Flying for Kosovo

Back when I left Zambia, it was a wetter, tropical climate.  The farther towards Gaberone I have flown it has become more dry.  Even at the slow speed of our turtle plane, I am able to see these huge changes within a 7-8 hour flight.  I am now starting to see land that looks like it could be from the Sahara Desert.  The natural beauty fascinates me.  Many times I have try to memorize the topography as I go along.  I want to remember it all – what the land and geography of each place was like.

Down below I notice that things are starting to looking very remote and isolated.  I see a few mining locations here and there and a few ranches strewn about, but most of it is no man’s land.  Communications with the air traffic controllers sometimes doesn’t even exist for hours at a time.  This definitely could be an ugly situation if I were to have any technical problems.  Right now, I’m thinking about how grateful I am that I was able to fuel up on quality AVGAS back in Zambia and that the plane has no more mechanical problems.  Otherwise, I would make a nice lunch for our friend the Lion King.

During this flight, I have been able to fly near several different territorial airspaces.  Because I did not get pre-approval to fly over Zimbabwe, I had to instead fly around their boundaries and head in a more southwest direction.  At one point, I was literally in the middle of four different airspaces.  Behind me lay Zambia, ahead of me Botswana.  To my right was Namibia and on my left, Zimbabwe.  What a strange feeling to be right in the middle of four different countries.  And to top it off, not far to my right was also the Angolan airspace.

Needless to say, before touching land here in Botswana, I already feel at peace.  Just knowing that I’m dealing with friendlier aviation officials makes me excited to be here.  I am in love with this country already, especially with all of the knowledge that I have gained about it from local people already.  I already know that I’m going to a place known for big, wild animals can be hunted for game.  I know that this country is just a little bit smaller than Texas, but that it only has about half of the people that we do in Kosovo.  The landscape here is very much like it would be in the New Mexico, Arizona and Texas area of the USA.  The big difference of course, is that the US doesn’t have a lot of rhinos and elephants running around like they do here.

It feels good just to be able to enjoy nature up here in our plane and not have to deal with any of the details that you do on the ground.  Even despite some of the suffering that our trip entails, I often stop to think just how grateful I am to be able to experience so many wonderful places and locations on this wonderful planet earth that we live.  Like now – I am a few hours outside of Gaberone and spot some wildlife underneath my wings.  I fly lower so that I can check it out and low and behold, I see ostriches.  It surprised me to see them and I laughed out loud because here I thought that ostriches were some big bird that only lived in Australia.  I never dreamed that I would see them here in Africa, but there they are, a bunch of them down there, just enjoying nature  So many groups of them down there just running around wild and free all over the place.

I can already tell that I wouldn’t mind visiting here as a tourist.  It’s a sad story that I can’t stay here longer to experience ‘real’ Africa.  I’ll be sure to do in the next time around when I don’t have other important obligations to fulfill.  The locals tell me that there are a lot of big wild animals here to hunt and I would love to see more of them.  I hear that there are a lot of game reserves down here that you can pay big money to visit.

A lot of those reserves are inside the great Kalahri Desert, which is over 350 square miles large) and covers much of Botswana and even parts of Namibia and South Africa.  There are some animals and plants that live inside the area because it’s not all a true desert.  Surrounding the actual Kalahari is the Kalahari Basin which covers another 970,000 square miles (that’s about as big as the Sudan, or the Mediterranean Sea).  That makes tons of room here for animal to roam around and not be bothered.  I hear that there are also many kinds of birds and reptiles here, and things like lions, elephants, giraffes, warthogs, antelope – even animals like  hyenas and camel.  No wonder people have been hunting here or 20,000 years or so.

Though definitely not due to the climate, this place reminds me a lot of where I lived in Alaska when I was working as a bush pilot.  Up there, you could also fly for hours and not see one single person on the ground below.  Also like Alaska, there are many wild animals and people still live off of the land.  Up there, it was the Eskimo cultures that existed for thousands of years and down here there are Bushmen, or San people with a similar culture of kinship.

The local tribes here still live in a very primitive way, sometimes using tools that have existed for thousands of years.  The local housing is usually a hut of some sort and the most important thing in daily living is finding food and water.  Like many native people, the San people have recently been asked to relocate away from the land and move into settlements.  There has been a lot of disagreement about that down here and both sides have argued about the ability of the native people to hunt within land that has been deemed a reserve.  The Bushmen have legally won back their right to hunt, but in 08 the United Nations Human Rights Council still criticized Botswana’s government for not allowing certain bushmen to return.  On top of that, there’s also been  a lot of fighting over water since the government initially prohibited access to it during the relocation. That right has also been fought for and won back in court.

Other people have also tried to exploit the rights of the local natives.  A pharmecuetical company recently tried to trademark a local plant down there known as hoodia.  There reason: it seems to work for weight loss.  That too, has been argued in the local courts and a benefit-sharing agreement was able to be reached with the San people.

Back to our flight.  I’ve been making good progress today and things have been going well.  As hard as try though, I always seem to be finding myself flying after dark.  Though I get up early and hurry around, by the time I finish at the airport and start my flight, I am often approaching my destination post sunset.  Tonight, it feels okay though because I know that I am flying to a friendly part of the world where laws and aviation have meaning.

The air traffic controllers are friendly already, checking in with me every 10-15 minutes or so as I’m approach an hour or so outside of Gaberone.  I’m impressed to learn that my progress is being tracked by radar.  And just to be nice, the controllers also point out some obstacles that I may encounter next to the airport upon landing. What a treat to be well taken care of my friends.

After my nearly 8 hour flight, I have landed safely on the ground and secured the airplane.  In less than 10 minutes (record time), I am out of the airport and on my way to the hotel.  The customs people were fantastic and I already am starting to get the warm, comforting feeling of good old customer service.  It’s been so long since I’ve experienced  it down here where everyone would like to get your money immediately and send you on your way.

The airport looked great.  Very clean and new looking, functional, high ceilings, electricity and my favorite part: a functional air conditioning system.  If you remember, when I landed in Bangu, Central African Republic it was shocking to know that I had landed in the country’s capital airport and there was no electricity or air conditioning, with only half of the runway lights working on top of it.  I’m pretty grateful right now that Gaberone doesn’t have the electricity shortage that they had, as I am basking in the coolness of the air conditioning.

The taxi ride from the airport was a joy.  I had a strong sense of being in a place like my home in El Paso because of the sights and sounds that I was experiencing.  Since I had heard that the hotels are a bit more expensive here, I opted to head towards a bed and breakfast instead.  It turned out to be an excellent place, very nice looking, secure and comfortable with a great team.  I am again impressed with the focus on customer service.

I needed a good night’s rest before starting work first thing in the morning and I slept like a baby my friends as I fell asleep to the natural sounds of the crickets and birds singing their nightly songs.  What a joy to wake up to as well.  After a great breakfast I was ready to tackle a full day of hard work.

One of the lodge workers had volunteered to drive me around for the day which was very kind of him.  We drove directly to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs so that I could hand deliver Vlora’s letter.  The office team was very friendly and radiated this wonderful energy throughout the entire building.  I was guided toward Mr. Tshepo Mogotsi, the private secretary of the Minister.  He had a wonderful personality and is very down to earth. For being in his early 30’s, I am quite surprised by his knowledge about the world and our country.  He knew our history very well and reports being approached many times already about recognizing our independence.  It was such a pleasure to meet with him, especially knowing that his country has been taking our situation very seriously.  We spent over thirty minutes deeply discussing the details of my country.

It’s the second day that I feel great about being in this country.  The people that I meet continue to be wonderful, they are all so happy and willing to help out with a smile.  I was not disappointed with this when I went to the media.  What an amazing feeling to be in such a liberal country after being in so many of them recently who don’t allow their media to express what they would like without government interference.  Here, the journalists are able to do their job and utilize their knowledge and expertise.

The wonderful team at Gabz radio, 96.2 FM were a happy crowd.  Ms. Tshepo Ntshole and Mr. Thebe Mogapi were able to do a live interview with me, which is always a treat.  Another live interview that I will never forget was with radion Yarona, 106.6 FM.  They were very professional and the team had a lot of energy.  Thank you to the boss, Mr. Uyapo Khupe, the “Big Duke” who authorized my interview with “Ms. B”, Bonolo Seone and “Dollar Mac”, Kgosi Kgosidintsi.  I will remember those two for a long time to come.

