Nick Wadhams

Your morning hanging

I've been up in Naivasha for the last few weeks working on a documentary with a director named Henry Singer. It's been lots of fun.

Except for Friday morning at 7:30. I was speeding along the South Lake Road on the back of a motorcycle taxi on the way to do a few interviews, and noticed a bunch of people standing around staring at something. "What's going on over there?" I shouted to James, my driver, as we whizzed past.

"Didn't you see the guy hanging from the tree?"

"Turn around."

Back we went, and James was right. There was a guy who had been hanged. According to James, who had stopped and done a little snooping on the way to pick me up, the guy was a matatu tout who had run afoul of someone else, so they hanged him. Fortunately I am no longer a wire service reporter, so I was not duty-bound to snap a picture or get to the bottom of it, and I left, feeling sickened by the whole thing.

Sad Days in Russia

Russia's crackdown on the free press (and assassination of its practitioners) under Vladimir Putin and his successor, Dimitry Medvedev, is well-known. Today, I learn of what, for me, is the death blow: The eXile, the brilliant, hilarious and often profane English-language tabloid, looks like it's done.

The eXile reached great heights around 2000, skewering pretty much everyone and starting Matt Taibbi's reporting career. It also did some great pranks.

Taibbi has gone on to write some brilliant stories for Rolling Stone, but my favorite of his is this one from his eXile days, when he went undercover to lay bricks in the tiny Russian town of Meleyuz.

It raises the question: Is my esteemed former employer, The Vladivostok News, next on the list?

Home again, home again

We have returned home at long last. As everyone else seems to say, the thing that struck me most about the United States, of course, was the wealth. The easiest way for me to quantify this was the road network. An insignificant exit on Interstate 95 on the East Coast involved the kinds of civil engineering, bridgework and columns that would be considered a major city project in Kenya.

Then, in the U.S. and Europe, looking out across the masses of people and knowing that the airport baggage handlers, the passport checkers, the construction workers, the pizza delivery men were all earning enough to make them middle class. When we returned to Nairobi, I watched a young guy diligently unloading bags at the airport, and guessed he was probably earning about $100 a month, if that. Sad.

So, back to work. Lots has happened since we left, but the story that got the most interest from anyone I spoke to was the killing of 11 alleged witches late last month. That merited a brief story in a lot of local papers. I never saw a scrap of reporting about Somalia or Sudan or Congo. That kind of remark is made so often about Africa that I almost feel embarrassed repeating it.

British Airways - Yay!

We are now in the U.S. for an extended holiday just having experienced two eight-hour legs on British Airways, to London and then to Washington.

As much as it galls me, I must say that the experience was wonderful. The flight attendant made sure that we got the one bassinet on the entire 747, and Kid slept the whole way from Nairobi to Heathrow. The inflight meal was positively tasty and the movie options were numerous. From Heathrow to Washington we again got the bassinet and plenty of room. When our stroller didn't make it, we got a $50 debit card from BA for our troubles.

So though I am still peeved at having had to pay more than $500 for a child that is still no larger than the Penguin Classics edition of "War and Peace," overall, the flight experience was great.

I must say that my mood may be swayed somewhat by the fact that I am writing this from the home of a friend who lives about 100 feet from Venice Beach in California. The weather is perfect, the surf is crashing, and it is so nice to be home for a little while. Thanks, British Airways, for getting us here.

One of many things I've noticed so far: the California freeways! I'd lived in Los Angeles during my college years, so I knew about them. But for the first many miles after I arrived, I was still in Nairobi-driving mode, driving with trepidation and looking out for potholes big enough to destroy your vehicle. Finally, I realized I could just floor it. Such a thrill.

HBD

Having a May 9 birthday gave me lots of cache when I lived in Russia because May 9 is Victory Day, the day the Soviet Union officially won World War II. Given the significance that Russians (rightly) give their WWII victory, being born on May 9 (the 30th anniversary, no less!) was like having a birthday on Christmas, the Fourth of July, Labor Day, Easter, Memorial Day and Thanksgiving all rolled into one. It was about as blessed as you could get in a once officially atheist nation.

