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Well, it appears that all the Congo travelin' Mr. Affleck has been doing has resulted in the video I've embedded below. I agree with what Wronging Rights wrote. It's like Affleck was scanning the blogosphere just a bit after his whole Nightline thing and saw that people were really annoyed by him popping his mug in to the camera frame so often. In this video, he instead pimps the UNHCR of all things. I'll get to that a bit later though.       As with his previous attempts, I have to say that Affleck is working to be one of the least annoying celebrities prancing around Congo these days. That being said, he is still a celebrity and still an American. I'm guessing that Ben doesn't speak French. If he does and I'm wrong, je lui rends hommage. But, I would put money down that he doesn't. Why you might ask? Because instead of having a single word spoken by the subjects being filmed (despite this shot, Affleck was not the DP) he runs the Stones' "Gimme Shelter" as a soundtrack. Now, that's a great song and it would seem to be more than fitting given that the UNHCR does indeed give shelter (as well as food, water, basic medical care, and varied degrees of security), but again, it strays in to the gaping void that is Western objectification of a downtrodden people.       America is a damned fine country in that when we set our minds on doing something, we make it happen. I mean, we defeated Nazis, split the atom, went to the moon, outlasted most of Communism, and elected a (sorta) black president. That's a pretty impressive record despite all the backfires (Great Depression, Nixon, the 80's). But the reason this worked was because it was "us" doing it. We made it personal. The reason that the problems persist in Congo and we're still fighting a war in Iraq is because this strife is remote and/or with people we really don't care about. Affleck's video unfortunately falls prey to this and while it gives a boost to the UNHCR, it does absolutely nothing for the Congolese in the long term. Why were there no interviews? No personal stories? No perspectives of the actual people? You see how people are looking disdainfully at the cameras in so many of the shots? That's because they're freakin' tired of being zoo animals for the Western media to take pity shots off. I'd be tired of that crap too and I wouldn't give a damn if Oscar Winner (for screenwriting let's remember), Ben Affleck was making a five minute pity video about my life, which isn't really going to net me anything but (hopefully) another cup of rice.       I was wondering when Affleck would get on board and start directing his efforts at a specific agency. With this latest move, he has, but why oh freakin' why the UNHCR? I mean, I recognize that the UNHCR does a massive job that is so incredibly difficult most folks can't even comprehend it. Building an emergency city for a fleet of thousands of refugees is absolutely not like building Burning Man. The people coming a refugee camp have nothing and are often sick as opposed to Burners who come in their own cars funded by daddy's Amex.       Read the rest on Subsaharska

Being that I am neither metrosexual nor gay, I read Men's Journal about as often as I get my nails done; ie never. But, apparently in an attempt to get "edgy", in this month's issue, there between Ask Dr. Bob and an article on T. Boone Pickens on Page 60 is an Emile Hirsch's account of traveling to Congo on the protected wings of Oxfam.       Obviously, this is another case of "Celebrity Goes To Africa to Raise Awareness and/or Save African Babies". I don't like these cases. They're a flash in the pan and then they're gone. People forget about what whomever it was, was talking about when they did that thing that was... you know, somewhere over there.       Read the whole article at Subsaharska.

On November 21 at 21:00, Radio Okapi journalist Didace Namujimbo was shot and killed in Bukavu, Congo DRC. It's not only a tragic affront to freedom of the press (DRC is in the lower 15% of the world) but sad to me as I had met Didace on my trip to DRC this year. I can't speak French, so our conversation was quite brief, but he was one of those people who exuded a warmth from him. He was also a father and sadly whomever shot him leaves behind a wife and three children.       Of course, I could on about this. I could eulogize and wax about how sad this is. I'm not going to though because the real crime in all of this is the complete lack of balance in media when it comes to DRC and Sub-Saharan Africa at large. Yes, Reuters picked the story and of course MONUC has an article, but there is nothing on BBC or CNN about it. While this may change once the reporters wake up after the weekend, it currently sits that all they're talking about is the conflict up in North Kivu. And it's not like that conflict is raging. There is currently a ceasefire, so Didace was killed on what is in reality a slow news day.       Anyone reading this is more than likely aware of the fact that news coverage in Africa is quite poor, but what irks me beyond everything else is that this is just viewed as "normal". What do you expect, they're savages there, right? Wrong. Bukavu is not Goma. It is not a violent area. It's calm, beautiful, and about as normal as any town can be. This assassination has just come up from nowhere, much as the previous one a year ago. But again, in Western eyes, this is normal.       Congolese have every right to be affronted by such an assumption. If they keep up with European media, they too could assume that Europe is a violent place full of "savages". I bring to light, Ivo Pukanić who I wrote about here and here. He was a journalist killed by a car bomb last month in Croatia. No matter how you want to argue it, these two murders are exactly the same. Ivo and Didace were both journalist, both killed by others trying to silence them, and more importantly both human beings. Yet, for Ivo there was news coverage all over Europe as well as in the US because it was viewed as "shocking". For Didace, nothing. A couple of minor blips on some blogs here and there. Just a normal day in the Heart of Darkness. Is it time for another trip to Panzi?       We have to stop viewing Africa as a less-than continent where killing is expected given the circumstances. We have to understand that foreign journalists are not serving the citizens of Africa. They are serving Western media conglomerates who work to glorify the violence and not tell the stories. Lastly, we have to understand that we are directly responsible for all of this. There are great swaths of minerals in central Africa that everyone wants to control and profit from. This want causes conflict which then causes a good person like Didace Namujimbo who was just doing his job to be killed all in the name of our being able to buy the next iPhone.       This article is cross posted on Subsaharska

