Flying for Kosovo

I reached Cotonou (the coastal town in Benin where all of the major facilities and international airport are located) in the early evening and tried to find a hotel somewhere near the city center so that I could get things done faster in the morning and not have to drive for miles and miles wasting time. This was when I found out the hard way that the traffic at night in the capital is miserable. This seems to be a common theme in these West African countries and so is the common shortage of electricity. But when you are a visitor like me, you only find this out when you end up in the middle of a blackout.

The hotel I found was okay, except that I started freaking out when I saw all of those mosquito’s flying around all over the place. The more I travel in Africa, the more paranoid I become ever time I see a little mosquito because I am worried to death about catching malaria. Since the disease is carried by mosquito’s, I am constantly spraying myself with bug spray and praying like heck that I don’t get bitten! So I beg the reception desk here at the hotel for some bug spray so that I could spray my room and go out for a few hours until the poison has killed off the mosquito’s and faded away, otherwise you have a big mosquito like me dying in there.

The next morning, I wake up early and find a taxi. Here we go, off and running again. Since it’s the end of the year, I need to get stuff done quickly before they close everything down for the holiday. Thanks to my new friend, taxi driver Michael Bidouzo, I am being driven around from media house to media house for my interviews. Thanks to God that the main language here is French. At least I was able to converse with everyone.

The first media person that I meet is from the newspaper L’Autre Quotidien. Mr. Brathier Leon was wonderful to spend time with. He wrote an excellent article that was published the very next morning. I learned a lot from him and always find it interesting when I am able to see the world through the perspective of someone else. Even though we are from different countries on different continents, Mr. … is an educated man who shares the same principles that I do about wanting to live happy and free. What a great conversation we had. He had a very interesting view of Russian politics, explaining that Putin and Medvedev were running the government over there like political gymnasts, switching places all of the time to accommodate the outside world.

Thanks to the rest of my media friends who did interviews and are now friends of the Kosovar people: Maximin Tchibozo, Director of Publications at Le Matinal, who authorized Mr. Wilfred Noubadan to give me an interview; Mr. Samuel Amoussou and Eric Djekpe who were very nice at the newspaper, Le Beninois Libere; Chimelle Gandonou and Euloge Rolland Gandaho with the newspaper Le Matin; the excellent team of journalists at the Ocean FM Radio 88.7, Ms. Carine Doukloui and Mr. Ricardo Loic Kpekow; Ms. Sonia Megbemadu, who organized an interview with the funniest and greatest team at Golfe television, Mr. Rock Williams Segnissou and Gaston T. Afaduhouande (who, in less than a few hours, had our mission and our request to the government of Benin transmitted on the evening news); and finally, Andre Dossa and Imourane Issifou with the Canal 3 TV of Benin.

After meeting with the media, I was able to meet with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs himself, Mr. Jean-Marie Ehouzou who is a very humble man who took me into his office with no pre-arranged appointment. I was able to hand deliver Vlora Citaku’s letter to him as he was explaining his government’s position on Kosovo and the reasons that Benin has not recognized us yet. He mentioned that he was following our progress closely and personally agrees with our independence. He did mention, though, that there are some reasons that he had to wait a little longer and that Serbia and Russia, were also (of course) trying hard to lobby against it, which we already know.

The people of Benin are very nice. They appear open-minded and very aware of world affairs. Cotonou seems to have a very nice infrastructure, much better than some other West African countries and they are right on the coast, so the view was also beautiful. But aside from the main cities (Contonou and Porto-Novo), most of the country relies on subsistence farming (with the tropical climate down here, they are able to produce a lot of cotton to export). Though this country has a little ways to go to catch up with more developed countries, I see a lot of motivation in the local people to make they country progress.

I’m happy that I was able to make some excellent accomplishments in Benin. I learned a lot from these wonderful people. Good luck to the great people of Benin.

Time to change countries again. Next up: Mali.

L’AUTRE 1, 2 PDF