…Remember the good old days when things would just kind of work? when the violins would play, when the bureaucracy would get crushed under its own weight, when people would just nod and bow and nod and kneel?

I remember the good old days when I was a dictator. Some Frenchiphied country in the middle of the African continent, sometime in the seventies or eighties, sometime when the cars were still big and sucked down so much fuel that you damn well needed a six-figure income from your Swiss bank accounts to keep the Concorde prepped with fuel and flight attendants. Those were the days, heady for sure, back when the whole notion of “democracy” was something fancified that the Yankees would push upon the warm parts of the world once in awhile, but then quickly forget about their promises once the newest tour of Journey and Yes began filling their stadiums again.

Yes, you may think I’m full of shit, and that’s fine – every dictator needs to be full of shit to one extent or the other. The fact is that no one really knows, as a dictator, who you are or what you do – or where you came from . You think they want some kind of qualified well-spoken individual to lead them? Hell no – you’re the sacrificial goat, the iconic Jésus to their crucifix of a broken economy. This stuff doesn’t just happen because of your own volition – it happens because there’s that need from a society, that cruel need to push their urges onto someone other-worldly and expect them to solve it all.

Excuse me, let me mix together another gin and tonic. Yes, I sit here in the annals of my abandoned beach house in the Phillipines waxing poetic about those days in the African armpit, but they taught me a great lesson about expectations and the need to “go with the flow” per se – when the revolution’s happenin’, don’t chicken out. Let the wired young folk shoot themselves silly, and if you’re the last man standing, you’re likely to get the majority of the pie.

So it all rolls down like this. You side with the rebels, against some idiot who thinks he has the authority to run this country because of some stupid ritual called an “election’ – and in the jungle, drunk on stale beer and hocked-up Ouzo smuggled in from across the Mediterranean, you laugh in his general direction. The nerve! You know you can do better, people’s will be damned, once you’re in the driver’s seat this backwater of a country can get where it’s supposed to go.

So, you do the frontal assault. The rear assault. It all rolls down together, a big attack on the capital into the president’s palace, into the Presidential office and you end up pulling the trigger on the poor fool and leaving him gasping in a pool of blood on his own finely tiled floors. Hey, I never said this was easy or romantic – I just said you could do it.

Then there will be countless other young men (or women) of your age angling for the Presidency. You would do well to have already killed most of the most eager before you arrived at this crossroads, watching the former ” democratic president” breathe his last breath at your smelly sandals crafted from cast-off tires. You should have waxed a few of the smarter boys, and kept a few of the stupider ones as good cohorts with a solid strategy for when this moment actually arrived.

Then, upon the chaos of entering the capital and storming the Presidential Palace you can finally get those boys at your side and declare yourself “interim” president – which, in the grand scheme of things, usually means permanent. Hey, it’s usually that easy, but if it isn’t, remember the golden rule: surround yourself with stupid people.

Yes – that’s probably counter-intuitive if you’ve read too many management strategy books – but Hell if you’re going to run a country the way you want it run you gotta make sure the people who surround you aren’t smart enough to take you down. Lenin did it , Stalin did it, Clinton did it – those damned “intellectuals” get in the way of anything gainful from an average opportunist such as yourself. Off the useless smart people in universities, but keep the doctors – with the clear understanding that their intellectual pursuits should not delve into the realms of localized insurgency – and keep on keepin’ on getting this new nation of yours dragged up into the new echelons of public acceptance.

You, then, you smashing rebel leader you, should prepare yourself for the new role as Glorious Leader of the Great Nation of Whatever For Life, and the first thing to do is get a damned new wardrobe. Get shit that the other boys can’t – fine military uniforms tailored in Paris and Geneva, fine female bodyguards, strange automobiles from the collections of Saudi princes. Hell, this is your moment to shine and all that gold bullion in the former Democratic People’s Popular Bank of Fairness isn’t going to get spread around to your unelected cronies by itself, now is it? You emerge from a Éuropéan trip of “diplomatic peacebuilding” with a few million worth of great threads from the likes of the Champs Elysées and Old Bond Street and you’ll be damned if some peon (who fought beside you during the rebellion) is ever going to question you.

Sure, it’s all well and good, and for the first ten years I’d advise you to have an “election” of some sort. Keep it simple – one of your close rebel buddies gets to be the “opposition” but is getting so much graft on the side from your oil refineries that he will be happy to know that he’s scheduled to get banished to exile in Brunei the day after the votes are cast. Hey, hell, it happens – he’ll never be allowed to set foot in his homeland again, but a few dozen mercedes should shut him up well.

And then, here is your time to shine – you get the bodyguards, you get the queer military uniforms, the palaces, the splashy vacations in foreign locales and the fancy dinners for invited foreign guests. Hey, it all looks good in the press, the life is good, all Cuban Cigars and Ukrainian women. And McDonald’s burgers as well in my case, even though the closest burger joint was a thousand miles away. Hey, what do you think I kept the Concorde around for anyway?

Throughout the subsequent years and decades of your rule you should promote your most loyal lackeys and have anyone who even questions your choice of color in socks succumb to a painful death via a “fishing accident”, “poorly cooked fish”, “intimate encounter with a fish”, or essentially any excuse involving fish. This will help extend your time at the top – and oh what a time it will be! Wine and dine, languish and splash, these will be the golden years.

But, indeed, this shit usually ends up ending badly. Some other young upstart on the edge of the country will grab a gun and get a group together, and suddenly another revolution is brewing in the hills. Sure, you’ll fight, you’ll propagandize, you’ll threaten and you’ll sack your senior staff. Hey, we’ve all been there, we all did that – but the tides of time grind as they do, and eventually those rebels find their way into the city and into your Presidential Palace.