Ben Affleck is in Congo again. He was already there a few months ago and ended up creating a short piece that was aired on American primetime television. Affleck is definitely one of the least annoying celebrities to hit Africa this year, especially when compared to that jaunty Rankin fellow as he keeps going back. But even still, what is he doing there? He claims to be trying to draw attention to the region; a region that if anything, is not lacking for attention, as opposed to clean drinking water which they could use just a dash more of. So what is it? Simply put, Affleck is obviously embarking on Celebrity Humanitarian Fashion Education.       While not the best acronym, CHFE is incredibly crucial to all celebrities that want to journey to a crisis-stricken region and have it be known that they do indeed care as you can see in the way they dress that they're ready for anything. It is critical not to make a fashion faux pas like she did. Those sunglasses may block the equatorial sun that is indeed strong (I got knocked down for three days with sunstroke after being an idiot) but they're just too fancy and out of touch. They're not a classic Ray Ban or other "rugged" travel sunglasses. No, Affleck is on to something here and he's going to get a lot of recognition for it. All the Paris Hiltons will never be caught offguard again and for that, the celebrity world will be ever so thankful. The actual people living in Africa? Well, there is so much hope and they're such survivors, that they'll probably just manage.       Cross posted on Subsaharska

DR Congo is in the news a lot lately. Rebel General Laurent Nkunda has been firing up the warfare again in the eastern part of the country, a bit to the north of where I visited a few months ago. This history behind all of this is complex. I thinks it's about as complex as the Yugoslavian wars, except with a helluva lot more acronyms and long names to remember. So, it's probably worth clearing up a few things. First, if you hear 'Congo' in the news, it is always DRC. The other Congo is much smaller, to the north of the big one, was a French colonial, and has Brazzaville as a capital, not Kinshasa. It has problems as well, but nothing to the scale of big Congo, which was also the Belgian one by the way.       With that out of the way, it's probably best to kick out a few links that do a much better job of explaining things than I could ever hope to. I think that my Yugoslavia explanation is pretty tight at the moment, but Congo is just too twisted up for me to break down succinctly and I feel like I'd be doing a massive disservice to the millions of people who have died in this devolving twistedness. If you do want something that's a quicker read though, take a look at this BBC article. It doesn't cover as much history as needed, but it gives a decent rundown for someone who wants to be a little more knowledgeable, but not annoyingly so.       For everyone who wants to really bug the crap out of people with details at your next soiree, yet offer a solid alternative to US political discussions, I turn to Wronging Rights. Their shit is in depth and I'm told they hold their liquor like coal miners. They also happen to be that rare example of the "good lawyer" that works in human rights instead of digging around in the pockets of insurance companies. So if you really want to dig in to Congolisciousness read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4. They infuse a good deal of sarcasm in there that makes the reading not just an endless rant of dates and biznak. Party, party!       This article is cross posted on Subsaharska