The team at Mmegi newspaper were all awesome.  Mr. Titus Mbuya was the managing editor who authorized my interview with another editor and journalist Mr. Tshireletso Motlogelwa and Mr. Ephraim Keoreng.  At the government newspaper The Botswana Daily News, Ms. Amogelang Makgabenyana and Mr. Thamani Shabani were both wonderful.  Thanks also to the editor at Echo Newspaper, Tomeletso Sereets.  He authorized my interview with their reporter Mr. Tshwarelo Motsomi.  Mr. Joseph Tononoka Whande was very knowledgeable about Kosovo at the Sunday Standard newspaper and he assigned news editor Mr. Botlhale Koothupile, who gave me a great and in-depth interview.  Finally, the team at ‘BG’, Botswana Guardian, Mr. Lawrence Tsondai and Ms. Phemelo Ramasu were also quite nice.

It was also a pleasure for me to see the booming construction that is going on in this country.  Though this country is also rich in things like diamonds and minerals (similar to the last few countries that I’ve visited), it is currently trying to broaden it’s focus into becoming a tourist destination and the next innovation hub of Africa.  Unlike some of the other countries with the same type of natural wealth, Botswana has actually chose to help out its people rather than put the profits from those resources into the pockets of its elite.  Instead of all of the money going into an account somewhere in Switzerland or France, half of the mining industry here is owned by the government and they are actually using some of the money to work towards things like conserving the land and address the substantial drought and desertification that the country is currently facing.

Botswana, you have won my heart with your friendly, hard working and service oriented culture.  I have to admit that this is actually the first country since I’ve left Northern Africa where making sure that the customer is taken care of actually has meaning instead of just worrying about getting paid.  This is a remarkable country and one in which I actually wouldn’t mind living for awhile. God Bless you all.

The next country for me will be Namibia.

Mmegi online

Mmegi PDF

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After my mechanical stop in Lubumbashi, I was on my way to Zambia and very excited to hear the sound of my airplane working well again.  Thanks again to the team at ITAB in Lubumbashi for everything that they have done for our mission. 

Compared to my last flight, the flight to Lusaka, Zambia was a short one.  I arrived around noon to find great weather and beautiful countryside.  As I was flying over, I could see lots of farmland and farmers taking care of their crop.  Later I learned that this is typical of rural Zambia.  It’s weather is considered tropical and the rural populations tend to rely on subsistence farming tosurvive. 

What a difference I felt upon landing at this airport.  The runway was excellent and I could already see from the outside that this airport was more modern than the last one.  Once inside it felt like any European airport.  Things seemed to be working well, everything was well kept and clean.  The terminal was modern and everything was well organized.  Such a big difference between two neighboring nations.

In no time I was out of the airport and off to the hotel.  What a joy it was to take a taxi ride to town.  The driver had a uniform on and his car was nearly brand new.  After I arrived at a hotel within my budget, I was off in another taxi to get some work done before days end. 

One thing that I didn’t expect here in Zambia, was to meet people from back home.  Mevilda Jerjlija and Indira Jerlija were wonderful ladies from our country who have been living in this country for about 40 years or so.  What was interesting about meeting them, was that I was reminded yet again that even in Africa, there are people from our country who are successful and work hard to prosper in life.  I never cease learning lots of interesting thigns through my travels, things that I would have never even thought of beforehand.

Things like seeing throughout Africa that ‘Tito’ was quite popular here and seems to be somewhat of a local hero.  Many times now I have seen roads being named after him.  Remember, our former nation was visible around the world back when it was strong enough and at one time had lots of embassies.  Now that we have all split up and Yugoslavia does not exist, Serbia has taken over that real estate and has sold some of it.  Our former embassies are are prime real estate in some countries.  Here in Zambia, I got a chance to visit our land myself and it seems like an excellent location, just closed down and waiting to be sold.  I’m pretty sure that any money that is made through those transactions goes right to Serbia – or do you think that they might split the money with us and the rest of the former Yugoslavia?  What do you think my friends?  I highly doubt that we will ever get anything from that.  Maybe it’s because no one has ever thought about this?  I can imagine that our people and our government might not be aware of such things.

Thanks to all of my media friends and their bosses here in Zambia for their time and dedication towards our cause.  Thank you to the team at Muvi Television: Ms. Corinna Paolini, Mr. Paul Shalala, Zefaniah Zulu, Costa Mwansa, Brian Mwal and Betty Nguluwe.  They all played a big role in talking about Kosovo on their talk show for hours and hours.  They were great about expresssing to their people and our government that the people of Kosovo would like to be accepted as an independenc nation by their country.  Thank you to the local radio station staff: Ms. Monde Phiri with QFM; Mutale Kani with Radio Pheonix 89.5 FM; and Lweendo Himdonde Chiko with Radio 5 FM, 89.9 Mhz.  Thank you to the newspapers:  Charles Musonda with Daily Mail Zambia; thanks to Linda Myondo, David Mataka, Charles Chisala; Elias Shilangwa with Monitor Newspaper Zambia; Roy Habaalu with The Post Newspaper; Obert Simwanza with Times of Zambia and finally, Mr. Anthony Mulowa.

Thank you to Mr. John Mulutula at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.  He was comprehensive in our discussions and mentioned that he supports the people’s will for independence in Kosovo.  He dedicated a lot of his time and agreed to hand deliver our letter from Vlora Citaku to his boss the Minister himself.

Mr. Mario Kandalu, my taxi driver was wonderful with a great character.  He helped me a lot and knew the city well.

My friends, Zambia is a very nice place and quite functional.  Though outside of the urban areas, many people still live on less than /year, the cit I’m in still looks clean, organized, has a good infrastructure.  I can see that lots of progress has been made since Zambia was known as the British protectorate, Rhodesia.  I had a great experience and it is a place that I would feel comfortable living in for a little while.  The people here are quite nice and friendly too.

Another thing that I really liked was to look at the nice blue color of the high octane AVGAS.  I was able to fill my plane with it which gave me a small sense of joy.  The bigger joy that I got though, was that it was very cheap – only US for a liter.  The only place cheaper than that so far in Africa was in Malta.

The next country is Botwsana.  It will be the first country on this trip that hasn’t need a landing permit to land our plane.

Zambian Whatchdog

MUVI Television

MUVI Television 2

Zambia Daily Mail

Lusaka

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On my way to Zambia, I had to do a lot of flying across the Democratic Republic of the Congo since it is the third largest country in Africa.  Often times, you don’t think of the realities of life, but once exposed to it, you start realizing that things are much bigger and much more complex than you originally thought them to be.  Sometimes things seem so complex that they seem far beyond your reach.  Congo-Kinshasa for example is about 200 times the size of our tiny Kosovo and it takes a lot of time to get things done.

On this journey, I have many times had to think ahead and have secondary plans ready for unforseen cirumstances.  Otherwise, I would never be able to finish our mission.  Sometimes, my plans change daily, even hourly due to the crazy circumstances that I am faced with.  This time, it was getting a permit to fly over the country that was the challenging part.  But this has been a part of my life during these travels.  I sometimes have to shake my head at all of the crazy things that I have had to do in order to continue on with our mission.

On my way to Zambia, I actually found myself buying fuel from a street vendor my friends.  I found an entire city being dry and out of fuel, only to be waiting for the next barge shipment to come in.  In the meantime, it turns out that street vendors take advantage of the situation by buying fuel at cheaper rates when it is available and then selling it at double the price when everyone is more in need of it.  Yes my friends, I actually had to purchase fuel for our airplane on the side of the road here from a street vendor.  There was one other time I have had to do this in my life and it was on the first leg of our mission, back in Latin America.

For those of you that don’t know about aviation fuel, usually airplanes require an octane level of 100/130 for fuel.  But in the United States there is a law that says that some airplanes may use automobile gasoline if the octane level is high enough (though still not as high as 100/130).  Normally, if you were to go to a gas station in the US,  the usually octane level offered to the public is near 90, but you can also get fuel there as high as 100 most times.  I have learned that here in Africa, some countries offer fuel as low as 80 octane.  Welcome to trouble with that low grade, especially for an airplane.

I had no idea what quality of fuel I was buying from the vendor, so I also bought a handkerchief in order to filter fuel before I put it into cans to take to our baby plane.  I was hoping that this would help refine the fuel and help to screen for impurities.  I was also praying that this decision wouldn’t haunt me in the future by costing me way more money in repair bills.  I had no other choice at this point because I was not willing to get stuck here in the DRC for longer than I needed to be due to them seeing me as a walking dollar sign lately.