From a brief Wikipedia perusal, I learn that I share a birthday with John Ashcroft, Rosario Dawson, Tony Gwynn and many other semi-famous people. I also learn that those unfortunate enough to die on May 9 include Tenzing Norgay and Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov. I interviewed Kadyrov at the Waldorf in New York a few weeks before he was killed in a bomb blast. The explosives blew up the stadium seating in Grozny where he was watching a Victory Day parade. I'm unsure of the significance of this, but even though Kadyrov struck me as a bit of a thug, it's still kind of sad.

Hey Mr. Rhino

One of the surprising things about 10-week-old babies is that they're highly portable, as we found out when we went to Lake Nakuru last weekend. Nakuru itself is neat but slightly depressing. The park is fenced off and bordered by a major city and a highway, so it feels more like an oversized zoo than untrammeled wilderness. I suppose that's Kenya these days (though the Mara, the Tsavos and the northern two-thirds of the country are different).

At first I was worried that we wouldn't see any rhinos, but by the end it was like, whoopdee-doo, there's another one, keep driving. We saw lots of pelicans but the flamingoes had departed for greener-algaed waters. I tried in the most minimally invasive way possible (whistles, cat-calls, insults) to get a buffalo to charge our vehicle, but no luck.

The best part by far was subjecting our daughter to only the mildest form of torture as we took her picture with as many beasts as possible. Here's the best one, taken along the southern shore of Lake Nakuru shortly before 7 p.m. The bars are the roof rack of our trusty 1989 Mitsubishi Pajero.

More pictures after the jump.

Why The West Wing? (UPDATED)

A quick follow-up to the last post (and subsequent comment): Why do British people love The West Wing so much?

The thing I forgot to mention previously is that pretty much every person who has said The West Wing is his favorite show is a Brit. Few Americans feel such ardor for Martin Sheen and Rob Lowe. I personally choked on all the saccharine, rah-rah, "THIS is the America we want" baloney, so I would have thought that two of the Nairobi press corps' most wisecracking and Amero-skeptical Brits would surely have despised it.

Yet it is these very gents who love it so! Are they so disappointed with the U.S. in real life that they can't help but be hypnotized by such an absurd fantasy? Fish and chips for thought, I guess.

UPDATE: It turns out I'm not the only one to notice this. See this from The Washington Post in 2006.

TV Watching

Every expat around here seems to have his favorite television series. Some might say The Shield; others prefer Lost. At least several chums suggest The West Wing, which I, in my limited viewing experience, have had trouble abiding because it's just too reasonable, too earnest, too well-scripted for its own good. Seven seasons of so many bon-mots, so many sorrowful looks and such poignancy would be insufferable.

Along with the rest of humanity, I've been entranced by The Wire. We're through season four, with season five awaiting us at the local (pirated) DVD store. Season four had the best individual plot line in the tale of four schoolkids, but overall could not compare with the epic Barksdale family story arc from the first three seasons.

Before delving into season five, we've decided for a little, um, lighter fare: season four of 24. So far, it's the best season yet. No cougar traps, no brothers named Hector and Ramon with horrible accents, fewer plot lines that bubble up and pop in the course of one or two episodes, their only purpose, seemingly, to stall for time.

Customer Care Insanity -- the wrapup

After nearly six weeks, our Internet service has been restored. In the end, our provider, Swift Global, switched its ur-provider from Kenya Data Networks to Access Kenya, a process which took about five minutes.

The reason things got fixed so suddenly is pretty simple. We share internet with Mario, an insane older Italian guy who lives upstairs. He'd been away for most of the first month of our Internet blackout, and when he returned, he called Swift Global and blew his stack. When they failed to correct the problem, he blew his stack about 50 more times.Then they corrected the problem, probably just to keep him from blowing his stack again.

I have long resisted using the shouting tactic because it strikes me as brutish and disrespectful. But my approach -- lots of cajolery, efforts to make Swift Global feel guilty, trying to build friendships and foster sympathy -- just relegated me to the low-priority list.