First off, any photographer, writer, musician, artist, or pizza delivery guy that goes by one name like Rankin does, is bound to be an ass and a bit out of touch with the "real" world. By "real" world, I mean the one in which people like you and I watch things called, "Real World" because our lives are so inordinately mundane. Now, these one named people love to do things to show that they do in fact "get it" and obviously Rankin has done such an event or I wouldn't be bothering to write about him.       Twiddling his thumbs in what I'm sure is a sunny, West End breakfast nook one day, Rankin apparently got the idea to go to DR Congo and photograph people living in Mugunga refugee camp. You can take a look at the photos. They're good photos as would be expected from a high end fashion photographer. The thought behind them was to shoot the subjects in a high fashion manner so that people could better relate to them. This is of course where the controversy started because this is asinine. They're human beings. We can relate to them no matter what. But such is the generally inept approach toward Africa. If you feel like reading more commentary, then take a look at: Uganda Scarlett Lion, Wronging Rights, and to a lesser extent Chis Blattman. These are all excellent blogs by the way, which are worth reading on a regular basis unless of course you don't like sarcasm, in which case, what the hell are you doing reading my blog?       In my mind, a better approach would have been for Rankin to "arm" locals in the area with cameras and help them to shoot what they see from their vantage. While the photos wouldn't be artistic at first, they would be honest. Rankin's work is not honest. It's a fabrication and when something is fabricated through a camera, I can't stand it. It's one of the few mediums we have that allows us a window on to another time or place that we don't immediately have access to. This is the point of it; all else is secondary. If we're to "understand the plight" of the people living in the Kivus, then we really need to actually see people living in region and know who they are. As it is, this seems like an anthropological documentation of a foreign species. It fails on all levels except getting Rankin press and making him feel like he did some good by being there for two weeks.       This article is cross posted on Subsaharska

Sometime back, when preparing for my maiden voyage to DR Congo, I wrote about the Bradt Congo guidebook. It has the distinction of being the only recently-printed guidebook on Democratic Republic of the Congo as well as the Republic of Congo. It's also the only one in English that is current, being that Lonely Planet's 'Zaire' guide is a bit out of date. Now that I am back from gallivanting around DR Congo, I can give the book its due.       The author, Sean Rorison has done a fine job of covering a massive area with poor transportation and next to no infrastructure. As I mentioned in the previous article, he doesn't mess around when talking about the situation there. He goes in to great detail of all the restaurants, hotels, and history really well. The background provided in the book is a great summation of the history and current situation of DR Congo that prepares the traveler for what they are about to experience once setting foot in the country.       Of course, DR Congo it's not for the easygoing traveler who thinks that Prague is really crazy to visit because it's "scary" Eastern Europe. Unlike a book on say, Hawaii, Rorison doesn't work to sell the reader the destination but actually prepare them for the trip. In essence, it does what a lot of guidebooks are missing the point of doing these days (I'm looking at you, Fodors).       It lays out pretty much everything that's touristic to see in any of the towns, which is not that much. It also gets in to the practical aspects of getting around the country, which are not easy. This is one point that might need to be developed more in a future edition (if there is one) is that one of the only airlines that was safe to fly on, Hewa Bora, has not really ever been that safe to fly on and got a whole lot less safe in April and should not be flown on if one enjoys living.       Other basics are covered well, including hospitals (try not to go), women travelers (not advised to go solo), embassies (register with yours there), and Article 15 (a remnant of Mobutu times that is an unstated law essentially allowing mass corruption). That being said, there are a few things that could be done to spruce the book up a bit. One thing is to go in to better detail on budgeting. While costs are always changing (getting more expensive), I can't see how you can survive in a place like Kinshasa on $40 a day. A hotel that's at a high enough level to avoid getting scabies is a minimum of $70 a night. Food can be cheap, but one must be willing to adventure a little.       There really needs to be a bigger section on the N'Djili Airport in Kinshasa. That's a wacky place that's not the easiest thing to navigate. While getting better, it's still not like any typical concept of an airport that most anyone from the US or Europe will be used to. Additionally, just getting to and from it is an ordeal that isn't given enough print in the book. The same should be said of the airport in Bukavu, although to lesser degrees.       Another thing that would really help is to lay out itineraries in the various areas. Congo isn't like European destinations wherein spare time can be filled by just wandering the city. It takes a long time to get anywhere and do anything there, so you really need to be pretty anal retentive when making plans, unless of course you just want to sit around in cafes watching the hustle and bustle, which will inevitably happen even if you don't intentionally plan it.       Obviously, one can't cover everything and it's good to see that Rorison mentioned Patisserie Nouvelle in Kinshasa, but he missed the restaurants of Surcouf and Chantilly which are great spots. And while the coverage of Uvira is far too short, he does a good job with Bukavu and an even better job with Goma, as well as an entire section just on the Ruwenzori Park. I really enjoyed the sidebar on, "Where t-shirts go to die", which is a good read and very true if you're ever curious as to where your donated clothing ends up in the world.       The one gleaming thing that is nearly not covered at all are the expats. I assume that this must be the author's and the editor's decision, as it's an aspect of DR Congo that is unavoidable. The book doesn't really get in to how the UN (as well as other NGO's) blanket the country and you will most definitely run in to expats as there are literally thousands of them in the country. I can understand that when writing a guidebook to a country that you want to talk more about the country than those who outsiders to it, but unlike expats in Spain, those in Congo are really part of the whole writhing mess that is Congo. They can also be a good source for local information for first timers to the country as well.       But in closing, despite my small nitpicks, this is a great guide to the Congos. Rorison and Bradt could have easily have done a half-assed job since they're heading in to a region that has next to no competition, but in the end, they produced a very worthy guide that is a gleaming example of what Bradt does best in that they cover regions that are undiscovered.                     

