West Africa // Current TV

Timbuktu

Timbuktu Bucks

It’s expensive here – dinner costs around $10, double the price of Dakar and Bamako. The jewelry hustlers are all over you all the time. And you understand it – a tourist arriving here is like Mali making a pact to export to Montenegro. It’s hard to get here: the pharmacist yesterday apologized for his lack of lip balm, and promised it would be on the next plane into town. Right. The only way to export your work is to get a tourist to carry it home. And the exchange rate is lower, too.

Big Day Shooting

Bea and I settle in for a Production Meeting and lay out a morning in town and afternoon with the Tuaregs. Sana introduces me to his brother, Sandi, who turns out to be his cousin, who turns out to be… etc. When Sana sees me looking at Bradt’s, he casually drops the news that it’s Sandi on a camel on the cover. Indeed.

Losing a Negotiation with the Tuaregs

No problem.

We go to the Tourist Office and shoot my passport getting the official Timbuktu stamp. Only took me thirty-five years. Shoot the outside of the 15th Century Mosque that looks as much like Arizona as Timbuktu. Have a great conversation with Sana at the sacred Tim (well) of Madame Buktu, who lived alone but her well became the way station that became the stopover that grew into today’s Timbuktu. Karamo buys a homemade, tin-can mbira, and we have an impromptu jam ‘round the well. I fall in. It’s dry.

A Kilo of Salt

Buy a kilo of salt, one chunk, dug straight from the earth, two bucks. [NB - this purchase is destined to appear on the poster for LinkTV’s broadcasting of “On the Road.”] Stage the meeting of Sana and Bob at the Hotel Bouctou, another of the seemingly infinite number of places where Ted Joans lived. The owner, another friend of Ted’s, tells us he always stayed in Room 2. But we’d already shot in front of Room 1 – Ted’s number one room, according to Sana. Lunch, like all meals in Timbuktu, takes forever unless you’ve ordered in advance. Omelet clocks in at an hour and fifteen minutes. Last night we ordered chicken. We heard a squawk about half an hour later.

In the afternoon it’s Tuareg time – I ride a camel into town, Karamo and Lamont ride into desert. Bea and I scout the village – located in the midst of scrub and sand, a particularly unhappy piece of desert. Bea immediately asks for a dune, which Sandi conjures up and which totally makes the shoot. Camels, hypnotic music, the sword dance. Karamo sits in on kora. It’s decided professor Bob should ride his camel sans handler, which turns into a rich comedy of camel stubbornness and poet exhilaexasperation. The sun slides down. The women are wearing incredibly ornate silver headresses which mingle gorgeously with their deep indigo clothing. Bea requests a woman to dance. She moves away from her drum, settles on the earth, and subtly moves her hands. Waves of sand. An hourglass without the glass.

Bob Holman is the host of a new travel series focused on endangered languages called ON THE ROAD WITH BOB HOLMAN on LINK TV. He traveled to West Africa, Middle East and Asia and these are his blog stories from his travels. More information at http://www.rattapallax.com/blog/on_the_road/Timbuktu Bucks It’s expensive here – dinner costs around $10, double... more

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Timbuktu the Mysterious

Why we come to Timbuktu is a mystery. It’s the furthest away from everywhere if you’re speaking English. But there’s plenty of French, Bambara, Songhay, Peul (Fula), and Tamashek spoken here as well, more than English bien sur. But it’s only in English that we say, “It’s as far away as Timbuktu.

Mystery Tour Guide

Coincidence or fate? One reason we’re here is because US Black Beat poet Ted Joans, who died eight years ago, had a house here in the 60’s-70’s (rent $25/year, so the story goes). Laura Consiglia, his widow, had written us a letter if inspiration and info. One clue was the name Sana Sibily, a man who had put them up on his roof when they were last here, in the 80s. Coincidentally, the Bradt Guide to Mali (I like this British series, and so far as I know it’s the only guidebook to Mali – the Rough Guide to West Africa has an excellent chapter) mentions one Sana Sibily as a good contact for desert culture (Tuareg (the “blue people” – from indigo-dyed clothes, nomads of the Sahara) and great roots-rock Tinariwen).

So when I ask at the desk of La Colombe Hotel they say Of course, Sana Sibily, he likes to hang out at the dibiterie (barbecue) next door. He’s not there, but the dibiterie owner calls him, and ten minutes later I am approached by a big sweet face covered with a shocking blue atell (desert turban). His first words, “un ami de Ted Joans,” come complete with tears – his good friend is my good friend, so we are immediate best friends. Say hello to the King of the Short Cut, the Tree Planter of the Desert, Sana Sibily, friend of Ted.