And that’s where you need to check your ego at the last minute, grab a metric tonne of that stashed gold bullion and fuck off to another locale, such as the Phillipines – those young rebel boys will kick down your Presidential office doors looking for blood and boy, if you’re there, you’ll be spitting up a gallon of it on those finely manicured tile floors of yours you had crafted some decades ago. These dictatorial jobs have a time limit, sister, and your exit strategy is the most important part of the plan altogether.

So I said take me on a trip, I’d like to go someday, I’d love to see L.A. again. Walking that walk, talking that slick talk – the long journey of being deposed begins with a single helicopter flight out. As for me – I found a cave nearby, then I found a fine thatch hut, and wound my way out of the African desert and across the Indian Ocean in whatever Junk I could find. I watch the world roll by these days; the military suit and the lapels are in the closet, however, just in case one day I do it all over again, in a pinch.

Well then – nine years ago. I don’t know about you, what you were doing around “that day”, the day being…. uh, well, something or other, I forget. I remember waking up in a central African mud hut and hearing people bickering about chewing gum, canned food, and how hung over they were from palm wine from the night before. And then I looked at the tee-vee, and saw these two big shiny towers from way over in head-up-your-ass-town (also known as “Enn-Why-See”) and a bunch of people running around acting stupid. Like, really: It’s the morning after your night of drinking, chill out already.

I just wanted to see some beauty before all this damage was done. But if it’s too much to ask, well Hell, we’ll just get back to it then, now won’t we? You know, dragging your ass out of the bushes, out of the brothels, the bars, the bowling alleys, and emerging from a twentieth century slumber of communism, fascism, random stupidity, rock and roll, and getting in gear for a new century where you gotta have your picture taken on every street corner, where the security agent gets to feel you up and almost suck you off while he searches around for white gels that might explode…. dude, not with you. I go to Bangkok for that, when they’re not fighting and such.

But we’re still screaming, nine years later, after the Yankee-doodles thought the world was going to crash in on itself, when they realized that hey, this big ugly watery ball we live on is frickin’ huge and not everyone is totally keen on the ol’ rapin’ and pillagin’ of the stars and stripes. Apparently this appalled some Americans, as if we were in a popularity contest or something to begin with. I beg to differ, and the sooner those pussies get the hell outta that country and into the next, the better for America it’ll all be. We don’t need security cameras, bio-chipped passports, traceable credit cards, and the worst of all – bartenders that won’t let you drive home after 12 beers. This here is an insult to my freedom, damnit, and I’ll fight it tooth and nail until they drag me away in the rubber jacket. Again. For the third time. Actually I think it’s been more than that, but I lost count.

So you drag your sorry drunken malarial ass out of the jungle of some former French colony, doing your best to speak the only French you know and then saying “pardon my french”; though it usually doesn’t work quite well, people are more than happy to help eject you from the arse-hole of the continent. And you’re trying to get back to the good ol’ America of old, even though it’s changed irreparably because of crazy terrorists and all that – not to mention subsequent wars and fiscal disasters, but that comes later, and really you’re only concerned about the terror-factor of the whole white-knuckle flying experience.

Then again, flying’s never been safer, or so they tell you. Apparently it’s safer because of maintenance, or pilot training, than the olden days when they just checked your ticket and offered you a smoke once you got up the stairways to the waiting, really hot, flight attendants. You never see those birds anymore. Actually you do – the same chicks, forty years older, three divorces under their belt, tattoos all over their forearms, still serving you coffee, but now it’s with a scowl. Draw clear, boys, these post-menopausal demons are a bigger concern for your wellbeing than the apparent terrorizers.

So, finally, you get back on that western-world airline from probably somewhere in Yirrup and on over to the eastern coast of the You-Hess-Hay to check on your assets, and trying to figure out your next ditch dive location to crash for a few months. And of course you must do all of this quickly, as the feds aren’t as ridiculously slow at investigating as they were a decade ago, and they could catch up with you sooner than later. Naturally, in that American multi-culti style of easternism every culture and their dog (usually a dog) is on that plane, including a few folks from the desert sands with fancy bleached flippy-flopping clothing and weird keffiyah’s and headbands and turbans and other towels obfuscating their noggins. To hell with ‘em – they won’t cause trouble.

What you gotta look out for are the swarthy types – the guys with the gooey hair, possibly Greek or Italian but maybe just maybe Aye-Rabb, but you can only really know after talking to ‘em. I’m often a quiet drunk, so often I never get that far, but just listen in when they speak to the ticketing lady or while they’re on the phone. Any of it will work, any kind of heartfelt “goodbyes” will likely be spoken slowly, it should all be emotional like a bad episode of the Young and the Restless. Speaking of which, I gotta get the next few seasons – having been hung over in the jungle a few months, I lost track. That’s what sucks about hiding out from society, the lack of netflix. But I digress.

Once you’re on the plane, strapped in, alcohol’d up, and drifting into your own mental wonderland, it could undoubtedly happen. I think it happened to me once, maybe twice, on third-world airlines going from buttfuck nowhere to buttfuck further from nowhere: some crazy buddhists got up and started slashing people with their plastic knives, screaming ensued, then a few Danish special forces guys dropped them to the ground and kept them pinned. In fact, it turned out to be a good deal as the flighty was so ecstatic to be alive she handed out free booze! That vodka sure helped with the police reports too – but again, that’s another story.