It's not a lie that DR Congo is a fashionable tragedy story as of late. Celebrities and others have latched on to it as a way to get their name out as doing good in the world by bringing light to the issues there. Well, add to that list one Ben Affleck whose reportage appeared on ABC last month.       In all fairness, Ben's work is pretty good when taken from the perspective that an American was responsible for it. If you want to judge for yourself before reading more, you can watch Part 1 and Part 2.       Finished watching? Okay, good because I wanted to say that there is something of an honesty to this piece that he spearheaded. You get the feeling that he is a person with the means to do pretty much whatever he wants and he was curious about DR Congo, so he went there to actually try to understand, which is something most people don't do. He covers the country (mostly the east) from the viewpoint of what he sees. He even tries to put a positive message at the end by saying that there is hope, which of course there is, because there is always hope.       That being said, this report says nothing new. Much like the flood of redundant coverage of Panzi Hospital, Affleck is treading on a path worn deeply by those who have come before him. Maybe this reaches out to Americans somehow as Ben is a big name and he might appeal to the everyday person more than someone from academic or NGO circles. But the one really big point in all of this and why it is so unabashedly American is that the subjects of the video are not allowed to speak in their own voices. Ben becomes a mouthpiece for them, guiding we the viewers. Much like Lisa F. Jackson, no matter what good intentions he may have had when starting the project it comes across as Ben Affleck wanting to show what Ben Affleck can do and what place Ben Affleck went to. At one point, he even seems to me to come across as falling prey to the, "I'm here to save African babies!" syndrome that many who visit the region do.       I do respect what Ben is trying to do, but it's a shame that some of these things happened. I don't know if he watched work like Lumo or Darwin's Nightmare before going, but there is a lot to be learned from films like these. They allow the narration and story to happen from the subjects of the film and thus, it's much more engrossing and powerful work.       There are other little bits that I didn't like in how this story was presented, but they are quite subjective, so I won't get in to them unless people feel like commenting. I just really wish that people could get Bernard Kalume's job title correct though. Bernard is the fellow helping Ben with translations out in the bush. He is not a "contractor with the UN". He is a fulltime employee with the UN who friends of mine know well and I would have met had he still been in Bukavu and not up in Goma. I'm told that he's a great and extremely capable guy who speaks English, French, Swahili, and Kinyar Rwanda. In short, he's very smart and does his job well. Yet, he never gets credited as being a fulltime employee. The only reason that this must be the case is because it would paint the UN in a light that was less than negative and we just couldn't have that now, could we?

