I don't know much about the song or the singer.

Hope everybody had a happy thanksgiving!

Traveling Again

You may have noticed that I've been posting here a lot more frequently lately. Partly that's been because I've made a conscious effort to spend more time on the blog, partly it's because I've been able to post from home because a friend went on a trip and lent me his wireless modem. The lack of internet at home isn't really an excuse, though, since I always have the option of writing something at home and then posting it from work the next day. So we'll chalk it up to effort.

I'm traveling again to Maradi tomorrow and I'll be there all week. I expect to be pretty busy so I doubt I'll be doing much blogging, but I'll try to resume my current rate of posting when I get back next week.

Also, I wanted to give a belated congratulatory shout-out to my little sister who ran and finished the New York Marathon last weekend. Proud of ya, kid!

A Tale of Two Bridges

The city of Niamey sprawls over the Niger river but only has one bridge, the Kennedy Bridge, built by Americans and completed in 1970. Sometimes it's best to keep your eyes closed when crossing it, as it's only one narrow lane in each direction and vehicles are always swerving back and forth between the lanes to negotiate the obstacle course of pedestrians, bikes, motorcycles, carts, cattle, goats, and camels. When accidents happen, which they do fairly regularly, you usually have to cancel any plans you may have made to do something on the other side of the river since traffic comes to a standstill on one the city's busiest arteries and it always takes hours to clean things up.

This week they officially broke ground on a second bridge, which will have two lanes in each direction and will divert most of the traffic that is just passing through Niamey en route to (or from) Burkina Faso, which currently has to go through the center of town. It's hard to imagine that the new bridge won't be hugely beneficial in terms of improving the flow and safety of local traffic.

One interesting detail is that a Chinese company is responsible for constructing the new bridge. If you follow African news, you know that an important subplot to contemporary African development is the role of the Chinese. Chinese firms are doing good business all over Africa these days, and there's a lot of angst among Western leaders (and especially the former colonial powers) about the growing Chinese influence in the region. In addition to this bridge, I've heard that the Chinese have become big players in Niger's uranium industry as well. I suppose if you're somebody who's concerned that the rise of China poses a threat to American influence in the world you'd have trouble finding a more potent symbol than the big, shiny new (yet unnamed) Chinese bridge diverting traffic from the decrepit inadequate old Kennedy Bridge.

Vendredi at Volume 5

Sometimes it's hard not to get carried away with posting videos on your blog. I feel like I've exercised a lot of restraint up to this point, but no more! Today I'm officially announcing a new Angler's Rest feature, Vendredi at Volume 5. Volume 5 was the name of a watering hole in Madagascar where clients were treated to an inexhaustible supply of the local (and some international) music videos. From now on, Friday will be my designated day for posting the songs and videos I'm just dying to share.

The inaugural installment features a good friend from Madagascar, Lien Bouessa. A single blog post couldn't do justice to what a great guy this is. Really talented, smart, thoughtful, and always the life of the party. This video is full of people and places I knew well.

LIEN BOUESSA tsy tiambady
Uploaded by cynthia_974

It's Tough Out There

I think a lot of people I know will find something to identify with in this article. Here's a taste:

Armed with a Georgetown University diploma, Beth Hanley embarked in her 20s on a path hoping to become a professional world-saver. First she worked at nonprofit Bread for the World. Then she taught middle school English in central Africa with the Peace Corps. Finally, to certify her idealism, she graduated last spring with a master's degree in international relations from Johns Hopkins University.

But now the 29-year-old faces a predicament shared by many young strivers in Washington's public interest field. After years of amassing so many achievements, they struggle to find full-time employment with decent pay and realize they might not get exactly what they set out for. Hanley, a think tank temp who dreams of aiding the impoverished and reducing gender discrimination in developing countries, is stuck.

Keepin' it Real

I usually don't have a lot of patience for people who get rabid about how the "original" or "authentic" version of some song/book/movie/TV show is so superior to the popular version of the same. But every time I listen to this song I wonder what's wrong with the world. How can the vapid American knock-off be the version everybody knows and recognizes? It's not just that this version is so obviously better. It's actually offensive that somebody would think so little of an audience as to assume that turning this song into an radio-friendly jingle constitutes some kind of improvement.

P.S. Isn't YouTube amazing?

Babies for Sale

Strange stories like this one about nefarious plots by Europeans and Americans to adopt African children seem to surface from time to time even when Madonna's not involved. It's hard to know what to make of them. Obviously--and for good reason--everybody seems to be concerned about the possibility that this "charity" is actually involved in supplying vulnerable children to pedophiles or others involved in the trafficking of sex-slaves. But honestly I'm not sure which possibility is worse, that a shady ring of bandits got caught in a modern day slave raid, or that a bunch of well intentioned people hoping to rescue orphans from the Darfur genocide inadvertently kidnapped 91 children from their parents.

One detail I liked about this article is that it's not too often you see the president of a country on television engaging in this kind of exchange:

One of the Spanish pilots, still in his gold-brocaded uniform, can be seen in television footage telling the president of Chad, Idriss Deby, that he and his crew are innocent. "We are Spaniards!" he says.

But the president responds: "You are part of a pedophile ring!"

I'm no great admirer of George Bush, but I'd love to see him on TV chastising, say, Rudy Giuliani, who actually does keep a known child molester on his campaign staff.

Live in Concert

As a follow-up to the last post, I'm posting some video of Lucky Dube in concert. Last I read they had caught four people suspected of being involved in the murder.