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.       The UNHCR has also done an atrocious job at times. In the Yugoslavian Wars, they helped the Serbs (unknowingly) in ethnically cleansing the Bosniaks out of Bosnia. While the collective, "Oh, seriously, our bad on that one" doesn't hold water, you'd think that would have learned and just a scant few three years later, they wouldn't set up a refugee camp that ended up (unknowingly) becoming the base of the Hutu genociders, from which they were able to emerge a regrouped and more powerful force. The "unknowingly" aspect to what the UNHCR does is pretty typical. They just plunk down in an area and don't really spend the resources needed to know what is really happening on the group. They claim that this is because they have to remain neutral and provide aid to all who need it, but in reality it makes them often guilty of helping the wrong side. These things happen I suppose.       The issue in the Afflecks and Jolies doing all this "work" for the UNHCR is that for better or worse, it's an agency that's going to stay with us forever. No matter how much positive or negative light is shined its way, nothing will really change it. They only move in to an area when the shit builds up so much you don't even know that there was fan under that pile to start with. And when they do move in, there will always be the money from foreign governments to take care of these issues. You see, it's the least they could do, since they don't work to actually stop the refugee problems before they start. In not even a perfect and more poignant world, the UNHCR would be completely unneeded.       So, the real problem in all of this is that Affleck's energy is still massively misdirected. I feel bad, since I can see he's really and truly making an effort to help and as opposed to what Jolie does, there is no glitterati element to this. He's out on the ground trying something, although because obviously no one close enough to him is educated enough in the issues, his shots aren't long enough on the subjects to reveal what a delightful people the Congolese are and how these constant stories of suffering only work to boost short term aid projects and not long term development work.       

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.       But to just blindly say that Hirsch is an ass would be arrogant and childish. In his account, he is very honest about what he saw, what he knew going in, and what he got coming out. He was only there for five days, but he saw a lot. Of course, given such a short amount of time and such vast ground that he was covering around the Kivus, one could say that it was all pointless. But, what good does that do? Sure, it doesn't really help anyone and I don't really support celebrities doing this, but on some level he is trying do something, although like Ben Afflecks out there, the energy is largely misdirected. For better or worse, I can say that I've read the whole article and here are a few of the things that stuck out.

And I'm reading these pages and thinking about the $600 in 20s and 50s I was told to carry for "security reasons"...

      Someone really told him wrong on this front. First of all, it's a cash economy and one that runs on external cash (dollars or euros) at that. Your day to day needs are going to have to be met solely with the cash that you bring in. $600 would probably be more than enough to cover his five days there given that his stay was taken care of by Oxfam. But the "security reasons" part was laughable. First, there was no way anything was going to happen to Hirsch and secondly, if it did, $600 was going to do little to make things better.

As we wait on the runway, Lyndsay points to a demolished plane nearby. Two months ago it crashed as it tried to take off, catching fire and killing 21 people. Gulp.

      Why "gulp"? That was a pathetic sub-contractor airline of the slightly less, yet still completely, abysmal Hewa Bora airline. Again, there was no way Oxfam was going to toss Hirsch on anything close to resembling a Hewa Bora flight. Also, that flight crashed in the market nearby (which was the reason for all the ground casualties.) Maybe that was another plane they were referring to as it would seem it wouldn't be where the girl thought it was?

I can't believe it, but he's wearing a Marilyn Manson T-shirt.

      Apparently no one filled him on on the whole t-shirt thing in Africa. Might have been a nice thing for him to know as he could have brought extra clothes to give someone to sell at the local market.

For a boy such as Prince, the support from NGO's represent a chance to take his destiny into his own hands. And for a rape victim such as Kimanizani, donations to Oxfam go toward her medical costs and food and give her a chance to rejoin the world.