What I mean to say is that in the event that the Danes aren’t around, which is sadly too often, you gotta do this shit yourself. They pull out their improvised weapons, yell various religious swearwords in your face, block off the bar cart – bastards! Then they’re kickin’ at the cockpit door, haven’t got the memo about the reinforced hinges, then threaten a flighty or two, and you just sit back with some popcorn and watch. But shit, then they kill the flighty and force their way into the cockpit, stab the pilots in the neck, and take control. Now it’s not just your average friday night brawl à-la Bangassou, suddenly you’re staring down a possible tower-crashing like the days of old. Hell, all that crap shoulda been behind us. They made a movie or three about those folks, and damned if they are going to sell me another half-baked patriotism DVD in this day and age.

Therefore, you must snap into your sober state and figure out a plan. Naturally if you’re like me you spend at least 20 hours a day totally drunk and/or high, you’ve learned to train yourself so you can “sober up” for minutes at a time for important things like border checks, flirting with a prostitute, or tying bedsheets together to sneak out of a fancy hotel. You remember all that martial arts training you had when you were eleven years old, down your last scotch and tonic, and quietly undo your seatbelt.

Now’s the time to make eye contact with any able-bodied male you can see. Try and get into a groove of making some facial gestures that can tip two or three of you off at the same time, to create chaos, especially if there’s guards around watching the passengers with their plastic economy-class eating knives. Then give him a wink, burst from your chair, and tackle them. Choke holds are good in closed spaces, be sure to knock them out, leave their future for those too wimpy to take action.

Then, onto the cockpit. Walla-whats-his-name is probably in there reciting shit from his Imam-from-Hell who said it was cool to crash planes into stuff, knock him off first. It’s tough to take on two folks at the same time, it helps to have a few able-bodied passengers help you out. But nonetheless, if you’re in this situation, be creative – pens, pans, bottles, smacking and whacking all the way. These are confined spaces, and fighting back when the majority of passengers are on your side can only go your way. Just watch out for your eyes. Gouged eyes hurt, take it from me.

So, you get to the cockpit with hopefully a broken wine bottle, or in the worst case you can split a beer can in half and slice into a few necks. Job’s done, you’ve lost a few thousand feet of altitude, just like bungee jumping in Kathmandu, but this time you’re sadly even more sober. Nonetheless with those dead pilots and dead terrorists, now you have a plunging plane and peanuts worth of time to get it back righted again.

Thus you simply remember the rule that pulling back on the stick makes the thing go up, pushing down makes it go down, just like that other “stick” you’re used to pulling on frequently, right? Pilots keep all sorts of manuals around in that tiny space of theirs, and once you get the plane level you just need to find the emergency frequency and yell that good ‘ol fashioned “MayDay” call – if you’ve done that as a prank too often in the past, then sorry, let someone who sounds more concerned do it.

After that, and with the terrorizers subdued, you just must be able to follow instructions from the radio, assuming someone’s heard you. How to fly, how to land, it’s a good chance to sober up for half an hour or so. If you’ve got the shakes like I do, use the intercom and ask if there’s an engineer or doctor on board, someone who’s done that book learning stuff, someone who can obey and follow instructions. Then head back to the first class lavatory and enjoy a smoke. Pass out the rest of your cigarettes to eager passengers, and if it’s a federal crime to kill terrorists and smoke on an airplane afterwards, then I don’t want to be right.

If there’s no answer to your mayday, then it’s best to check out those flight maps and see if there’s an abandoned tropical island somewhere around if you’re too stupid to figure out all those aircraft highways that should bring you at least close enough to a major airport to get some contact. I mean, you could do the whole-abandoned-island thing, but that show ended months ago and people were just right pissed off about the ending. Think about it – do you want to be that vain twit saying all those bad lines with people you don’t like for six years? I didn’t think so.

Fly the plane to the airport, and get the hell away once it lands. Make sure you leave a name and number in case of a subsequent lawsuit, though, those things can pay pretty good. Which buys you even more time getting wasted on palm wine in the jungle.

Of course this can all be a rather controversial subject one usually debated rather than discussed. For this article I’m going to circumvent that whole realm and just discuss the latest offerings that science has developed for us a few extra arrows in the quiver so to speak.

Ciproflaxin or Cipro as its most commonly referred to has been the standard bearer for some time now and my personal drug of choice while on the road. While it’s readily available and has in some respects been around longer than many medicines apart from perhaps Deoxycyclene (its pros cons are well established) it too has as a downside, plus its misuse and over usage has now created some strains of bugs that are resistant to it. The other downside by modern standards is that the full course of treatment administered correctly is a total of 3 days. I’ve been extremely fortunate as to not encounter any of these downsides as of yet (I’ve actually given out more Cipro than I’ve ever taken myself) but the odds are stacked against us, whether it’s a medication’s side effects, or getting sick with TD or another type of gut bug I’d still rather have the medications handy than not have them available..

Fortunately the medical and pharmaceutical communities have decided that due to things like resistant strains to one drug or the other or side effects of taking certain drugs prophylacticly for moderate lengths of time that it’s best not to just leave well enough alone and to continue work on more effective faster acting and shorter duration times for dosages One of the worst forms of antibiotic misuse is stopping the treatment before it’s complete, i.e. the patient stops dosage when they feel better not when the microbe is actually completely eradicated within them.