After that little fiasco, I was on my way to Lubumbashi in the Southern portion of the DRC so that I could continue my journey to Lusaka, Zambia after a good night’s sleep.  My friends, there is a huge UN presences here in Lubumbashi, especially at the airport.  Lubumbashi (and the DRC in general) is a very wealthy place due to all of the natural resources being mined here.  Things like diamonds, copper, zinc, coltan, and cobalt, etc. help to make this country one of the richest in the world financially.  But you would never know that from the war and conflict that they have endured.  I did not see anything special in this city to indicate all of the wealth that I had heard about.  Instead, I still see lots of struggling going on, like some of the other countries that I’ve visited.

I did manage to find what I thought was a safe hotel which was gated and had lots of guards surrounding it.  I initially thought that the hotel was clean and safe until I found a small visitor that had invaded my room, my new friend, a hotel mouse.  Again, you never know what to expect.

Despite my attempts to arrive early at the airport the next morning to leave for Zambia, life had other plans.  The weather was rainy and foggy and there was a very somber feeling in the air.  I should mention now that though Lubumbashi has an international airport, you would think that this place had been abandoned for years.  One thing that I have noticed in all of my travels here in Africa is that there is not a lot of value placed on things like building updates, preventative maintenance , etc.  Regardless of this fact, these facilities are usually no cheaper to utilize.  They are very worried about you paying your fees and make sure to exert their authority in order to make you do so.

In an international airport with space shuttle or astronaut-like fees, as soon as you ask them for a service, they report that they are unable to provide it.  All I wanted was the weather briefing and do you think that this international airport that deals with airplanes on a daily basis and charges you astronomical fees could provide that to me?  Not a chance.  Their response to me was that their computers, weather radar, and all of their instruments were not working.  It is funny that the machines were not broken when they needed my service fees and such.  I don’t understand how they cannot have weather updates available.  In order to fly, it is mandatory that every pilot know the weather conditions at the departure city, en route and at the destination location.

So after a few hours of trying to figure things out, the local weather had lifted and I was ready to leave for Zambia.  However, when I went to do my pre-flight checking of the plane, I started the engine and something was not right.  I heard a strange noise and everything started vibrating.  The engine power level was also not responding appropriately.  This is bad news my friends.  So I shut down the engine and got out of the plane to check on things.  I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary so I got back into the plane and started it again.  I was hoping that this time the situation had improved, but it still didn’t feel right.  Here I am in this very expensive airport in an area that is highly patrolled by the UN due to conflict and I’m thinking that I will be stuck here because I had bought that fuel off the street vendor and put it in our baby plane.  Praying to higher powers, I started to take-off anyway.  My thinking was that with the bad fuel, a cold engine and cold outside temperatures, maybe our plane just needed to fly a little and get warmed up.  I was trying not to be paranoid and wanted to get out of here and continue the mission.

When I did take off and apply more power, things were not getting any better.  Normally, an engine like mine puts out about 23-2400 RPM’s upon take-off, but now it was only giving me 1900.  Even after flying for about five minutes things did not improve.  I had no choice but to head back to the airport.  I headed straight to the maintenance hangar, which seemed to have more airplanes in it than the whole airport.  My friends, normally I am not a big believer in higher powers, but I am convinced that I was guided toward the best people that you could ever find to maintenance our plane.

The team at ITAB was absolutely fantastic.  They were very helpful and my time with them was very meaningful.  I had a a strong sense of comfort upon meeting them as it is not very often in my travels lately that I meet someone who looks like me.  Often times, I meet people from many different cultures, all speaking different languages, etc.  I am grateful that I have been able to communicate with most people so far, but it provides a sense of security when you can speak with someone in a language that you are fluent in and who can understand you.

Upon arrival at ITAB, Mr. Maxim Cagnettie and Alain Deleommenne guided me right away to their amazing and wonderful mechanics, Mr. Peter Brand and Brian Hill.  Mr. Brand and Mr. Hill then introduced me to their boss, Mr. Jose DeMoura and within minutes my friends I was taken care of for the rest of my stay here in Lubumbashi.  I could write a book about these wonderful people, but it still wouldn’t be enough.  Within the 3-4 days that I spent with them, they became like family to me and were so generous to our mission.  I will never be able to thank them enough for all of their help.

In no time these amazing and experienced mechanics had found the problem.  As it turned out, one of the valves in one of the cylinders got stuck which caused the arm to brake that drives the valves.  Now that I knew I had that kind of problem, I knew that I would be staying put in this city for several days.  No problem due to my new friends.  Mr. Brand and Mr. Hill got on the phone right away with their contacts in South Africa and organized everything so that the parts could show up the next day around 5:00 pm.  Guess what folks, these wonderful men not only organized for the parts to get delivered to from the shop to the airport in Johannesburg (which was several hours of driving for someone), but everything was done absolutely free of charge.  Thank you to Mr. Simon Law who was the wonderful person who organized for the parts to be donated and sent from South Africa to Lubumbashi.

I indeed was blessed by meeting this great team.  The delivery to the airport, the freight and shipping of the parts, the parts themselves and even the three hours of labor that they completed on our plane was absolutely free.  They not only didn’t charge me for any of it, they even fed me for three days (and like a King I might add) and offered to let me lodge at the ITAB mechanic and pilot house.  Thanks to god that this problem arrived in a place like this and not in some of the other places that I have had to land that weren’t nearly as friendly and would have ended up costing us tens of thousands of dollars.

Mr. De Moura (the owner) is of Belgian descent, but has lived most of his life in the Congo.  Mr. Brand and Captain Hennie Steyn are from South Africa.  Mr. Hill, he is from Zimbabwe originally and Captain Maxim Cagnetti is from Belgium.  I want to remember the two other people there who were helpful too, Pierre Moen and Mr. Alain Deleommenno.  My dear friends, experiences like this will be engraved in my heart and memory forever.  Amazing people like these gentlemen are hard to find sometimes.  Let’s hope that higher powers will bless them with many good things in their lives.

After three days of their care, our baby plane was ready to go and was put together by Mr. Hill who has many years of experience on the same type of engine that our plane has.  I was ready to head off to our next country, which is Zambia.

Happy Independence Day!

Le Potentiel

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Congo News 1, 2 PDF

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Landing in Brazzaville felt like heaven compared to the last country (Angola) as far as I am concerned and the first thing that I notice about this place is that the prices are much more reasonable. For one thing, the hotel prices are at least 5-10 times cheaper than they are in Angola, which is good news for our mission. The next thing that I learn is that this country is also known as Congo-Brazzaville, Little Congo, or simply the Congo, which helps to separate it from neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly known as Zaire), whose capital is Kinshasa, which is quite close to Brazzaville.

After a good nights sleep, I am excited to get to work as soon as possible here. My friend Jean-Philippe van Nyen has already been working very hard for Kosovo ever since I left him in Sao Tome and Principe. He was able to put me in touch with some contacts in Angola and now he has worked things out for me in Brazzaville, where he called an old family friend, Mr. Paul Valentin Mossimbi. Mr. Valentin Mossimbi and Mr. Van Nyen’s father have been friends for over 20 years now. As soon as I arrived, I began to make plans to meet him right away.

Mr. Valentin Mossimbi and I meet first thing Monday morning and he immediately started working his magic with his government. Paul is my new grandpapa. He has the greatest sense of humor and personality. He is also a successful businessman who knows everyone that has authority in his country. The Minister of Sustainable Development, the Forest Economy and the Environment is his close cousin, so it was easy to get an appointment with him on Monday. Mr. Henri Djombo was very thorough in trying to understand the issue of Kosovo’s independence and personally expressed that we should be recognized by his government and that it would be the right thing to do. Our meeting was very successful and he reassured me that he would do anything possible with his coworkers and partners in order to push our independence issue forward with his government.

Mr. Djombo then called his Director of Communications who took charge right away by directing us to the Minister of Foreign Affairs office for a meeting. Of course, Paul was with us at all times during the day and he turned out to be great company to me as we were waiting for an open appointment with the Minister. At first, we were told that the Minister’s day was packed with appointment. However, we learned later that the Minister had some hesitations about meeting with us due to his concern that he would receive repercussions from his superiors. On the other hand, that means that the Minister already knew the purpose of my visit and that I had Vlora Citaku’s letter to deliver to him. Thanks to all of the MFA staff for the sense of care that they showed to our mission during this time and specifically to Mr. Gasto Bavovidits, Chef de Secretariat du Cabinet of the Minister, who promised to pass our much treasured letter from Ms. Citaku directly to his boss, the Minister himself.

I had much better luck with the media here in Brazzaville. I want to thank all of the professional journalists and their bosses for giving our mission the greatest attention. Depeches de Brazzaville was the first newspaper that interviewed me. I could tell that Mr. Nestor N’Gampoula already knew a lot about Kosovo before beginning our meeting.

