Nairobi Airport Hotel

My client, an Italian company, is very thoughtful. I told them that my travel involves an overnight stay in Nairobi and that hotel vouchers were missing from my ticket reservation. They took care and sent me vouchers for Nairobi Airport Hotel. Sounds very reassuring but there weren't any taxi drivers that knew were the heck it is. I got to them because the car sent by the travel company hired by my client didn't show up, of course.

I get a car and a driver “recommended” by an airport guy that says he will take me to the hotel but in five minutes of questioning I realize he knows shit and I seriously consider the possibility that I am being kidnapped. I wasn't, he was just looking for a fare...After ten tries and 20 minutes of driving around the airport the hotel reception picks up and gives my driver directions.

We enter into a slum area and I reconsider my position whether I am being kidnapped or not.  I wasn’t, it was just the neighborhood of my “hotel” who proved to be in a closed compound of grey brick buildings looking much like barracks, you know, with those small square windows?

After bumbling through the compound we get thoroughly lost and we just sit tight until a hotel employee (actually THE hotel employee) turns up. We were about ten meters away from the hotel reception entrance that actually had a sign that said “Airport Apartment Hotel” in font Arial 38 points.

After I saw the dirty floor in the small room that was the “reception” I considered leaving and going to another hotel in town but it was really late by now and I decided to rough it. I saw worse in my time as a field geologist. The shepherd huts in the Carpathians didn’t offer toilet paper or hot water or towels either!  True, in those days I carried my toilet paper with me …well, a bed sheet can be used as a towel, too if you don’t have a problem about skin diseases. And a cold shower never hurt anyone.  Of course, the “hotel”is not actually a hotel. Three smal apartments in the building are being rented out…

The positive was that the boiled spaghetti with tomato sauce that was on offer as diner was soft and waterish and warmish -)) but the Internet was working!! That was really good; I could make fun with my daughter about our day’s experience. She had visited a primate sanctuary near Yaounde. After she told me how the gorillas were cared for and fed I started having second thoughts about evolution.

The entertainment on offer was a selection of Nigerian movies (the ones that have a production cost of USD 200/movie) but anyway, I was tired after the long day and I slept well under the mosquito net and had my revenge on the pesky bastards that were buzzing frustrated about ten cm from my head.

Morning check out was great, with dinner at just 10 dollars so I recommend the Nairobi Airport Hotel to really bankrupt backpackers. Still, I am not one…

P.S. To be fair, when I told my client about the experience he was quite upset and he will make sure the hotel is changed for the return trip!! (another Airport Hotel?;-))

Despre terorism, trecut si viitor - O lume complicata!

Trăiesc în Camerun. Și sunt furios pe ultimele atacuri ale  ISIS. Eram la Beirut, luam masa cu colegii mei cînd am primit mesaje de avertizare să nu ne deplasăm, să stam cuminți din cauza atentatelor. Vedeam la televizor oroarea bombelor care au ucis civili inocenți a căror vină era că locuiau într-un cartier de musulmani shia. A doua zi Paris, un oraș pe care îl iubesc și unde am petrecut o săptămînă anul asta, am reconectat…Intr-un fel chestiile astea au facut ca evenimentele astea să le iau aproape personal.

Oricât sunt de supărat, încerc să înțeleg motivarea acestor monștrii și ce sustinere au ei. Sunt un grup limitat de nebuni solitari? Sunt materializarea unui clivaj social, a unei uri si furii contra altor religii, altor moduri de viață? Infruntăm o schismă sau doar o aberatie trecătoare? Care ne este viitorul? Am nevoie de răspunsuri dar articolele mai mult sau mai putin melodramatice din ziare și bloguri nu mă satisfac .

Si încep sa întreb lumea de pe aici. Oameni de pe strada . Sa vad ce cred camerunezii.

Prima chestie este ca se bucură de ce s-a’ntîmplat la Paris . Să vadă și ei cum e! Voi francezii ne-ați omorât pe capete, ne-ați exploatat, acum sunteți iar aroganți  și ne controlați economia și politica! Ați primit ce meritați!

Imi spun că Franța ajuta guvernanți corupți să se mențină la putere, care servesc Camerunul la platou unei Franțe care este lacomă și arogantă în timp ce oamenii sunt din ce în ce mai săraci. Mai arata către companiile monopoliste franceze care oferă servicii de proastă calitate, arată cum managerii  regiilor de stat, toate în pierdere, care exportă resursele naturale și produsele agricole sunt toate aproape conduse de manageri francezi…și oamenii sunt frustrați. Bombele astea le-au mai compensat din frustrări.

Sunt destul de șocat să văd atâta ură și îi întreb cum pot să fie așa și pe de altă parte toți și-ar da și-o mână doar să ajungă în Franța ca refugiat. Ei bine, ei nu văd nici o contradicție în asta. Vor să fie acolo ca să trăiască mai bine, dar asta nu înseamnă că trebuie să iubească locul. E Ok să sugem totul până-l secăm…ne datorează.