One topic that I haven't touched on too much yet revolves around all the expats who are living and working DR Congo. It's a screwy thing that I've only started to have a couple contiguous of thoughts about it. Let's start with what's good about the people living in DR Congo.       For one, this is a country that is tough to live in. Beyond the diseases, poverty, and hellish climate (mostly in the west) these are people that have given a chunk of their lives to try and improve the situation in Congo whether through MONUC, Doctors Without Borders, the Red Cross, USAID, Oxfam, or any other number of aid agencies that are operating in DR Congo. Even if people come with the delusion of grandeur that they're going to be saving African babies from the ravages of war, they are still coming to help. This puts them in a class that's above and beyond the vast majority of the rest of us from First World countries who might donate a little bit of money here and there to these causes if we're feeling really generous. This is what is good about these people and a great many of them work for next to no money when they come, so it really is altruistic and genuine.       Then of course there is the bad side, which I can unfortunately spend a great deal more time on. The worst offenders are the full timers for the UN and foreign embassy staff. Those at the embassies are these banal people with no character or life to them. They epitomize the worst of civil servants, except that they love to get massively drunk and lead these dull lives firmly clutched in their compounds and protected areas free of the country that surrounds them. They earn their large salaries and after a few years, they go to another country to repeat the same thing or they go home to do god knows what, since they're most likely not going to earn what they earn when at the embassies.       But, these embassy people came to DR Congo just for the money, which doesn't excuse the way they act, but explains it to a large degree. Those in the UN generally started off with the assumption that they were there to help. Many came in on the UN Volunteer program which are a group that earn very little and work quite hard. Of these people it seems that there are those that came because they wanted to work in Congo and be part of affecting change. Then there are those that came in to be a UNV just so that they could eventually weasel their way in to a permanent position, which pays exceeding well. While not the case or everyone, a permanent staff for the UN can make upwards of $12,000-15,000 a month. Those who are smart, save this money, and work to eventually move to other missions in the UN. Those who aren't so smart spend like maniacs. They contribute to the fact that it costs more to live in a sinkhole of a town like Kinshasa than in Paris. They create a market for houses that cost $8,000 a month because they want to spend that much to feel "comfortable" because they are under the impression that they've earned this.       Beyond the fact that they earn a lot (MONUC does costs one billion dollars a year to run) is the fact that at a certain point whether it be pay level, career level, or just the amount of years spent in Congo, the permanent staff all seem to swallow the UN Coolaid and fall prey to the premise that the UN is making huge changes in the country. In truth, the changes are small, yet I would never say that Congo could better off without the UN. It's just that measuring the success of the mission by the fact that the Congolese don't throw rocks at UN vehicles anymore is pretty sad.       Life for typical Congolese is not easy and I would never propose that an expat attempt to live as they do. But, this life of living in compounds and being completely isolated from the population of the country creates an unavoidable rift that in my opinion makes it impossible for the UN mission to function within any frame of reality. Sure the staff go on missions to make their never-ending onslaught of reports, but then they come back to their cocoon that cushions from the harsh reality of a rough country.       Many people are burned out. Somewhere around two years seems to be the regular amount of time that people stay in Congo before they can't take it anymore and have to leave. So many don't leave though and stay on for five years or even more. Their reason for staying is that they just don't know what they're going to do next, which has to be one of the worst reasons to stay on at a job and it sure as hell isn't doing the Congolese any good. The money is just too much to leave and the lifestyle is one that none of these people could afford to keep in First World countries. A great many of them are after all living in former Mobutu-ist mansions.       My frustrations with all of this are not atypical. Everyone there is aware of it, but once again, they do little to avoid it because that would mean leaving Congo. It's to a point where if some producer were really crafty, making a Real World or Big Brother or Surreal Life type reality show about a group of expats working in DR Congo would be really compelling. They could cover the Idealistic Newcomer, the Burnout, the Networker, the Partier, the Embassy Man, the Undying Savior, and a slew of other types that all seem to wend their way around this country. Are they "saving" it? Not really, but they are providing some form of stability that will hopefully start creating a stable society upon which one of Africa's largest and most wealthy countries can emerge stronger.

Prior to heading to DR Congo, I kept thinking in the back of my mind, "Sweet pounding hammers and smashing saws, this country must have the mothers of all pravs. Years of corruption, neglect of basic public works, and cars that were the living dead must have created the ultimate hotbed of pravs for the entire world." Upon arrival, the praving part of my brain was overloaded and just sorta fried. The whole damned country is one continuous prav, but it continues in such a way that I could never really figure out a way to capture these things in photos. I mean, how do you capture something that's infinite? It hurts the mind when you follow some wiring for an air conditioning unit that has been punched through a glass window, to then be draped over the outside balcony and fastened to the building with the wiring for something on the floor below, that then loops back up to have a cellphone antenna powered off of it, only to then come back in to the apartment through a crack in the ceiling and be surface-wired in to an "electrical box" above the couch. Or what about the photocopier guys out in the street who hardwired their machines in to the wiring for the street lamps?       I just couldn't do it. I couldn't document all of this. Sure, I got one of two shots off of self-contained pravs as you can see below, but there was no way I was going to shoot everything I saw, especially since photos were problematic. But then it dawned on me that this really wasn't praving. The Congolese did the pravs that they did because that's all they had to work with. To pick at the work they did would be like making fun of someone eating a bowl of rice because they only have rice to eat. In a word, it's arrogant.       I now understand that praving is praving because a person fixes something in such a way that is completely half-assed and in blatant disregard to the proper way to fix it that is indeed available. For instance, why did my father repair the water main to his house with a radiator hose when he had undue access to proper pipe? Simple. The man was a Croatian praver. But, why does a Congolese cut holes in the side of his van for windows? Simple. He needs to be able to have people breathe so that he can drive the car around as a taxi and make some sort of a living. If this work was done in Europe or the US (and we actually did have a van that was like this when I was growing up) it would be and is a prav. When done in a place like DR Congo, it's just survival and to a large degree, I actually respect what people do there despite the fact that they have access to so little.