The most recent and promising drug to come along is Prulifloxacin. It’s what is referred to as a fluoroquinolone. Throughout a series of fairly timely studies and trials this medication has been found to be very effective in treating a wide range of bugs that affect the gut of the majority of healthy individuals. It’s also been found to cut the treatment time it takes using Cipro by up to 2/3 (for slower folk like myself, that would be a single day of dosage!) with an average resolution of symptoms and infection of 3 days as opposed to 5-7 days with Cipro.

Careful where you swing that sail.

Yes, we can start with the obvious: the desert is a vast place, filled with vast people doing vast things like herding goats around. That’s not such a bad thing, mind you – they are damn tasty on occasion, and can keep you warm and steamy at night when the sun goes down and the herd is milling about just outside your mud hut. Take one in, get a-shakin’, and then the next mornin’ you’re on your way again, with one goat walking a little funny.

Of course it’s all fun that way, praying to whatever folks you be-leave in and moving the livestock all ’round the flatlands, bashing the bushes for a few extra coins here and there. Actually, quite Anne Frankly, the life sucks – you occasionally stop into some ditch-dive town of dirt herders and see a tee-vee and what do you see? Some dudes in flash cars and fat black guys in someplace called the Oosa eating more and more and more of those “boorgurs” as they call them. And then you stare at that dozen goats, your crusty man-dress that you haven’t had a chance to wash in a few months, and think “I gots ta get something better than all this”.

So, you look to the sea. Oddly enough you ain’t ever eaten fish, certainly not the swimming sea-going type, having goats all at your bidding for your entire life. But there is this vast thing on the horizon, a big blue undulating mass, beckoning you. You can stick some wood in it and get happiness – which is sort of similar to a goat, but just a little more complex.

Yeah, your buddies are looking out o’er the horizon with their boats and they talk about meeting these things called “da Flench” out there, and avoiding something called the “Neigh-Vee”, which you think is what one of your goats uttered once during those heady nights in the mud hut. But then one of your clan-membery types hands you a Kalashnikov of a rusted disposition, says get in the boat, and hang on. You bid goodbye to your goats, having given them to a random boy, knowing that you can probably track him down and butcher him if he strays too far. Hey, this sea thing might just work out!

Indeed, you have to learn quick – the speedboats are fast, but it ends up being a lifestyle much like that of a goat-herder – aside from the seasickness. Stuck for days or weeks on a rickety motorized piece of wood, punctuated by a half hour of absolute pandemonium as you spot some topless beached whale Europeans on the horizon, their sails billowing in the Indian Ocean wind, among other things billowing. You get your weapon ready to fire, but one of the more experienced types tells you not to pull the trigger as the thing might explode. Crappy weapons suck like that.

At this point, if they don’t shoot back, you just board and give all those poor white bastards a shit-eating grin, ask them about “hammbooorgers” back home in the Oosa and point your Kalashnikov all menacing-like at them and forget about the fact that it can’t fire. Then after a few days of that, as well as dodging the navy, you might get to make the ransom demands to whomever is doing the ransoming that week.

Indeed, the entrepreneurial bent of the entire exercise seems close to the goat-market, dragging the pasty white animals ashore and hawking them off to the highest bidder; and even though you only get a sliver of the whole take-home, it turns out that it’s way more than your dozen goats is worth. You re-appear on the coast a few hundred miles away from your herd and it doesn’t matter, really, as you get a few bundles of shillings that you can use for some more of that grean-leaf chewing gum that you’re certain is what everyone over on the other side of the world chews too. Spearmint, right?

But then I’m not so stupid to assume you’re one of the skinnies and don’t really give two shits about their socioeconomic situation, their aspirations for riches, and all that. Hell, them folks getting near your big-ass tanker or fancy yacht with their busted up AKs and RPGs isn’t an attractive proposition at all, you know, and the way they spin like mutherfuckers in the ocean with all their fuel, even if they don’t board they’re like a massive fuel bomb about to go off. You hit the wrong side of that rickety old thing with your guns and blammo, the whole thing can send shrapnel and goat-herder pieces all over the side of your recently painted hull. That’s no good, that’s not attractive. What are the folks at the Golf Club in Durban going to think when they see that massive black scar? Entirely unbecoming of a person of your stature.

And sure you’ll say “insurance” doesn’t allow you to carry weapons, just huddle down and pray they don’t shoot you or rape you, or both. And hey don’t delete all the porn off the laptop while you’re down below decks, that took me years to get! You may think it’s just okay to play along, hell you’re insured and all, but it’s just not very cool to let these dudes board your ship.

Therefore, while it may be more expensive, hiring a few crusty old PMC types who like a-shootin’ is a good idea when you’re sailing from Masawa to Mombasa. The guys are retired but their trigger fingers are still itchy, they remember the good old days of Mog ‘93, and no, that wasn’t a sporting event. Then again, some might disagree. So you hire the dudes and tell them to shoot anything on sight, drop them off in Mombasa, and continue down your way to high tea down near the Drakensbergs like nuthin’ ever happened. Makes perfect sense and all – pacifism is for people on the Pacific, fuck that shit.

On the other hand if you happen to be El Capitaine of a big-ass oil-barrelled vessel sailing south, you have bigger problems at hand. We all know the bean counters out at the headquarters of Transport Corp X don’t want all the bad publicity of the PMC types giving their PR guys overtime, and thus you’re basically a sitting duck floating along the ocean as the pirating types try and do their thing. Even worse is that you just know some of their “Diaspora” in Minneapolis, Toronto, or London are calling their buddies in Boosasso and giving up your coordinates. And while them goat herders aren’t the best at math, they can still fuck up a trigonometric function with the best of ‘em and figure out your trajectory pretty good-like. And then you gots real problems – because then there’s no vigilantism involved, it’s all up to the insurance broker down on Fenchurch Street and he doesn’t see a name of a fat guy with a family, he sees an Excel sheet. “Oh shit” is, therefore, an apt response on your behalf.