Dar cum se poate reconcilia această atitudine cu ce se întâmplă aici cu Bokoharam, care ucide atâta lume  în Nordul țării. Ar trebui să fie împotriva Bokoharam și a tuturor extremiștilor islamici! Ei bine, răspunsul este și mai surprinzător. 

In opinia lor Bokoharam este despre politica internă a Camerunului.  Tristul adevăr este că în Sud, unde sunt marile orașe și conducerea țării  oamenilor nu le pasă de “gunoaiele din Nord” (expresia este mai grosolana).  Ei nu au auzit de califatul global și ce înseamnă Sharia în versiune Wahabi  și această lipsă de informare îi face să coboare situația la nivelul lor de referință și de înțelegere.  Imi arată că odată ce a fost schimbat șeful Armatei nu au mai fost atacuri mari ale Bokoharam și ei interpretează asta ca rezultatul unei negocieri cu teroriștii, nu o îmbunătățire a sistemelor de apărare.

Și încep să înțeleg că avem o problemă mult mai adîncă. Sunt sigur că  țara Camerun nu este un caz singular. Toata Africa centrală și de vest francofonă  este în aceiași situație. La mai bine de 50 de ani de la independență acestor țări, zalele lanțurilor dintre colonii și metropolă continuă să zăngăne, controlând în mare parte politicul și economia. Mai înțeleg că există multă ură. Care este alimentată și de lăcomia corporatistă, și de considerentele geopolitice și în mare masură de sfînta corupție și incompetență voită care sunt acceptate cu calm de comunitatea internațională.

Lipsa de viziune,  de educație și informație crează literalmente monștrii iar drumul care ni se așterne în față va fi lung și greu.

On terrorism , the past and the future - A complicated world out there !

I live in Cameroon. I am also very angry about the last bombing atacks by Isis. I was in Beirut  out to dinner with friends  when we received sms alerts to stay put because of the bombings. We saw the horror of it on the local news. Next day, Paris, a city I love and where we had spent a week this year and I reconnected with the place…Somehow these things made the last events very personal to me.

Angry as I am I try to understand what can motivate these people and what is their support. Are they just a limited group, lonely crazy extremists? Are they a materialization of a social cleavage, of a deep and wide hate and anger at  other religions, other ways of life? Are we facing a deep social division or is it just a temporary aberation? Where are we headed? I need to find answers and just reading the comments of  melodramatic journalists about it just doesn’t answer my needs.

And I start asking people. Ordinary people here on the street. What do ordinary cameroonians believe?

For one thing they are glad about happened in Paris. Their attitude is: “ Well, now you see how it feels! You French killed lots of us, you exploited us, now you are still arrogant and control our economy and politics ! You got what you deserve! “. They point out that France is helping to  keep in power the corrupt leaders that serve Cameroon on a plate to a France that is greedy and arrogant while the people keep getting poorer.  They point out to monopolistic  French companies that provide expensive and low quality services, they point out that the managers of public corporations, nearly all operating at a loss, exporting the goods to France,  are all French  nationals….and they are frustrated. Well, this bombings helped a bit to compensate their frustration.

I am naturally shocked and I ask how can this be when at the same time they all want to go and emigrate in France. Well, they see no contradiction about this. They want to be over there to live better, but that doesn’t mean they need to love the place. It’s fine to suck the place dry…they owe us!!

But how can this attitude be reconciled with what goes on here in Cameroon, with Boko haram killing all this people in the North of the country. They should be against Boko haram and all islamic extremists!   Well, the answer is even more amazing.  In their view Bokoharam is about Cameroon’s internal politics. The bitter truth is that in the South, where are  the large cities and the country’s leaders,  people don’t care about the “ trash in the North” . They don’t know what Boko haram actually wants to achieve. They never heard of the global califate and what Sharia means and in the abscence of that information they bring the situation down to their level of debate, that this insurgency must be an instrument of political pressure. They point out that once the chief of the Army was changed there were no more Bokoharam attacks and they interpret this as a new understanding and negotiation between the terrorists and the new army chief, not about better defense systems.

And I start to understand that we have a far deeper problem then I (we?) believe we have.  I am sure that Cameroon is not a singular case. All of francophone Central and West Africa is in much the same situation. More than 50 years after the independence of these countries, the links of the chains between the colonies and the metropole are still there, controlling to a large degree their economy and politics. I understand that there is a lot of hate. Some of it is fuelled by corporate greed, some by geopolitical considerations and some by plain bad governance and corruption that is calmly accepted by the international community.  That the lack of education and information is indeed creating monsters in the most literal way and that the road ahead of us is a very long