"They always end in doom when such concerns are ignored"

Sometimes the newspapers here are just great -- for example, this story in the Daily Nation today about Kenya's new water and irrigation minister, Charity Ngilu.

"Tears accompanied her sacking from  the Ministry of Health in December 2007, but instead of being overwhelmed by the emotions shown by her staff, she made a more prophetic statement and took the dismissal in her stride.

The staff wept but she uttered the words “I will be back” as tears rolled down the cheeks of her close allies after being relieved of her duties  by President Kibaki.

Mrs Charity Kaluki Ngilu kept the faith of not fearing authority that only threatened her body but could not kill her spirit, by uttering the  words known to have tied  Christians to be apostles of Jesus Christ. It was clear to her the side she supported would win.

Jesus also said; “I will be back” and this act of faith keeps Christianity burning the flame of resurrection from the dead and life after death for those who have kept the word."

Power of women

The powerful words she uttered with a smile and drove her vehicle out of Afya House today confirm her faith. Looked at differently, the words reinforce the belief in the power of women, who use words and action to mobilise success.

Although the Presidential results were disputed, Mrs Ngilu is now the minister for Water and Irrigation, thanks to Mr Kofi Annan, who brokered the National Accord and Reconciliation Act, which midwifed the power sharing deal between ODM and PNU.

In  some communities, it is believed  that a woman’s warning always comes true.

It is conventional wisdom among many Africans that when one’s wife warns her man against travelling or getting into a deal, they always end in doom when such concerns are ignored.

All hail the flag

Odd moment: I'm walking out of the Kibera slum a few days ago in the middle of a crowd of several hundred people. Suddenly, a whistle blows faintly and everyone for about 100 yards in every direction comes to a halt and stops talking.

I look around in puzzlement and notice, in the courtyard of a police station to my right, a tattered Kenyan flag being lowered from a flagpole that's only about 10 feet high. Once it's down, a policeman blows a whistle and everyone starts up again.

What a strange and affecting moment of ceremony. Ironic, too, since this patriotism is on display in Kibera, where anti-government sentiment runs high. I ask someone next to me what would happen if people kept walking during the flag-lowering. "You'd be arrested for failing to show sufficient respect for the national flag," he says. So much for patriotism.

In some Nairobi movie theaters, they play the national anthem (accompanied by footage of a Kenyan flag waving in the wind) before every showing. Presumably no one is watching to report you if you don't stop slurping your Coke, stand up and take off your hat. No different, I suppose, than the U.S. national anthem being played before sporting events back home, but strange that patriotism goes on display in a darkened movie theater.

Paying for Protests

Some of the most widely disseminated images of protesters from Kenya's post-election crisis were filmed along a road that runs down a hill and into Nairobi's Kibera slum. It was a convenient spot for lots of us reporters to go and get our daily dose of demonstrations. Some stoned-looking kid was sure to bring out a car tire and set it alight. Angry chants would begin. The police would then oblige us by firing tear gas (and sometimes, it was claimed, live bullets) and then charge the crowds with made-for-TV whoops.

After a while, the demonstrations began to feel a little bit canned, and some of us felt sheepish about watching. Sometimes it seemed that the protests would only reach a fevered pitch once a critical mass of television crews and photographers had arrived.

Yesterday, I came across a guy in Kibera named Yusuf who claimed that while some of the earliest protests in Kibera were spontaneous, it was little mor e than show from the very start. According to Yusuf, agents of both parties told people in Kibera to gather groups willing to protest for money. The names would be written down. On days when the party agents wanted protesters out on the streets, they would call the group leaders and pay them 300 shillings per demonstrator if everyone appeared at the appointed place and time. Yusuf said that he himself saw agents from opposition leader Raila Odinga's party drawing up these lists and paying out the cash.

Customer Care Insanity

I have been wrestling with our internet service provider because we have not actually been receiving any internet service for a month. The problem seems to be that someone is illegally interfering with the microwave radio signal that is beamed to a receiver on the roof of our apartment building.