Where Ted Joans Lived

On the other hand, Sana doesn’t have a house in town, let alone a roof. He takes us to Ted’s house, but unlike Laura’s letter, there’s no good wooden door with brass details, the hallmark of old Timbuktu architecture – #22 111 St. (also known as Omore, Omo’s Street, in Djengeri-Ber), has a corrugated tin door. And the layout’s wrong. And the “good people” who were living here when Laura and Ted were here have morphed into a single, poor blind woman who appears to be 80. The photos of Ted that Sana raves over, promises to bring to us, which will be so great for the film, seem to have been put in a suitcase that disappeared in the sand. The mysteries expand and contract with language difference – Sana’s English is focused and right off the tourist trek. On the griot trail, there’s a marvelous disconnect. Who’s whose what?

And meanwhile everywhere we go we get a back route tour of town that’s breathtaking, full of dailiness, mud brick buildings, open sewers, kids playing soccer. Sana books us for what turns out to be a terrific interview with the Director of Ancient Manuscripts, who, when prodded, takes us back to la tradition orale and a wonderful story of three stars colliding – one for salt, one for limestone, and the one in the middle, sand. Fine, warm sand.

Bob Holman is the host of a new travel series focused on endangered languages called ON THE ROAD WITH BOB HOLMAN on LINK TV. He traveled to West Africa, Middle East and Asia and these are his blog stories from his travels. More information at http://www.rattapallax.com/blog/on_the_road/Why we come to Timbuktu is a mystery. It’s the furthest away from everywhere if... more

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Soccer's Lost Boys

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World Cup's Secret Cost

Mariana van Zeller is a correspondent for Vanguard.
Every four years, I look forward to the World Cup. It's the one time where my small country, Portugal, commands a little respect on the world stage. But this World Cup is different...I know too much.
Over the last six months, I've been investigating a particularly heartbreaking scandal for a Current TV documentary called "Soccer's Lost Boys," airing next Wednesday. The story took me from the dirt soccer pitches of Ghana to the migrant ghettos of Morocco and finally, to black market soccer games in Paris.
It's estimated that 20,000 young West African players are currently stranded throughout Europe--trafficked there by predatory agents who snatch them off the fields of Ghana and Senegal and Cameroon promising contracts with big European teams and then abandon them when those tryouts either don't materialize or don't go well.
Jean Claude Mbvoumin, one of the few advocates trying to help these kids through his small Paris-based organization Foot Solidaire, told me that 70 percent of the tryouts that took place in France last year were "uninvited," meaning that--like door-to-door salesmen--these agents just show up with a player--or three or 10--from parts unknown, hoping to get them in front of coaches. Not surprisingly, this approach leads far more often to heartbreak and suffering than to the fame and fortune promised these youngsters.
If you're reading this in the US, you may not be aware of what big industry soccer has become. Money on par with the salaries in the NFL, NBA and MLB are being paid to players from around the globe to play for teams in the UK, France, Italy, Spain. Soccer, or "football" as the rest of the world knows it, is the most global of sports and these days, there's perhaps no bigger market for promising new players than Africa.
Over the last decade there's been a surge in the number of Africans playing at big European clubs. To take the top English league for example, in 1989 it had only four players from Africa, all of them white Africans. In 2009, the league had 60 African-born players, nearly all of them blacks from West Africa. A handful, like Didier Drogba from the Ivory Coast or Michael Essien from Ghana, have risen to become global super stars and fabulously wealthy in the process. These rags-to-riches stories now serve as inspiration for thousands of young African boys who see soccer as their way out.
But the same desperation that drives many young Africans to pile 70 people in a fishing boat meant for seven to make the dangerous sea crossing to Europe, also makes them easy targets for unscrupulous agents, conmen and other unsavory characters. At the embassy of the Ivory Coast in Rabat, Morocco, the consular general pulled out a thick blue book--like an accountant's ledger--filled with the names and faces of young footballers who had been scammed and abandoned in Morocco. I stood in shock as page after page of young African faces stared back at me. My initial worries that we might be stretching some isolated, anecdotal cases of player trafficking into something bigger vanished on the spot. This problem was real--and real nasty.
I like to think of this story as an African Hoop Dreams, although a similar story could be told from South America or even Eastern Europe. Anywhere in the world where a passion of football is paired with the desperation of poverty, the conditions are ripe for the exploitation of young talent. As South Africa hosts the World Cup--the first African nation to do so--it's important that people realize that the growing popularity of European leagues around the globe has come at a cost.
The reason that FIFA, the governing body of the sport, has decided to hold the World Cup in Africa for the first time has nothing to do with the beauty of safari Africa--featured so prominently in ESPN's promo package--with its epic vistas and silhouetted giraffes. The passion for soccer in Africa lives in less picturesque places, like the war-torn Ivory Coast and the coastal slums of Accra. The World Cup is being held in Africa because the future of soccer is very much entwined with the future of the developing world.
The trafficking of young African players may be news to soccer's many millions of fans, but it's an open secret among those who oversee the sport. A few years ago, Sepp Blatter, FIFA's president, even accused top European clubs of "social and economic rape" in their search for new talent in Africa. But despite those harsh words, little has actually been done.
Now that FIFA is raking in billions of dollars in TV rights and sponsorships from the Cup in Africa, perhaps it's time to give a little back. The most popular sport in the world shouldn't be turning its back on thousands of its own.
"Soccer's Lost Boys" premieres on Current TV Wednesday, June 16 at 10/9c. Watch the episode trailer after the jump. Mariana van Zeller is a correspondent for Vanguard. Every four years, I look... more