      I was sorta okay with Hirsch's whole account up to this point. This chunk makes me cringe as it feels like it was written by the marketing people at Oxfam. It cheapens the whole account by him as it makes it suddenly one big sales pitch for throwing more money in to the NGO's that in all truth really aren't making much progress. They're just bandaid solutions to the much bigger issue that the government of Congo and all those in MONUC actually need to actively work for change, which they aren't. Throwing money at Oxfam is not the answer, although I'm sure that readers of this article will see it that way.       The real solution is to educate yourself and not listen to some actor who is being used as a pawn. If you actually know what is going on in Africa (and know much more than Hirsch, whose soundbite history lesson left out France's involvement in the start of the Rwandan Genocide as well as other crucial facts) you are going to understand a lot better what needs to be done. Informed people can actually do something. Otherwise you're just a very obedient sheep foolishly giving your wool to an all too eager recipient who just waits for your next wool to grow in.

Google has released its 2008 Zeitgeist list. This is a list that compiles all the movers and shakers as far as terms go in their search index. In that link you can look through all the results which are, wait for it... amazingly American-centric. I know, I was shocked that 'obama' topped so many of the lists. That's a real stunner.       Of course, the more obvious truth in all of this is that when you get down to it, no one gives a damned about Africa. Despite all everything Mugabe does, the new/old conflict in the DRC, nice solid elections in Ghana, and whatever else, nothing about Africa managed to make the top 10 in the list for any country except South Africa, which is kinda a given. Of course even in the ZA, most of the terms are directed towards American events, places, people, and things. And for other countries, you can take a peek here.       All of this goes to show that yes, it's true that most people in the world don't really care what happens there or more to the point that they care more about information on Sarah Palin. But something that really skews the stats is the fact that Africa has such little internet penetration to the continent in general. South Africa is good, which is why they get a spot on Google's list (as well as the fact that Google probably figures they need to have at least one African country in there).       There is obviously room for improvement, but at the same time, people might want to look at how information is being spread about Africa. It is true that most people don't care what happens in the "dark continent", but at the same time Western media is doing little to help them care more. Stories about violence and tragedy only alienate the people in Africa more. We need more good stories and more real stories about everyday life.       For 2009, I'm sure there will be more of this to some degree though, at least out of Europe as the World Cup is going to be hosted in South Africa, which is the first time the Cup will be played on Africa in all its history. Hajdemo Hrvatska! Just had to get that out of the way right now ;)

Today is Human Rights Day, which under the title "Every human has rights" marks the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It's very hard to pick a photo to illustrate this, because in Congo it was always the children that got me. In the end I chose one that is a very bad picture but that has a story behind it that I'd like to share.       These are two doctors at Panzi hospital in Bukavu trying to save the life of a newborn baby that was extremely sick because the mother gave birth literally in the bush without any kind of medical assistance or higienic conditions. She was from a village in the Walungu territory that had been attacked several times by FDLR militias, and the baby was the result of a brutal rape. She didn't want to speak about the baby or his birth, which happened a few days back. During the few hours we were in the car with her to take them to a hospital in Bukavu she refused to hold him. She was very young and seemed under shock.       A few hours after the photo was taken the baby died in the hospital. He didn't even have a name.

Since I have hundreds of pictures of the DRC in my hard drive in need of sorting out, I thought I would start a photo of the day series to give me an excuse to put some order.       The first one was taken in Bukavu on the African children day, the 16th of June 2006, and all the kids in the photo are orphans form a neighboring village. I remembered this photo reading on the blog Jewels in the Jungle a quote from Swedish writer Henning Mankell, author of I die, but the memories live on about HIV in Africa :

We know everything about how Africa is dying but we know very little about how Africa is living.