The next newspaper, Le Nouvel Observateur was my most memorable interview here in Congo-Brazzaville. This newspaper is owned by Mr. Gabriel Bouzanda, an amazing, caring and spiritual man who was very attentive and involved with my interview with his journalist, Mr. Valda St-Val. Both men asked me very detailed questions and Mr. Bouzanda showed a real love for other human beings around the world. He knew Kosovo’s history well and reported that he felt very attached to our nation’s predicament because he and his family also have a history of hard times due to the the recent war here in the Congo. People like Mr. Bouzanda are inspiring to meet and remember forever. His spirituality, his beliefs and his warm heart help to remind me of our common bond as humans. No matter where we are on this great planet, or where we are from, most of us share the same values and hopes for our future and our families.

Thanks to Mr. Godelh Godefroy Baouadila, with the newspaper Maintenant for his dedication and friendliness. He was deeply involved with all kinds of questions during our interview. At La Semaine Africaine, Mr. Veran Carrhol Yanga also did a wonderful newspaper interview.

In regards to television, I had great luck as well. My first interview was at MNTV, which stands for Maurice N’Guesso, who is the brother of the President. Thank you to all of the managers for having made my interview possible and to Ms. Miguette Mangoula, who was in command and made sure that our interview went really well and was broadcast live on the evening news. The other television station was TOP TV which is reportedly owned by the daughter of the nation’s President. This made it very convenient for Kosovo since we were able to get an interview with them (which means that there is no one in between to decide wether or not to cover our story).  I want to mention that at this station, I encountered Mr. Igor Cameron.  He was a great journalist who really took time with our story.  He requested to have a few days to research about Kosovo before our interview.  He was very thorough and completed a full one hour interview with me.  Mr. Cameron really takes pride in his work and is very neat.  He has lots of talent, was very comprehensive and has an awesome personality.

Finally, I never want to forget the taxi drivers that I meet and make friends with in each country. Mr. Joseph Diazolamfoumou was able to move me all around Brazzaville in a timely manner in order to help me accomplish my duties here in the Republic of Congo.

From the few days that I was able to spend here in Brazzaville, it appears to be a nice country. I want to remember again, my new grandpa Paul who really took care of me and who also invited me to an excellent restaurant for lunch, where I was able to have a great meal. He made me feel at home in a foreign country that is so far from where my own home is.

Let’s hope that the President of Republic of the Congo-Brazzaville can make a decision about Kosovo soon and that he watched our interview on his brother’s MNTV station and his daughter’s Top TV program.

God Bless Congo, Brazzaville and its people.

Les Depeches

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Dear friends and supporters of our mission:

In have been to over 100 countries now in my lifetime, and I can honestly say that Angola has been the most expensive place that I have ever visited.  Usually throughout my journeys, I try to learn a few things about each country before I visit – things like local airports, local gas prices, visa information, etc.  However, I have never had to check for the price of a hotel before landing in a country.  This might be something that I add to my pre-flight check from now on.

As you know by now, when I travel, I keep my eye out for the cheapest prices possible.  This is true especially with taxis and hotels.  Usually, I am able to work out some kind of deal with those people if I try.  Wrong answer here in Angola!  After landing at the Luanda airport, I soon learn that the cheapest hotels around here are literally around $500-800USD per night!  After flying all over the world and experiencing many things in my lifetime, I can tell you my friends that I’ve never been as surprised as I am now.  I guess that in my lifetime, I am supposed to encounter live and first hand all of the crazy and astonishing things about our planet.  In America, I would be able to stay at a Holiday Inn for nearly two weeks for that price.

So there I was on my first day, nearing nighttime, broke and thinking that I might be sleeping on the street for the night unless the hotel people would let me pay in the morning, when I was expecting some money via Western Union or Money Gram.  I could not believe the things that I was hearing.  After twisting and turning, calculating all of my choices for several hours and asking many people about the prices and getting the same answer over and over,  I had no choice but to bite the bullet.  After making my hard decision to buy a bed for the night instead of sleeping on the street, I paid for a ‘cheap’ hotel that was only $270USD/night.  Welcome to Mars, Jupiter, Moon hotel my friends.  Never in my life have I experienced prices this high for a hotel.  Perhaps the news would have been easier to swallow if I wasn’t greeted at every hotel with the mentality that I should have been happy to find a hotel room at all.

Let me tell you, my friends, what is going on here in Luanda, Angola: the hotel owners have benefited in many ways from Angola’s current situation.  In 1975, Angola achieved independence from Portugal.  From then until 2002, this country struggled through civil war.  It has been reported that over 300,000 people died during that time.  This struggle led many people to flee their homes and settle in Luanda for safety reasons.  Because of this, the infrastructure in this city has not been able to keep up.  Many local people around here are living in shacks that are in very poor condition.  For a city built for 1 million people, you can imagine what conditions might be like, since nearly ½ of the country is now living in this city (way more than 1 million people).  Of course, these locals could never afford to buy a hotel room, but there is still much profit to be made due to the other current situation of this country.

The fact is, there is a lot of foreign money coming into Angola.  Historically, diamonds were a draw for people to come here.  In fact, during the years of civil war, the sale of diamonds helped to fund part of it.  When the United Nations recognized this, they passed a resolution banning the purchase of ‘conflict’ diamonds from Angola.  This fact is part of the history behind ‘blood diamonds’.

The other reason that is blowing local prices out of proportion here is that there is a lot of foreign money coming into the city for things like oil and gold.  For one, Angola is China’s biggest supplier of oil and other countries still come in to get into the diamond and gold market here.  Because of this, there are currently not enough hotel rooms in the city to accommodate everyone.  But there are still a lot of foreign companies coming in who need to lodge their employees.  The hotel owners have been profiting big time from this situation for a long time and can obviously get away with charging these prices, since the companies coming into the country need to have a place to stay for their employees.  This should make it no surprise then, that Luanda has been named one of the world’s most expensive cities for overseas foreigners.   Of course, it would have helped me to learn this before my visit.

I feel very sorry for the local people here who are not being taken care of.  Since everyone wants to profit off of the foreign money coming in, it has been the locals that have suffered due to the lack of adequate infrastructure.  On the other hand, one of the ways that that foreign money is coming in is through construction.  Since 2002, more and more construction has been going on in this city, so the hotel situation will probably not be as big of an issue 5-10 years from now.  I wonder what the hotel owners will do then, when they cannot charge as much for a room.  One thing is for sure, I need to get the heck out of this place very quickly.  The money that Vlora Citaku donated to our mission will be gone in one week if I stay here.

Since I know that I have to work at the speed of sound in this country, I wake up very early on Friday morning.  I am ready to go first thing and now I am being told that the there are only one or two taxi companies in town and that it is very common to have difficulty finding a cab that you can rely on.  Then they tell me that renting one for the day will cost approximately $250USD per day.  Welcome to an alternate universe my friends.  There is no way that I can deal with these kinds of prices for long.

After waiting for 45 minutes for a taxi, I could not believe my eyes what I saw.  Just to ask a driver a few questions, he starts to charge me with his meter running.  Even before I get into the taxi, my bill is already at $30USD!  After getting into the taxi and heading to the media houses, I then find out that we are in for one of the worst traffic jams of my life, which is costing me a lot of extra money too.  I can’t wait to get out of this place.

I also had a hard time with the media here as well.  Since most of the newspapers are run by the government, I was only able to get interviews with two of them out of five.  Guess who gave me the most run around – yup, the government ones.  Thanks to Ms. Elsa Alexandre for her interview with the newspaper journal “Angolese” and Ms. Serafim Goncalves, who was the boss of the newspaper “Semanario Agora” and their journalist Mr. Raimundo Ngunza for their hospitality and their interview.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs were very receptive and cordial, thanks to all of their professional staff.   I am not as hopeful here in Angola that they will make a decision about Kosovo soon.  I have a feeling that there is still some residual issues from their civil war and some current instability here that may make us less of a priority to them.  On the other hand, Mr. Joao Quosa, Special Advisor to the Ministry, did take some of his time to speak with me and also accepted Vlora Citaku’s letter to give to the Minister.

Finally, even at the end of my visit, expenses here in Angola continued.  It seems that if you have any local money left when you try to leave the country, they will take it away from you with no arguments unless you end up going back into town to change it to another currency.  If it’s a weekend day that you are leaving on, forget about it, since the banks are closed.  Don’t forget that if you need to stay in a hotel for the rest of the night, that you will pay those exorbitant prices for it.