Customer care can be a notoriously tricky thing in a place where there is no real competition for the particular service on offer. So it is with the Internet. We had a great deal _ unlimited and reasonably fast internet at $80 a month. The other options were extremely limited. Unfortunately, our service provider, Swift Global, knows this fact.

I had been operating under the principle that if I made myself as annoying as possible, Swift Global's representatives would work to resolve the problem with our Internet simply so they could stop having to take my calls. So far it hasn't worked.

Advertising Madness

Some dubious advertising on television here have made me wonder if lax consumer law is allowing foreign companies to make claims that they would never get away with making somewhere else. Of course there's the usual insinuation that you're a lousy person (usually mother) if you don't buy a particular product, but a few claims seem so absurd that less stringent regulation has to be a factor.

Take, for example, Colgate toothpaste. It claims to have "liquid calcium" that gets to those hard-to-reach areas between teeth. Liquid calcium? What the hell is liquid calcium?

Dettol soap claims to form a protective barrier around its loyal users, who would be more exposed to bacteria with other soaps. And then there's the laundry detergent that purports to reach those notorious 10 stain-prone areas of a shirt better than other detergents (the stain-prone areas include the front of the shirt and the collar). 

The most egregious that I've seen is for Pampers diapers. Pampers claims that its diapers hold wetness for an impressive 12 hours. According to Pampers, this incredible absorbency allows your baby to sleep longer at night, which in turn makes him fresh in the morning and more ready to learn, which in turn makes him smarter. So, the claim _ baldly stated, not insinuated _ is that Pampers make your baby smarter.

I wonder what scientific evidence Pampers has to back up that claim. To say nothing of the fact that no baby is going to sleep for 12 hours anyway because a) few humans sleep for 12 hours at a stretch; b) it will get hungry; and c) its diaper will fill up with crap as well as "wetness" (absorbency is irrelevant when it comes to crap).

British Airways Blues II

I have to say that I'm getting some satisfaction from British Airways' problems with their new terminal, mostly because it looks like we're going to have to eat it and buy a $600 ticket ($85 plus $515 tax) for the kid to experience the privilege of sitting in our laps for two eight-hour BA flights.

This raises an interesting conundrum. I find myself pleased with British Airways' troubles, yet, as it turns out, we will be passing through London _ and possibly the very terminal in question _  in May and June. Does my desire to see BA's suffering last run so deep that I am prepared to suffer as well?

A Deal

Our internet connection appears to be back after about 10 days. The reason for this is alternately that the radio receiver on our roof is loose or the giant radio antenna on top of the Nairobi post office is loose. But it's working now.

And just in time. Finally, Kenya's leaders appear to have ended the country's political crisis for good, for now anyway. Here's how they did it: First, divide Cabinet posts among your allies, even if they have no experience overseeing whatever it is they will be overseeing. Charity Ngilu, the much respected former health minister, now runs water and irrigation. William Ruto, accused of stirring up electoral violence, heads agriculture. Former Internal Security Minister John Michuki is now in charge of the environment.

Then, when there aren't enough Cabinet posts for your allies, create more Cabinet posts. Kenya now has ministries for Northern Kenya and Other Arid Lands, Industrialization, Planning and Vision 2030 (???) and Nairobi Metropolitan Development (even though Nairobi already has a local government).

This is so brazenly cynical that it's almost possible to forget that it's cynical. No one is talking about good governance, or about appointing a minister with experience. Instead, many of the people who have become powerful in the past by occupying powerful ministries are installed in different powerful ministries. It doesn't matter that President Kibaki fired many of them in 2005 because they couldn't get along. No wonder many people didn't seem to care who got named to the Cabinet. There seemed to be no difference in the last three and a half months, when Kenya didn't have a government.

Kid discrimination

It goes without saying that there's a gender divide in Kenya _ today's newspaper, for example, featured an article which discussed whether men or women make better investors. This afternoon, I stood on the very edge of that divide myself.