Though now with the navies of a few nations patrolling, your chances of getting mixed up in the kidnapping mess are severely reduced – yet when the speed boat’s a-speedin’ towards your hull like it’s Al-Qaeda or something you are already too late. But there’s one good thing about big bureaucratic corporations – it’s a don’t-ask-don’t-tell mentality. So what if you hired a few ex-Rhodies to keep you in the clear? You can add that time-honoured entry onto your balance sheet “Technical Expenses”, a credit with a few zero’s, and again drop them off at the next Kenyan docks. Indiscretions be damned and all that.

Finally you could always consider the Steven Seagal method of hiring a “cook” who, well, knows how to do more than just cook. Or go all Chow Yun-Fat on their asses and just do the dirty deed yourself when they board – there are plenty of movies that can act as great instructional videos in this respect.

But if you’re like that poor goat-herder-come-sailing-entrepreneur who is watching some white guy shoot back, well shit, this just isn’t fun anymore. They always say that only ten percent of fledgling ventures survive into the second year, and with the creative help of sailing folks who take extra precautions, that number could decrease drastically for desert people whom live along certain straits of the world’s waterways.

I swear one of these days I’ll stop writing, probably when my fingers get chopped off by some corrupt African cops, though at that point I bet you I’d try and just stump-stump some entries so you folks can still receive enlightening advice that all intrepid adventurers can use during their endeavors. Yeah, that’s it – it wouldn’t have anything to do with me stuck in a small African hellhole town on an obscure island off the coast of that same continent, bored out of my skull as I can’t even find a decent god damned beer as half the population is Islamic and the other half is so hopped up on local juice that they can’t even tell me where in the hell to get some: they just shrug, give me that half-toothless grin that the Africains like to give, drool a little bit, and get me pissed off.

Yeah, par for the course. If I didn’t like the local color (ha!) then I should have never have come, but you know, I’m a vagabond wanderer, and occasionally you get stuck in these small stupid towns with names you can’t pronounce and the dude running the dala-dala dirka-dirka shared taxi-bus-matatu ride the next morning is nowhere to be found. So you find the local flophouse, harass the one dodgy and loose woman in town, and start smoking some local cigarettes and sipping that “Belgian” scotch you had smuggled in with your luggage. What can I say, I’m not different than the others.

But I’m not telling you anything new. You’ve all done it before, been there done that, gotten bored, got the “mzungu” t-shirt and picked a few tourist pockets yourself while hanging out in the African market. Hey, things do go both ways in these places, damned straight, and it’s worth your while to understand that the local yokels can be hosed out of their money just as effectively to them as they do it to you. My good old friend George W. Bush used to call this a “pre-emptive strike” or something to that effect, but I just call it by that good old fashioned British English word, pragmatism.

Excuse me while I sip some more cheap scotch and brush the small ants off my arms, stuck in this squalid room, listening to the occasional motorbike and squeaky oxcart outside rattle by, locals just down the hall mouthing off at the telee over the football game between two countries no one cares about. Hell, there’s little else to do, but I tell you back in that last town I had to get out quick. Real quick. Damn, ants are biting, get off!

Thing is that most of the local touts see it as a one-way experience, take you to be some rich asshole who just is wholly entitled to hand over more cash than usual, or even more cash than is unusual, for the opportunity to visit their blessed one-horse shit African (or Asian) town by God’s grace of allowing your crappy bus service to just ditch you in the middle of town unceremoniously until another claptrap with wheels (or legs) shows up. But I’m not bitter or anything; hey, it happens, and it’s a good chance to hide in the shadows and check out the local’s pockets intimately. (Not like that, you perverts! You go to Arabia for that!)

So sit back and relax and dilute your “orange flavoured drink” to just the right taste to suit your own, because I have plenty of sound advice for my loyal readers on that ever so elusive topic on how to, in fact, effectively rip off the locals. Profit before people, right? Who says you can’t feed off the urban wildlife and keep yourself going?

We can start with the easy stuff – jumping out of a taxi. Can work in big cities, but you have to know the neighborhood and what direction to run in. Don’t assume he knows the city better than you do – though he probably does – but just bolt. When that “idle” conversations comes up in the cab, always give a fake hotel address, fake name, fake nationality. Just fake it all, he’s not asking you for your benefit: he’s asking in case he needs to call up his brother in law’s cousin to break your kneecaps because you bolted before paying. Simple stuff, really, and this effective method of ripping off the locals is a good way to get some practice.

Step two, the old switcheroo. But let me swat these mosquitoes off my shoulders first, it’s tough with this level of girth to keep yourself bite free in tropical backwaters I tell you. Try pouring that “orange” drink on your bites if they do manage to nab you, it makes a great sterilizer.

Anyways the method is this: get him to give you the money, give him your money, give him back your money. Keep going around like this, negotiating the price, saying he needs change, on and on, around and around. He’ll get confused with his third-grade education, and eventually you’ll have both piles of cash in your hand, at which point you agreeably agree to his agreeable demeanor, shake his hand, and walk away. He or she will feel pretty good about the transaction for an hour or so, at which point he’ll get quite shit-crazy. Therefore I recommend fleeing by taxi, and following the advice I mentioned in step one.