My friends, I got out of Angola as fast as I could.  Though I can see where Luanda may be a great place to visit in the future (with all of the construction and changes going on), I must tell you again that this was the most expensive country that I have experienced in my lifetime.

My dear friends:  It would be absolutely impossible to explain to you in a tiny little blog entry just how beneficial and amazing my trip to Sao Tome Et Principe has been.  Words cannot express my excitement about this visit or my gratitude to our new friend of Kosovo, Mr. Jean-Philippe van Nyen – Ambassador of ‘Ordre Souverain Militaire Et Hospitalier de Saint Jean de Jerusalem, Chevaliers Oecumeniques de Rhodes et de Malte, OSJ (Order of Malta: Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St. John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and Malta, Order of Malta, whom I will speak about later in this entry.
Upon arrival on this beautiful island, I was feeling good about the progress that I had made in Gabon (even in spite of some of the government run around).  Since the flight from there to Sao Tome was short (only about 160 NM), I was wide awake and ready to conquer a new country.  It also helped that the climate here was dramatically different from the past few countries that I have visited.  Since this country is an island in the Gulf of Guinea, the weather was quite tropical, which is my favorite.  What a beautiful place, looking so untouched and wild from above.  I couldn’t wait to touch ground and explore this Portuguese island further.
I was able to clear customs and leave the airport fairly quickly in order to search for a hotel.  Since the first hotel that I arrived at was a bit to expensive, the reception desk there was kind enough to call around and organize a transfer to another hotel within my budget.  This one was quite nice, very simple, but with all of the needed necessities.
After a good night’s sleep I was up and ready to complete my stay here in record time.  Since this country is so small (only 200,000 people), I was thinking that I would be able to accomplish things here quite quickly.  Wrong answer my friends.  It ended up taking me over a week to complete my work here.  At the week was a very beneficial and productive one.  As it turns out, this tiny little country has quite a presence in worldwide political affairs, which will hopefully work to our benefit.
My first stop on Saturday morning was the national radio station who took care of me right away.  Within a few hours the broadcast was airing nationwide.  Thanks to Mr. Francisco Lima ‘Tchesco’ and his boss for their prompt and careful interview.  Though I tried to meet with other radio stations, I was unsuccessful due to it being a weekend here.  One radio station, Radio Tropicana was willing to meet with me.  However, the  journalist was told by his boss to instead take the day to prepare for a more in-depth interview with me tomorrow.
The main newspaper, Semenario O Pais of Sao Tome had a great team of journalists and administrative people who all participated during their interview.  They all found it very interesting to have a person visiting their country all the way from Kosovo.  Mr. Collin Santos gave a very detailed interview and Mr. Valdmar Ramos, Jack Rita and Vladimir Trindade all participated by taking pictures, writing and recording the interview.
One great thing that did come out of today, however, was that I met a Belgium gentleman, Mr. Francis Wertz, who ended up changing everything about my stay here in Sao Tome.  Mr. Wertz gave me a contact number for Ambassador Jean-Philippe van Nyen, who was a tremendous catalyst for further success in our mission.  After a brief phone call to Mr. van Nyen on Saturday, I was able to arrange a dinner with him on Sunday evening, when he would arrive back in town.  He was very excited to hear that someone from Kosovo was visiting his country, but he wasn’t completely caught off guard by my visit as he had already received an email alert from Google about Flying for Kosovo.  To this day we are still unsure about where the email was sent from, but Mr. van Nyen was under the impression that we had sent it to him.
Knowing that I would be meeting with him on Sunday night and that I wouldn’t find any more success with media over the weekend, I decided to call it a day as far as our mission was concerned and go for a drive.  Since this island had such a different climate than the past few countries that I have visited, and tropical climates are my favorite, I wanted to take advantage of my time here and set out to explore some of the beauty that I had seen from above.  Indeed I was amazed at the nature here and the amazing scenery of this part of the planet.  I was able to eat some tropical fruits (like breadfruit) that I had never seen before in my life (and tropical fruits and juices are my favorite).  The beauty that I see here makes me so grateful because I am seeing things today that I feel like are just in people’s dreams.  Sao Tome is an absolute wonder of the world that all people should be able to experience.  Despite some of the economic struggles of this nation, there are still a lot of things to see and experience here on this beautiful, tropical island.
On Sunday, I wake up to the smells and sounds of the ocean breeze, rain drizzle, tropical fruits and birds singing and to a view of fresh banana trees hanging in front of the hotel windows.  I am in paradise and am feeling very positive about the progress of our mission here.  After breakfast, I get ready to meet with Mr. Ancleto Rolin from Radio Tropicana.  He is very nice and down to earth and had prepared a great bank of questions to ask me during the interview.  We spend more than four hours together on Sunday morning, along with the radio technician, Mr. Abdulay Marques in order to complete a 35-minute edited interview.  Thanks to both hard-working gentlemen for making the great interview possible.
Since it was Sunday afternoon, I had a few hours to kill before my dinner with Mr. van Nyen.  My driver and I decide to go and visit the waterfall known as Cascata Sao Nicolau.  In order to get there, you must pass by a lot of cacao fields, which is the main way that Sao Tome continues its economy.  The drive is worth the experience.  As you should know by now, I am a big fan of the natural beauty of our planet.  Being able to spend a few hours today in nature has allowed me to recharge my battery.  Many times on this mission I work very hard and very long days and don’t always get to see the long-term benefits of what I am doing.  So allowing myself a few hours to be in the midst of all of the birds and other wildlife of this tropical island gives me more stamina to continue on and feel re-energized.  Hearing the waterfall, the birds singing and the crickets all help to bring peace and mind to my soul and give me great joy in life.  Until my last day here on earth, I will never forget this brief moment in time where I have been able to experience this beautiful, untouched island.  Sao Tome is definitely one of the places that I would come and visit in the future in order to experience it more in depth and detail, especially in order to visit the south side of this island (where I hear that there are monkeys and gorillas climbing around).
After I was able to refuel for a couple of hours, it was time to meet with Mr. van Nyen.  I had no idea what was in store for me just by meeting him.  We met at my hotel in the early evening.  Since we had already talked a little over the phone, I was feeling quite comfortable with the fact that we would be able to spend more time together and talk over a nice dinner.  He took me to a restaurant where all of the elite people in this country seem to gather and Mr. van Nyen is well known by everyone.  He introduced me to the brother of the President, many political figures, Ambassadors, bank managers, business leaders, etc.  He is talking to everyone about my visit to Sao Tome, the purpose of my visit, the countries that I have visited so far, etc.
Right away we become a team and his brain is already working at the speed of sound.  Over dinner, he revealed that he was already aware of the purpose of my visit and was willing to offer any help that he could to make my trip more productive.  He tells me that he knows quite a lot of leaders in this country, and of course the Diplomatic community, and offered all of his help.  What an awesome personality that he has and what a passion that he shows for wanting to make a change in this world.  For a man in his early 40’s, Mr. van Nyen is indeed a force to be reckoned with.
We talk at the restaurant until 1:00am, making plans for my visit and all of the good that can come out of it.  It is over dinner that I decided to extend my visit here in order to make more of an impact.  At the end of the night, Mr. van Nyen offers to let me stay at the Order of Malta residence, which has a view over the ocean – much nicer accommodations than my original hotel.
On Monday morning, my only job is to attend all of the different meetings that have been organized by Mr. van Nyen.  I meet with the ‘Charge d’Affaires’, Mr. Jacky Cuzzi at the Embassy of France who mentions right away that we could count on him pushing for the recognition of Kosovo’s independence within Sao Tome.  Next up, I meet with the Ambassador of Gabon in Sao Tome and Dean of the Diplomatic Corp, Mr. Michel Bekale-Ekomoe, who came to visit us at the Ordre De Malta Embassy to further discuss Kosovo.  He promised to send a report to his government in Gabon regarding our discussions.  The same thing was done with the Embassy of South Africa, where I met with The Charge D’Affaires, Mr. Azwifarwi Shadrack Nepfumbada and Ms. Marcia Almeida with the Portuguese Embassy.  They all offered to help push for Kosovo’s recognition in any way possible.
Another wonderful meeting organized by Mr. van Nyen was with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Sao Tome, Mr. Manuel Salvador dos Ramos, who gave me some of his valuable time.  He said that he would be meeting with the Prime Minister and President later that day and that he would ask them about the government position regarding Kosovo.  He also promised to ask the same thing to his co-minister during their meeting the next day.  Vlora Citaku’s letter was opened right in front of me and he promised that the same letter would be in the hands of every leader of Sao Tome so that they could explore further possibilities.  Mr. Ramos himself agreed 100% in the rights and self-determination of the people and that he would do anything possible to help our nation achieve formal recognition.  This man is one of the most humble people that I have ever met in my lifetime, despite having such a high rank in his country.
Again, I would not know how to even begin to thank the great Ambassador van Nyen for all of the help that he has given our cause.  The meetings that he was able to arrange with the entire elite political forces of Sao Tome has been priceless for our mission Flying for Kosovo.  He would not even let me put my hands in my pocket to pay for anything during my stay, taking me out to lunch and dinner everyday and giving me a (fantastic) roof over my head.  He offered a private driver from his embassy to drive me around for the week and arranged for a housekeeper to take care of all of my ironing and laundry and make me breakfast.  Folks, it has been very rare in my experience on this mission to have this kind of hospitality offered to me.  Though I would never want to burden our mission with the kind of costs associated with this kind of lifestyle, I have to say that it was indeed heaven to be treated so luxuriously.
I have truly found a great friend in Mr. van Nyen and a home away from home here in the tiny island of Sao Tome and Principe.  It is such a treat when I am able to meet someone of this caliber that happens to share the same values in life as myself and who also shares a passion for helping his country.  His organization, Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St. John of Jerusalem, Ecumenical Knights of Rhodes and of Malta and their mission “Pro fida Pro Utilitate Hominum”, defense of the Faith and assistance to the poor and the suffering, should be further explored by all of the supporters of Flying for Kosovo.  Currently, the order has about 3000 members and volunteers (including doctors, nurses, auxiliaries, paramedics, etc.).  Their passion and dedication toward the humanitarian concerns of children and elders and other medical and health efforts around the world are to be well-respected and honored.
Because the Order of Malta is a worldwide organization (active in 15 countries), Mr. van Nyen was also able to pull some strings for us in other countries.  He was able to organize some things for me in Angola, Congo and Mozambique.  He promised that later on, he would work on Ethiopia, where the Spiritual Protector of his organization, His Holiness Abba Paulus, Patriarch of Ethiopia, is located.  Before I left, Mr. van Nyen was even working with other embassies of the Ordre De Malta as well, calling countries like Mali and Togo in order to push the issue of Kosovo’s independence more rapidly.  He also helped write letters to the Embassies of Gabon and Angola in order for me to get visas put on my diplomatic passport.  Lastly, Ambassador van Nyen, seeing my values and learning of my work and accomplishments for the people of Kosovo, requested that the Foreign Affairs Chancellery of OSJ Ecumenical Knights of Malta issue me a diplomatic passport and also nominated me as an honorary Ambassador at Large.  This will help tremendously in facilitating my travels here in Africa.  Help of this caliber and the greater ease that it will give me in traveling between countries is a very sacred gift that Mr. van Nyen has offered our mission.  Jean-Philippe, my dear friend, thank you for being there and for all of the help and personal attention that you have given to our cause.  Let’s hope that the higher powers will continue to bless you.
With all of the help that I have been given by this once stranger, Ambassador van Nyen, it amazes me to know that my own country’s government has been of less help in this department (especially in the fact that they haven’t even offered me a diplomatic passport to further our cause).  It remains a mystery to me that they would not want to help me spread the word about Kosovo worldwide.  Many times I have not understood this.  Though they are well aware of my accomplishments and the changes that I have been able to make in the world in regards to raising awareness about our independence, I have not even been given a formal title to use during all of my meetings that I’ve had with government officials worldwide.
One other meeting that I had during the week was with the Director of Protocol of the Prime Minister, Mr. Deodate Da Silva e Lima, who offered his help representing Kosova’s independence to his boss.  Finally, I owe the team at Radio Jubilar 91.9 Mhz. a big thank you.  Mr. Leonel Pereira and Gil Vaz who have me a live interview that was transmitted to the people of this beautiful island.
My friends, Sao Tome and Principe and the friends that I was able to make here will be missed for many years to come.  Most of all, I will miss my new brother, Mr. Jean-Philippe van Nyen, who has also become a valuable, dear friend to the people of Kosovo.
God Bless the people of Sao Tome and the Ecumenical Order of Malta. 