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Cocaine Mafia: Coke's huge market in Europe and the African supply chain that gets it there

I grew up hearing about Colombian drug cartels dumping huge amounts of cocaine into the United States to feed America’s insatiable craving for the fine white powder that made entertainers and socialites feel amazingly cool. Our government went to war against drugs with billions of dollars and helicopters, social programs and guns. Eventually, for lots of reasons, cocaine use trailed off in the United States. In recent years the drug lords have seen their trade route through the Caribbean produce fewer mansions, private armies and the lifestyle of kings. But they found a new market.

In recent years, Europe has been consuming more cocaine than anywhere else in the world. So I headed there to find out how all that coke was getting into Europe.

Unlike the US, where coke was associated with high rollers and the rich and famous, cocaine today is the European everyman’s drug. We found it in pubs in England, public bathrooms in Italy and wherever young people gather to have a good time. The UK, Italy, and Spain have become the largest consumers of cocaine in the world. The bulk of it still comes from South America, but the trade route has changed. In order to meet their growing demand, South American drug lords use West Africa as their crucial transit point to get the drug into the European Union. With chronic poverty, rampant corruption and loose borders, parts of West Africa have proved to be willing partners in flooding Europe with drugs.

I tracked the drug at one point to a South American drug trafficker who’d settled in Guinea Bissau, but I had to find out where it was going from there. My producer, Joanne, and I traveled to southern Italy, where we heard smugglers gained easy access to the European continent. When we reached the tiny town of Castel Volturno, one of the largest cocaine trafficking hubs in Europe, we felt as if we had stumbled into an African slum.

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Cocaine Mafia (Video)

You can watch "Cocaine Mafia" or any of the previous episodes of Vanguard online.

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Al Qaeda and FARC: BFF?

That's according to US authorities. Actually, the language they used is "unholy alliance". Catchy.
Three West African men accused of ties to al Qaeda were extradited to New York in December on drug trafficking and terrorism charges.

It was the first time U.S. authorities established a link suggesting al Qaeda is funding itself in part by providing security for drug smugglers in West Africa.

"As suggested by the recent arrest of three alleged al Qaeda operatives, the expansion of cocaine trafficking through West Africa has provided the venue for an unholy alliance between South American narco-terrorists and Islamic extremists," Bergman said in an interview over the weekend.
In a week when it's all Al Qaeda all the time (this is what, the third time I've written about them already and it's only Tuesday?) the DEA doesn't want to be left out. We've seen before that Africa is the new transit line for cocaine to Europe (as Christof Putzel reported in Vanguard: Cocaine Mafia) and we've seen a few more connections this week between Africa and Al Qaeda. But if the US government is right on this - could it be a potentially dangerous alignment of militant groups? Joshua Keating at FP Passport is skeptical:
...[A]s I noted last month, the three men arrested (whose self-proclaimed links to al Qaeda have yet to be proven) last month, were not caught making a deal with FARC, they were making a deal with an undercover DEA agent that they thought was representing FARC. The ringleader of the group, Harouna Toure, did boast to the agent about smuggling "two tons of hashish to Tunisia" and the "human smuggling of Bangladeshi, Pakistani and Indian subjects into Spain," but these wouldn't involve South American naro-terrorists. Is there any other evidence that FARC and al Qaeda are actually taking advantage of the "venue" they've been provided?
Keating also pointed out that Matthew Cordell of UN Dispatch gave an awesome name to the whole affair: FARQaeda. Now, that's catchy.

Watch Vanguard: Cocaine Mafia (Video)

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