Here's how it happened: Z is working at home. I take Kid (five weeks old, currently) to the inexplicably named Ya-Ya Center shopping mall to get some stuff. I enter the elevator with Kid snoozing in her stroller and exchange nods with the three other passengers. We descend two floors.

We arrive at our destination and the doors open. I begin to back out of the elevator with stroller in tow. And then, confrontation! A sharply dressed man with whom we have just shared the descent sticks his shiny-loafered foot under the wheel of the stroller, halting Kid and me in our collective tracks. He shimmies past and out of the elevator, turns around, looks me in the eye and says, "Pardon, madame... ummm... monsieur."

Ouch! It should be noted that I am currently sporting a (rather scraggly) beard. I consider delivering a swift punch to his chin but he's about six inches taller than me and I don't want to set a bad example for Kid. Also, I've never delivered a swift punch to anyone's chin anyhow.

The Swelling Cabinet

Kenya may have faded from the Great World Consciousness in recent weeks but the crisis isn't over. The latest issue is the squabbling between the government and the opposition over the size of the future Cabinet.

It strikes me as a terribly depressing thing that the government's solution is just to increase the Cabinet from its current size of 17 to 44. The opposition is only slightly less profligate _ it advocates a Cabinet of 34 ministers. Not very creative on either side.

Of course, this only adds to the impression that Kenya's politicians are less interested in joining hands in the creation of a viable government than they are in getting their share.

Incidentally, it seems important to mention here that Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai was tear-gassed yesterday as she attended a rally in downtown Nairobi to demand that the Cabinet be expanded to no more than 24 ministers. I stand (slightly) humbled.

Truly Amazing

The World Health Organization has done it again.

A couple of days ago, the WHO sent out a news release announcing that polio had been eradicated in Somalia. Many news organizations wrote stories reporting this fact, giving enormous amounts of free publicity to the WHO. One of them happened to be The Associated Press.*

Unfortunately for AP, the global news wire violated an embargo that barred news organizations from reporting the story until 09:30 GMT on March 25. In an broadside sent to everyone on his media distribution list, WHO News Team Leader Dick Thompson brings down the hammer in classic schoolmarm fashion: Though an AP "investigation" later found the embargo violation to be an accident, "accidents have consequences, both to reporters preparing their own stories and to the embargo system which we value."

Then, AP reaps the whirlwind. News Team Leader Dick Thompson again: "The sanction for AP is the same as it has been for others _ a two week suspension from the distribution list."

Smackdown! AP gives the WHO free publicity and mistakenly releases the story early, thereby giving the WHO a little more free publicity, and the WHO goes all Security Council on its ass. Take that, AP, you... you... you giant news organization that just gave us lots of free publicity! See if we let you give us lots of free publicity ever again!

This isn't the first time. Less than a year ago, the WHO did the same thing to the New York Times. Who does the WHO think it is?

The real question here, aside from the idiocy of embargoes, is whether polio has truly been eradicated in Somalia. After all, polio was eradicated in Somalia once before, in 2002, but came back. And, as the AP story notes, there's not really a whole lot of reliable data in Somalia, so no one really knows if polio has been eradicated (again). Which, of course, just makes News Team Leader Dick Thompson look even more silly. With data like that, you might think he'd take his free publicity and run.

*Disclosure: I was an Associated Press reporter for eight years. Two of those years were spent covering the United Nations and its various agencies full-time (and often giving them free publicity). Stuff like this sometimes made me want to feed 440 squirrels through an industrial-sized woodchipper.

Gorillas and the Myth

Like every other hack working in the gorilla-obsessed Africa journalism biz, I got in on the action after Congolese authorities arrested a senior national parks official on allegations that he may have been involved in a spate of gorilla killings last year.

Conservationists are saying this means that Congo is finally getting tough on the traders who are destroying Congo's forests to make charcoal. Upon reflection, I'm not so sure. Congo is so corrupt that any good deed ought to be viewed with skepticism. Another possibility is that he screwed with someone higher up the food chain.