Radio Tropicana 1

Radio Tropicana 2

Gabon is another African country that makes a lot of profit from its natural resources. Already I can see lots of progress here as far as infrastructure. Things look well kept here and cleaner than some of the other places that I’ve been. Socially, people here seem to be well aware of their surroundings and about life in general. Things are not always equal though, about 90% of the income here goes to the richest 20% of the population.

Lucky for me, the air conditioning was working at the airport when I arrived. This is always a great relief because it means that I won’t have to sweat while running around trying to get all of my bureaucratic paperwork taken care of. You may have noticed from all of my writing, that the paperwork part of landing and taking off is by far the very worst part of the whole mission. Not only do I dislike all of the time and money that it takes to complete it, but it seems to me that this nonsense is just a destructive force to the lives of normal human beings that would think of visiting these countries. The paperwork and all of the fees that go along with them seem to only benefit the elite in these countries and is something that they use to control the lives of ordinary citizens and keep them in the dark.

At least the staff here in Gabon was efficient and organized. I was able to complete the paperwork in a timely manner, even though I did not have a visa for this country. Thanks to god for my pilot’s license. I have found out over time that in some of these countries, I am able to use my pilots license to bypass getting a visa. Instead of normal procedures, I tell them the airport staff that I am in transit for a technical stop (which is not far from the truth). This allows me to complete only the administrative paperwork and pay for the landing fees and not have to deal with the other nonsense that getting a full visa can entail (more paperwork, fees, wait times, etc.). Folks, if I would not have figured out this loophole to jump through, I promise you that I would not have been able to accomplish even half of what I have been able to get done on our mission.

Remember that my vision is this: to go to each and every country on the planet and deliver our message to the people of each nation in the most efficient and cheapest way possible. I am not trying to play tourist and visit each country for weeks on end. It is for these reasons that I do not wish to spend my time trying to please every countries requirements and get a visa for each one of them. This would take months and sometimes even years of planning and MUCH more money. Additionally, many of the countries that I have been visiting don’t have the most democratic governments. The fees and requirements that they have are often created so that only a few people profit anyway. If I were to be completely honest and up front upon arrival to each country, I would likely be kicked out and many countries would not even allow me to visit due to my mission and the issue of Kosovo being sensitive subjects to their government.

Fortunately, once I have entered into each country, I have found that ordinary citizens are usually quite touched to hear about our concerns and are often very helpful in raising the issue to their government. Once I expose people to our nation and make the voices of our people heard, most individuals that I come in contact with are interested in learning more and helping Kosovo in whatever way that they can.  I can’t tell you how many times I have been grateful to meet ‘locals’ who have helped the mission out in ways such as making me a meal, offering me a place to stay, arranging meetings with someone that they know that would benefit us, etc. Even though some of the countries that I visit may be one of the last one’s to recognize our independence, this still will not prevent me from bringing our message to the ordinary citizens there.

In fact, it is through the media and the individual people in each country that I have been most successful in raising awareness about our country. Like I have mentioned before, I have found that most of us are all alike no matter where we are born. We all desire the same things out of life: a safe place to stay, a roof over our heads, food to eat and to make sure that our families are taken care of. By talking with local individuals and local media about Kosovo’s independence, I become a kind of a thorn in the side to these governments that will not go away. I just keep bringing up the name Kosova every time and in any international political agendas.

Ok, back to my work in Gabon folks. After the airport business, I got a taxi and went to seek out a hotel right away. I could already see that my surroundings are very clean. This is such a relief to me and it makes me think that I might get a good nights sleep soon. On the other hand, I will soon find out that that night of sleep is a little on the higher priced side.

The next morning I am up and seeking out the local media. It was a little difficult to be received by them and some even kept giving me the run around. Of course, you may start to guess at which ones those would be – correct – the government channels and media outlets gave me the hardest time.

In Gabon there are two main newspapers, one private and one public. L’Union gave me a great interview. Thanks to a wonderful friend and absolute gentleman, Mr. L. Joel Akouango who is a great leader. He was a soft spoken man with many beliefs about the world. He showed a great sense of care toward our cause and was willing to write a nice article expressing a lot of sympathy about Kosovo. Mr. Akouango also introduced me to his journalist, Mr. Juste Kombile, who was very knowledgeable about Kosovo and gave me a very solid interview. I would like to thank his boss, Mr. Akouango for allowing the interview.

Thanks to Tele Africa team and Mr. David Claverie, a French gentleman currently in Gabon. He approved a meeting with Mr. Charles Stephane Mavoungou who actually completed the interview with his team. Not only did he do the television interview, he also did an interview with me for BBC Radio Africa and an interview in French for the radio station 94.0FM. The Tele Africa team was so efficient, that I was able to see my interview on the evening news. The next morning, my taxi driver even mentioned to me that he was able to view it too on the morning news.