Finally, there’s the old standby of the “free” hotel, or free as can be. This is advanced ripped-offedness so it’s important to practice the last two beforehand. Sure, when checking out you can play the money-swapping trick, or the taxi-jumping play, but it’s much easier to simply get up early and bolt. Seem too dumb? Fine, jump out the back window, see if I care. Do it around four in the morning before even the muslims are up and you’ll have plenty of time to get down to the dirty bus station and say “hey mans, you need need NEED to put me on that next dirka-dirka outta here!”

Yeah, it can be that easy. And of course there are other more exotic ways of ripping off the locals – feeding your tour guide to the animals, shoplifting, slipping cockroaches into the food at restaurants, but you’ve probably already done those or can figure them out for yourself.

I say it’s a good way to extend your vacation, by extending the same genuine hospitality back that they show you, and of course to get some cool free stuff. But excuse me, I need to go shower myself with some orange drink.

since I’ve posted on here, sorry for that! Since being back in Bukavu after my adventurous couple of days in Goma I’ve been a bit occupied and internet here in Bukavu isn’t so easy to come by as it was in Goma (the people I stayed with in Goma had wireless in their house! 24/7 access to the net!! That’s of course only when the electricity was on. Daily Power failures and water cuts are the norm). But anyhow, somehow you start to loose track of time…and become use to being disconnected. I’ve seen and experienced a lot of course since my last entry. From visiting the gorillas up in the Mikeno sector of North Kivu to seeing the briquette distribution/production in and around various villages in Goma. I also accompanied the briquette team to see the distribution of briquettes to the various IDP (Internally Displaced Person/People) camps on the outskirts of Goma. The camps that I am aware of are: Bulengo, Mugunga 1, Mugunga 2, Mugunga 3, Buhimba, Kibati II. Due to recent insecurity and fighting in their villages (by the militia groups) they are all currently displaced, living in the various IDP camps. Merci Corps, an NGO working in the camps, buy the briquettes and once a week a truck goes out to drop off sacks of briquettes to the various camps. My mode of transport: once big mother of a truck! (see photo). You can easily spot the camps from a distance, a sea of white plastic with the UNHCR logo printed on. The plastic is used to cover the little make-shift shelters made with branches, leaves etc. Row upon row. I’ve read so much about the recent violence and insecurity that caused the people to flee and seen so many photos…but nothing can really prepare you for when you actually enter these camps. Of course you feel totally hopeless and it certainly is no place for your own emotional reactions to take over, but every time I was blown away and totally enjoyed the hundreds of children…and despite the dire conditions they live in they are always smiling…it’s heart breaking for sure. The camp we visited was Mugunga 2. Here I met up with Joseph Ntangi, who works for Merci Corps and oversees the distribution of the briquettes in Mugunga 2.

At the IDP camps outside of Goma

Children at the IDP camps

Truck to IDP camps outside of Goma

I also attended a party in Goma which was attended by a mix of various NGO workers, most of whom are all based in Goma and working at the various IDP camps. It was interesting hearing all their stories of the work they do but also unnerving hearing their reports of the ‘gossip’ doing the rounds currently that ‘the sh*t is about to hit the fan again, all the signs are there’ (i.e. more insecurity and fighting erupting etc…) but I try not to pay any attention to it…besides I knew the situation was pretty volatile here before I came.

Back in Bukavu I continue to assists at the malnourishment centre in the mornings. Children continue to come and go, some get better, some don’t…however little Rachelle (about whom I’ve written before in one of my previous posts has taken a turn for the better and has now gone home. Any donations to the Malnourishment Centre will be greatly received. Thank you very much.

In the afternoons I’m ‘hanging with the nuns’ at the congregation, ‘teaching’ basic English and in return they help me with my French…all and all a bit disastrous but great fun! Little Rachelle is much better now and has gone home I get around by taxi and the price changes on a daily basis, depending on how much I can haggle it down to…they see ‘muzungu’, they see cash… in my case isn’t true! (the Congolese refer to whites as ‘muzungu’) I get around on foot too, if the distance isn’t too far. The only thing getting up my nose here, quite literally, is the dust…and there is a lot of it! At the moment it’s dry season, so no rain from about June to September. I’m suffering big time with my hay fever and am having several nosebleeds on a daily basis. As for the family I’m living with…it’s a busy house, never a dull moment! There’s Franck Mutula, his wife Nicole and their 5 boys (Jannick (8), Frannick (6.5), Francis (4), Valery (2) and Donnel (6 months).. Then there also is Katie (sister of Nicole), Melanie (cousin of Franck), Chantal and Papa Meda, the 2 house aids. At the moment it’s madness in the household in preparation for the wedding of Franck’s brother, Oscar, which will take place on Friday the 7th of August with about 300 guests attending…an all-day affair which will start at 9am and finish at goodness knows what time. One of the ‘preparations’ involved 2 goats being slaughtered outside my bedroom window! You can always recognise whenever a wedding is happening in town thanks to a procession of cars decorated like Christmas trees, honking continuously and driving very slowly…slow enough to get a good glimpse of the passengers, all dressed up smartly in outfits made of Congolese cloth. Its tradition for the family on both sides of the bride and groom to wear outfits made from the same cloth for the church ceremony. They then change into smart casual clothing for the evening reception. My Congolese family are kindly making me my own outfit from the same cloth (for which I’m very grateful seeing as I didn’t exactly bring anything ‘fancy’ with me to DRC and it not as if I can quickly pop over to the nearest Debenhams!). Yesterday (Sunday the 2nd August) we attended a ceremony called ‘dot’ in French (meaning to give), in Swahili its ‘Maki’, where the husband-to-be’s side of they family visit the wife-to-be’s side of the family to present them with gifts (which in this case was 3 goats, beer, a barrel filled with fufu (maize) and 3 cows. From the photos you’ll see it was quite a big affair with loads of family members from each side attending. First the husband-to-be’s (Oscar) side of the family gathered at the family house, then we all made our way to the bride-to-be’s (Solange) parents house. Oscar and Solange are not present at this time. They are not allowed to be seen until all negotiations have been completed and agreed. After presenting the gifts to Solange’s parents we all gathered in the house of the representative for Solanges’ family, where we were all fed…and then waited for the families to agree and accept the gifts…which they did (thank goodness! We waited so long I was starting to wonder if the negotiations had gone wrong!). Finally the answer came, they were happy and the gifts were accepted…then all hell broke loose as both families joined in a frenzy of dancing and singing. It is at this time that Oscar and Solange present themselves and join in. I asked Franck (my host) if Oscar and Solange knew each other before, as I though this was an arranged marriage. He told me yes, they have free will in choosing their partners and that presenting the gifts to the family of the bride is just tradition. I know that for many African cultures this practise is the norm. In South Africa this is usually referred to as ‘labola’ (presenting the family of the bride-to-be with gifts of goats, chickens, cows etc.)…although I’m not sure if ‘free will’ in choosing whom you marry always plays a part).