I started blogging in January 2005, as a way to kill time while doing an unpaid internship in a stuffy intergovernmental organization in which I didn't have much to do besides sitting all day in an office that I shared with the uptight wife of a British diplomat. Fortunately, only a couple of months later I was offered a job in the DR Congo and then all of a sudden life became a lot more exciting. Every minute of the day seemed to be blog-worthy and I also met a few other expat bloggers like me, with whom I seemed to have so much in common. Most of them blogged in English, except one or two in French, and I stuck to Spanish to share all those new experiences with my family and friends back home. Every time I sat in front of the computer, all sorts of stories popped into my head and I never had a shortage of blogging material. I also got into taking photos of every detail that caught my attention, and I often felt like I was recording things that had never been recorded before.       Once I left the DRC I kept blogging about Africa because I felt like I still had hundreds of stories to share, and because the list of stupid questions people asked me about Congo or Africa in general just seemed too much. I had become what Ethan Zuckerman calls a xenophile (I had lost the certainty that my home culture was the “right way” to think about the world). Moreover, I wanted to show people different sides of Africa other than those in the nine o'clock news, other than war, humanitarian crises, disease and famine.       But having moved to the US I also wrote about my impressions of the country as a Spaniard, or about my holidays, or anything that I felt like writing since that's what a personal blog is all about. I had some regular commentors, mostly Spanish mothers that had adopted African babies and a couple of Spanish expats living in the US. In the rare occasions someone included my blog in a blogrolls it was always described as "a Spaniard in the US" or "the blog of a traveler", and I started fearing like nobody read my posts about Africa, I started feeling like I was talking in the void. I started to be discouraged and became more of a reader than a blogger.       Three years and three blogging platforms later, I have now decided to switch to English and to focus on a single topic, the one that absorbes most of my time and my attention. Africa. Which is not really a single topic, I know, since it encompasses so many countries, so many topics and so many issues, but you get what I mean -no more blogging about The Onion, Lolcats or annoying American habits. I decided I wanted to participate in the global blogging conversation about Africa. Which sadly it is still mostly in English. That doesn't mean that I like it or that I won't continue to blog in Spanish from time to time, but that I got tired of not being able to engage in dialogue with my favorite blogs out there (and, between us, I also got a bit tired of the navel-gazing of the Spanish blogosphere).       I haven't been blogging much during the last couple of months besides some roundups for Global Voices, that I've been copying here. But I still feel the need to read, write, engage, communicate, bridge the gap, reflect about Africa through blogging. The other day I collected a few African bloggers' opinions on why they blog about Africa, following a meme started by ivorian blogger Téophile Kouamou. For me it's simple: to be able to share stories such as the one below:              (video found via Africa is a country)

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.       It appears that once done with their weekending, the BBC has gotten around to a scant two sentence mention of Didace.

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.

As I was traveling a bit last weekend, taking the metro, train, and a bus connection in California, I watched a number of kids riding along with me and using their mobiles in a way that I usually don't in that they were texting heavily. Instead of blathering on the phone like so many people I know usually do (including myself at times), they just kept pinging text messages back and forth during their whole ride. Now, these kids had some of the latest mobiles with touchscreens and ridiculous ringtones that would play a full song when they had an incoming message, but what I was amazed at was how able they were with texting. One was using T9 and the other was using multi-tap to put in their messages. Both were just as fast as each other and were able to do this with one hand, whereas I need both my thumbs in there for any amount of speed.       But what really got me was that despite all the fancy junk that keeps getting slapped on to mobiles, it keeps coming back to the basics that I've seen in Africa in that everyone really wants a two-way text pager. In Western countries, we keep buying new mobiles that are basically worthless gadgets. I know there have been cries by a lot of folks to offer a mobile that is a simple B&W screen, rugged, and has endless battery life. While I think we all regret tossing out older mobiles (I miss my S40), people living in Sub-Saharan Africa are a lot smarter, hanging on to, fixing and continuing to use these older mobiles. Sure, there is the issue that it's done out of a cost issue, but really, when it comes down to it, a Nokia 1200 or a Nokia 3410 have to be some of the best phones suited for these areas, especially Central Africa.       It's not just the Africans using these types of phones I might add. People working for the UN and other NGO's fall back on them as well. They stand up to the environment, perform well, and hang on to battery life for a long time in an area where power can be scarce. Good luck keeping an iPhone running anywhere except in a capital like Kinshasa, Kampala, or Kigali. Of course, this isn't lost on foreign-based companies like CCT (Congo China Telecom) who offer a very simple phone for $20 USD that meets all the criteria of these older mobiles that keep circulation the region. What I regret even more than selling my S40 was not picking up one of these phones. While they are locked in to CCT, they're a very interesting example of the innovation that takes place in Sub-Saharan Africa due to environmental needs rather than by consumerist want. The big GSM Association conferences may take place in Barcelona, but the place where the most useful implementation of mobile technology is happening, is in Sub-Saharan Africa. I'll bet that whatever Web 3.0 application start popping up in the next couple of years will be based on something that happened in there first.