Regarding the government, I want to thank Mr. Paul Bie Eyene, the General Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He took some time to meet with me to discuss Kosovo’s independence. I was able to deliver Vlora Citaku’s letter to him and in return, he assured me that he would deliver it to his boss on the same day. I would also like to thank Mr. Gaston Brun Beraud, a Consul Honoraire of Cote D’Ivoire for Sao Tome e Principe. I met him while he was traveling in Gabon and he offered to attempt to use his connections in an effort to help expose Kosovo to the Gabonese, Sao Tome and Cote D’Ivoire governments.

Finally, I can’t forget to thank my taxi driver, Mr. Patrick Etoukomoye Osseine.  He was very nice to me and very helpful while he drove me around his country.

One thing that I want to mention here is that, here in Gabon, Josip Broz Tito, the former President of Yugoslavia had a big presence during the 1970’s. Though 30 years have passed, ‘Tito’ for sure is still respected in many African countries today.

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Well folks, I was finally allowed entry into Nigeria.  Despite the problems that I had beforehand relating to my visa, I have absolutely great memories of this country and its people.  Despite my writings and my preconceptions, I have been pleasantly surprised by the people of Nigeria.  Many times, we tend to label people or a country with a red mark before we know about them firsthand.  Once those people receive a red mark, it is often hard to change our minds about them and remove the negative label.

My dear friends who have been reading my writings, I am here to tell you something very important about Nigeria and its people.  During my three day observations and experiences in this great nation, I have realized that Nigerians are wonderful people and that the capital city of Abuja is a wonderful capital, much like any other city that you would find in the mid-west United States or France.
Abuja looks like its infrastructure has been well planned, having nice roads, tall business buildings, nice apartment buildings, etc.  Everywhere I could see, it looks like the capital is a booming place.  It is also one of the cleanest places that I have ever visited.  On many occasions, I felt like I was right in the heart of the US.  The best part of this city, though, is that for the first time in several weeks, my stomach has not been upset.  For two days in a row, I was allowed the comfort of not having to deal with those kinds of interruptions to our mission.

The people here in Nigeria are very friendly and courteous.  They all thank you and try to make you feel comfortable in all situations.  It reminds me again, that I am one of the most fortunate individuals on the planet.  I have been exposed to so many amazing things in my lifetime that I have learned many times that the principles and values of all human beings are the same, no matter where you might be born or what situation you are having in life.  Though we don’t seem to have a choice in where we are born (with our location being more of a characteristic of nature and human evolution), that does not mean that we want to be labeled based on where they live.  Most people, I have learned, have become victimized by their dysfunctional government systems.  Many times, it is not by individual choice or will that people find ourselves in the middle of a bad situation.  Because people are often at the mercy of their government, ordinary people are usually the ones that have to pay for the good or bad consequences of decisions made by their leaders. Rather than everyone being different based on who where they live or who their government is, it is more like we are all similar in our beliefs and values.  When you get to the bottom of things, we all want the same thing – to live a good life, to feed our families and, most of all, to be respected by other human beings.   I am really glad that I did not listen to all of the people who advised me to bypass Nigeria.

Yes, Nigeria has it’s share of problems alright.  Their human rights record has been poor at all levels of government, they have their share of organized crime and it has been rumored that their elections have not always been fair.  But let’s not forget that it is very rare nowadays to find any country that is problem free.  Even the safest places on earth have their share of problems.

Another thing that we should not forget is that Nigeria is one of the biggest countries in Africa.  It certainly is the highest populated country on the continent and is the eight most populated country in the world.  Though English is the official language, many people do not speak it (especially in the rural areas).  There are over 250 ethnic groups here and over 520 languages rumored to be spoken throughout the country, so unless you are a member of the ruling elite or live in one of the larger cities you would not have access to learning it.

Finally, it is also important for us to remember the role that Nigeria plays in the bigger world.  Because of the oil boom in the 1970’s, Nigeria has been a key player in the international oil industry.  Unfortunately, like Equatorial-Guinea, this means that the country has forsaken its traditional ways and instead has come to heavily rely on income made from the oil industry.  Not to worry though, as Nigeria is considered to be the fastest growing economy in the world and the country has maintained strong ties with the United States since it began to supply the US with some of its oil.  Even more, Nigeria has a lot of pull with the more local African countries.  It was a founding member of the Organization for African Unity (now called the African Union) which includes 53 African states.  This country has a tremendous influence in West Africa and Africa on the whole.  Because of this, it is very important to get our message out in this country.  If Nigeria were to officially recognize our independence, it is likely that it would create a domino effect and that many other countries down here would jump on board and choose to recognize us also.

In regards to our mission, which is the whole purpose of that I am visiting this country at all, I didn’t get off to the best start after landing here.  I will say though, that after a few days of working and being driven around by my great taxi driver, Mr. John Wsyz, I have been able to look back and see that I actually was able to be very productive and successful here.  For one thing, I have to admit to you all that I am often times very impatient and want to conquer the world as fast as I can.  I always seemed to be slowed down by the ‘real’ world though because my goals and the pace that I want to go is always way faster than everyone else.  Having said that, it is impossible for  me to get things accomplished in the amount of time that I expect, so I’m starting to realize that it’s probably me that is the problem.  All I wish for most days is to have a magic wand in my hand that I could wave over each country so that Kosovo would be exposed worldwide in the most prestigious and respected way.  But I keep forgetting that the planet is extremely big and slow, despite my internal drive to treat our planet like a little soccer ball or basketball that you can just move around and do with as you wish.

Throughout my entire journey, I have met many important people and have learned a lot from each one of them.  Here in Nigeria, I was able to meet some of the finest journalists with tons of experiences.  Their knowledge of the world and their view of life were passed on to me and I will never forget our interaction.
Thanks to Mr. Chung Solomon M., with the ‘Daily Observer’.  He conducted a great interview and showed a great sense of caring about Kosovo and our people.  Another wonderful reporter that gave me an in-depth interview was Mr. Isaac Anumihe and his coworkers Ms. Zion Zadok and Mr. Ubons Ukpons.  Mr. Onyebuchi Ezigbo and his boss Patrick Ugeh with the newspaper ‘This Day’ were also very nice and professional.  The team at The Vanguard newspaper, the Abuja Bureau Chief, Mr. Emma Ujah was another personality that I won’t soon forget.  He just kept pushing his journalist to ask all of the questions necessary to complete a high quality interview so that the write up would show extreme dedication to learning more about our cause.  Mr. Emman Ovuakporie, the journalist who completed the actual interview was very knowledgeable already about our history during the 1980’s and our dark decade during the 1990’s.

The most amazing media experience so far though, was to encounter a newspaper that was named after my profession.  The ‘Nigerian Pilot’ is a well known daily newspaper here in Nigeria.  They also have a magazine known as ‘Nigerian News World Magazine’.  The great team here is very professional.  They have state of the art technologies and a wonderful conference room where you could actually hold a presidential meeting or a press conference if you wanted to.  Mr. Olu Akinboyewa had the greatest personality.  He was very detailed and meticulous in his interview and took a lot of pride in his work.  This experience, to have been interviewed for a newspaper called the Pilot, was something that will always be remembered.

Thank you to the team at ITV who also showed care and professionalism.  The senior reporter, Mr. Ene Okon showed great interest in our country and our people.  Another very professional team was to be found at ASO Radio Abuja 93.5FM.  Thanks to their boss, Mr. Ali Abdullahi and his employees and managers.  The news manager, Mrs. Lovette Ilobi taught me a lot during the few minutes that I was able to spend with her.  Finally, the two young ladies who actually completed the interview, Ms. Joyce Jackson and Ms. Loretta Ugonabo.

Nigeria’s Ministry of foreign Affairs were very receptive.  The Director of Protocol guided me to the Director of Central and Eastern European Division, Mr. Charles Ojukwu an older gentleman.  He was very calm and welcoming and we ended up spending more than an hour discussing the issue of Kosovo and our independence.  He asked me quite a few questions about our cause, including how many countries have recognized us already, who they were, how many were in Europe, etc.  He just kept writing everything down so that he could have a briefing with the Minister himself.  I was able to hand deliver Vlora Citaku’s letter to him and it was my sincere joy to have had this opportunity.