I’ll be sure to post again after the wedding, with loads of photos (if I get a strong enough internet connection!).

All best x Philippa

Early Saturday morning (18th July) we set off in search of gorillas in the Mikeno Forests in Virunga Park, North Kivu, DRC. We were one of few tourists visiting Bukima (one of the park patrol posts) since rebels attacked the Gorilla Sector in September 2007. Even now Virunga Park is still occupied by militia (believed to be the FDLR) who conduct the illegal charcoal trade that’s destroying the parks but is also funding their (the FDLR) operations. Believed to be heavily armed and well trained, they represent one of the greatest problems for the park due to the illegal charcoal trade. Many of the Virunga Park rangers have been killed and attacked by the FDLR.

This is why the briquettes (an organic alternative energy source to charcoal) which Virginia and her team are working on implementing is so important because not only will it provide jobs, it will also of course help save the forests as 92% of charcoal used in Goma and Northern Rwanda comes from Virunga National Park. Illegal trafficking of forest resources, in particular charcoal, provides armed groups with one of their primary sources of income.

All these things aside I was eager to get up to Bukima (about 2-3 hour drive from Goma with terrible roads) as the view is fantastic…waking up in the mornings to see a view of Mikeno volcano, and the surrounding forests. No photo can do it justice!

In the photo you can see Mikeno in the background and at the foot is where you enter the forests.
We set off for about 1 1/2 hour of ‘easy’ walking before we entered the ridge of the forests and this is where the ‘walking’ got really tough. It is so dense and over grown…I lost count of the number of times I fell (my legs are one big bruise) and stupidly forgot suntan lotion (seeing as it’s pretty cold up at Bukima) and definitely didn’t pack enough water for the 6 hour walk! But of course the views and sounds made up for it…and of finally finding the gorillas after 3 1/2 hours of searching!

We were aloud to spend 1 hour with them, always keeping a distance of 7 meters. They are so totally chilled and relaxed, you could never imagine they are wild…the younger ones are very curious whereas the older ones seem as if they couldn’t care less about us being there. The hour we were aloud to spend with them past super quick and soon we were on our way again back to Bukima camp totally exhausted and in serious need of water but feeling so happy to have experienced an encounter with gorillas.

On the Sunday back in Goma we went for lunch at a place called ‘Chalet’, a restaurant/bar next to Lake Kivu. Beautiful gardens, people sitting around on the deck chairs, lunching, drinking…it felt so out of context…there was even some guy speeding past on a freaken jet-ski! Totally bizarre!

All best

Philippa

My 1st week at the General Hospital of Bukavu flew past and at the end of the week I’d seen some really really severe cases of malnourishment but also some children making a great improvement! On Thursday evening I met up with my friend Brandy Walker who works at Panzi hospital. The idea was to go around to hers and as far as the Congolese family I am staying with were concerned; it is in walking distance from where I am staying. So I set off on foot in search of her address but by this time it was just about to become dark…and I could not find it and no-one along the way, although all very friendly, could point me in the right direction. I was becoming slightly concerned at this point as there are no street lights and also because I was stop by 2 Congolese soldiers demanding alcohol off me which of course I didn’t have! Luckily, it was at this point that I finally found her house so just in time…not very easy to convince 2 men with guns that you don’t have any alcohol for them! I was pretty relieved, but just played totally dumb with them although to be honest was totally crapping myself!

On Saturday (11th) I took the boat back to Goma to meet up with my friend Virginia Echavarria, who works for Africa Conservation Fund who is helping the Virunga National Parks in Northern DRC by – amongst other things – implementing an alternative to charcoal to the population, most of whom are refugees (displaced due to the recent conflicts that happened in August and October) and living in and around Goma. The charcoal however is coming from Virunga Park (a UNESCO world heritage site) and is usually produced and smuggled out illegally by various militia groups operating here. Considering the fact that almost 90% of the population here is dependant on charcoal as their only means of energy for cooking and cleaning etc. the militia are generating a huge revenue from this illegal charcoal trade which not only destroys the parks but also helps to fund their operations. The alternative Virginia and her team has come up with is a organic alternative made up of organic waists (leaves, recycled paper, sawdust etc) called fuel briquettes and with this they are aiming to reduce the purchases of charcoal but also create masses of employment to the local people by training them on how to produce these briquettes by supplying them with training and equipment. These briquettes are then also distributed in and around the various refugee camps in Goma. The lack of interest in charcoal also of course means the parks could potentially be saved and a source of income to the militia groups stopped. You can read more about this here. Seeing as the Panzi Hospital thing fell through (this is the hospital outside Bukavu there they specifically treat women who are victims of war rape) I thought I’d take Virginia up on her offer of spending some time in around Goma to see all the briquette projects…so now here I am in Goma, home to ‘roads’ consisting of lava rocks (due to the closely situated Mt Nyamuragira having erupted in 2002) and potholes the size of craters, NGOs of all sorts, UN trucks (MONUC – the United Nations peace keeping operating force here in DRC and from what I’ve heard the biggest and most expensive to operate…and dust everywhere! Goma often suffers from electricity and water cuts so although I am now blessed with a shower, the water is never hot. I find Goma interesting and which I could spend more time here to explore it properly. The time I’ve spend here so far included various outings to the briquette projects in and around Goma. Today we are heading into Virunga Park…and this includes a visit to the mountain gorillas! Naturally I cannot wait and still cannot believe how fortunate I am to see these amazing beasts up close and personal, as well as meet the rangers that risks their lives on a daily basis protecting these parks (as the parks are still inhabited by militia groups). I’ll be writing about this when I’m back with some photos probably when I am back in Bukavu, but in the meantime here are some photos of the various briquette programs we visited in and around Goma.

All best

Philippa x

Monday morning I met Sœur (sister) Helena Albarracin, a Catholic sister, at the Congregation Dorotee di Cemmo in Bukavu where she lives with other sisters who all work at various clinics, schools and prisons in and around Bukavu. From there we left for the General Hospital of Bukavu, where Sœur Helena assists in the running of the malnourishment centre for kids. I was first given a guided tour of the whole hospital to meet everyone there (doctors, nurses, medical students, directors etc).

At the end of this ‘meet-and-greet’ my head was spinning with all the names and impressions as well as trying to understand everything in French…but it’s the best way to learn and being able to speak and understand it becomes a matter of ‘survival’ if you want to get around on your own!

The general condition of the hospital is in a bit of a state, but they manage to cope with what they have…it seems. Seeing what I did left me feeling rather guilty for complaining about waiting lists on the NHS (National Health Service in the UK) and nasty receptionists at doctors surgeries! Despite the tough conditions the personnel at the hospital have to work with (limited access to medication, dated buildings and equipment) they are all terribly friendly and do fantastic work.

Then on to the malnourishment centre. It’s here where reality hit me hard and I wondered how I’ll be able to leave DRC without having adopted all of the kids here. To be honest, I didn’t expect a pretty picture and I surely didn’t get one, most of the children here are seriously malnourished and clearly look close to death and I feel pretty useless and helpless being here and doubt the bag of toys I bought them will be any good…but they really need is proper access to medication and balanced nutrition…as all children do.

There’s roughly 30 children at the centre, some coming in on a daily basis (with their parents or siblings who travel long distances to get here), others residing at the centre for closer observation. Their ages range from 3 months to 10 years (the ones I saw). Along with the sisters, the kids are looked after and their intake of food/nutritional drinks monitored by the resident nutritionist. Some of the children struggle to keep the food down and some don’t want to eat/drink at all. The symptoms of malnourishment is clearly visible on most of the children (swollen belly, skeletal frame, sunken or very swollen eyes, lifeless gaze) but luckily there are some who, having been at the centre for a while, look so much healthier in comparison to the kids who recently entered the centre. Most of the children cried upon seeing me, possibly because they’ve never seen a white person before, but luckily on Tuesday most of the children remembered me and it felt great to be met with a smile and a ‘high five’!

There is one little girl in particular off whom I’ve grown very fond of very quickly, called Rachelle (5 years). She is terribly weak from malnourishment and so so thin. Upon meeting her for the first time she cried non-stop and didn’t allow me to comfort her. But on Tuesday, after sitting with her for a while and showing her the photo I took of her on the camera screen, she warmed to me and seemed more comfortable with me being around her…which felt so great!
To anyone who feels that they are able to help with donations for the malnourishment centre, the donations will be gratefully received and put to good use. Donations can be made to Sœur Helena Albarracin through Western Union. Thank you so much!

There are trainee doctors who drop by often (many of them my age). They are all eager to practice their English with me, as I am to practise my French with them, so we’ve agreed to a 50/50 exchange of ‘teaching’ each other which of course is a huge laugh, but useful nevertheless as I already feel much more confident with my French.

Late in the afternoons I spend my time exploring Bukavu, which is somewhat terrifying on your own, but I need to know my way around and have luckily managed to find a shop that sells my favourite coffee and cigarettes (yes yes I know, smoking bad…bla bla bla, but I don’t drink or do drugs or sleep around so I need to do something ok?) and a internet café right next to each other…which I hope won’t bugger up my macbook! I tried using the shop’s computers but the keyboards are in French with missing letters so sorry to any of you who received incomprehensible email responses from me!

BTW if any IT experts are reading this (erm…Bob?) I have a question: If you use your own laptop/macbook at internet cafes and only insert their telephone line, is it still possible to pick up problems/issues/anything that will affect my macbook? Any advice greatly received! Merci beaucoup!

All best!
Philippa

I’m sorry for the sideway photos…I cannot find where in wordpress you rotate!