I will get tired of being able to deliver the stories of my people and my nation across the planet, though there have been many times where I might have forgotten this privilege for moment.  It is so hard sometimes when I am struggling and suffering to keep a sense of what the larger purpose is.  Because it does not have an immediate effect, I often have lost sight of the reality of my work.  But after hearing of the impact that our mission will have for many years to come, I could not do a more honorable thing in my lifetime.

Thank you to all of the people who are a part of this mission and have become a part of my life.  I could not do this without you.  If it was not for everyone’s constant perseverance during all of my struggles, I would still be sitting somewhere in Central America.  I am sure that my life will be given whatever meaning is deserves, but you cannot put a price on the small changes that I am making for the future of my people and our children.  As my reporter friend Chung Solomon M. reminded me, no matter how things turn out, my children and loved ones will be the ones that will always be proud of my accomplishments.

For sure Nigeria will be one of the places that I will remember for the rest of my life.  I will never forget the great hospitality of the people that I have met in this beautiful country.  I wish lots of success to my new friends and may god bless Nigeria.

Weekly Trust

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So far, I haven’t had any problems yet on the African portion of our mission, as far as visas and/or immigration issues go.  No country has ever made me turn around with my plane and go back.  Many times, they have been  nice enough to let me enter either at the airport or borders, even though I may not have had the appropriate paperwork from time to time.  But Nigeria is not letting me have this luxury.
There was absolutely no way that they were going to let me get around the proper legal requirements to enter their country and believe me, I tried every angle my friends.  This was very frustrating as you can imagine, having to backtrack my flying to a previous country, especially given the fact that I had previously bought a visa  for Nigeria and it had already expired.  Many times on our mission, my original time line and reality have often not coincided (due to waiting for visas, not being able to get travel to the next country until getting the proper paperwork processed, etc).  Though I’ve tried to avoid this, and tried to continue on to some countries even though I haven’t had all of the paperwork required – as I mentioned before, most of the countries have been sympathetic and have always allowed me in.  With Nigeria, not only did I have to re-route to a different country, I also had to reapply for a second visa, which sometimes makes it very expensive to continue our work with the mission.  I guess that these frustrations are part of my commitment to continue our mission, despite the struggling and suffering that I sometimes experience along the way.

Here in Africa, my original plan was to follow a pre-programmed flight pattern of visiting country after country based on their geographical nearness.  But I have had to change my flight plans many times already due to trying to accommodate the every-changing circumstances of our mission.  If I had continued on with my original plans, I would still be sitting in Senegal somewhere waiting for the neighboring countries visa and permits to come through.  Instead, I end up having to make quick decisions that don’t fit with an orderly plan and skipping countries in the hopes to go back to them eventually.  If there’s one thing I’ve learned throughout this mission, it’s that circumstances change all the time and that I have to be prepared to continue on in very creative ways.

But enough with Nigeria for now, let’s move on to my current destination, which is Guinea-Equatorial. It looks nice enough.  I see lots of construction everywhere and the infrastructure looks better than some of the previous places that I’ve visited so far.  It looks like there are lots of new apartment buildings here, many modern business buildings, new roads, modern bridges, great parks, etc.

From what I have learned, Guinea-Equatorial has recently found some natural wealth underneath their land and water supply.  In 1997, it began oil production and is now the 3rd largest oil supplier in Sub-Saharan Africa.  Although the oil initially helped the country, in other ways it has been destroying in.  According to many intellectuals and other people that I have spoken with here, it seems that once the country heard the magic word of petrol being found, it gave up on everything else that it was doing, including the basic things like subsistence farming.  Everyone thought that money would just start flowing into their bank accounts, which would fix everything.  Unfortunately, they were wrong, because the people who actually benefited most from the money were the countries elite.  Though Equatorial-Guinea is one of the most prosperous countries in Africa, at least 70% of its people still live on less than $2 a day.

Because of the oil boom, people here gave up production of basic necessities like fruits and vegetables, cacao and cotton.  Now, they have had to change their way of life so much so that they must now rely on imports from other countries, which ends up costing them much more money.  They have forgotten that their soil is still very fertile and that they can still plane everything that they need to survive.  My new journalist friend told me that they are now starting to realize that they are paying much more than necessary (as high as $1USD for a simple tomato) for basic necessities.  I hope that someday soon, the people here will be able to live off of their land and grow their own food again.

Other than that, this country is beautiful.  Malabo, which is the capital of the country, sits on Bioko Island, which is volcanic and very mountainous.  I guess that it is better for the elite maybe to be living safely on the island and away from the commoners.  People here are banned from criticizing public figures and, unfortunately, this country has one of the worst human rights records in the world.

One thing that I noticed very quickly here is that there seems to be a lot of Chinese people here.  It seems like they are taking over the place.  I am learning that participate in the business world, own businesses like construction companies, service businesses, restaurants, etc.  Initially, I have been told that they first started immigrating here to work in the cacao fields and coffee plantations.  But it seems like they have benefited from the oil boom as well.

One thing that did confuse me here, though, was the  media.  Apparently, there is one national newspaper which is published once a week.  However, they have several ‘reviews’ that are also called newspapers.  Those reviews though only get published once a month.  The other confusion that I had was that I didn’t understand yet that the government here has substantial control over what the newspapers actually report.  I started getting the impression that all that is reported here is what the government does, anything else (world happenings, the daily news, things happening in the lives of the people, etc.) is not important.  It was only later that I learned that the current President here has been cited by Reporters without Borders as a ‘predator’ of press freedom.

I am grateful that I already knew how to speak Spanish before visiting this country.  Though most of the other countries that I’ve visited so far have spoken French, Spanish is actually the official language of Equatorial-Guinea.  Thank god I was still able to communicate here or I would have gotten nothing accomplished during my stay.

Thanks to my two new media friends who were willing to talk with me, despite the governments heavy control over their work.  Mr. Patricion Mene Miche Abeme was an absolute wonderful gentleman who had lots of wisdom and some great values.  He worked for the paper ‘La Gaceta‘.  Mr. Laureano Nsue Nguems also helped me, from the newspaper ‘Ebano‘.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs here were very nice and Vlora Citaku’s letter was hand delivered to the Ministry’s Secretary, Ms. Mercedes Seriche.  She promised me that she will follow up with her boss and the government regarding our cause.

I can’t forget to mention a few other people in this country that helped me out quite a bit:  first, my taxi friend Mr. Blas Ela Riesa, who was very quiet and works hard for his money.  I was glad to help him out though with giving him my taxi fare because his poor car seemed like it was about to give up at any moment and made a lot of noise while we were traveling around; Mr. Pat. U Osuji who helped me out tremendously by helping me obtain that guarded Nigerian visa that I needed after paying the fee of $100 USD or 50,000 CFA; and finally, I want to say a special thank you to the pilots that I met from ‘Cronos’ airlines of South Africa.  Captain Anne Berghout, Captain Denis Hewartsons and First Officer George Pretorius all helped me out very much during my stay here in Equatoria-Guinea.

Next country is Nigeria.

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After landing in Chad, I already start to notice that the climate is very similar to the past few countries that I’ve visited: Burkina-Faso, Niger and Mali. Since this country is landlocked, is a far distance from the sea and is mostly a desert climate, Chad is sometimes known as the ‘dead heart of Africa’. Religion seems to be a larger focus here too (50% Muslim and 50% Christian) and they also seem to have a big awareness of ‘foreigners’ with outside money.

Everywhere that I went, they were always asking me the same question “which hotel are you staying”. I would never answer them because they were trying to determine what my finances were. To tell them that I was broke and needed to find a good hotel for a price that I could afford to pay was not what they wanted to hear. They wanted me to tell them that I was here to give them tons of money, but as soon as they hear that you’re broke just like them, they want you out of their country. Since 80% of the people here live well below the poverty line and rely on animal herding and farming, I guess they are used to getting lots of outside help.

I also quickly learned that I was not going to find an affordable hotel that was satisfactory as far as cleanliness and amenities go. Here, they want you to pay the price of a Marriott or Holiday Inn hotel for the quality equivalent of a room at a Motel Six in the USA. In other words, my bed for the night was very expensive and of poor quality.

Additionally, I have also learned here in Africa that (after visiting nearly half of the continent) that comfort foods that won’t make you sick are twice as expensive as what you would pay in the USA. For example, the price of a Coca-Cola is twice as much. In El Paso, TX, I would have had access to a fantastic Chinese buffet, with over 200 selections of food (vegetables, fruits, soups, desserts, etc.) for only $6.99. Here, if you want any kind of food that won’t give you stomach problems, you have to pay at least twice that. Another food that I am daydreaming about lately here is a nice, fresh salad. Many doctors here in Africa have told me to avoid eating those due to the high risk of infections. Salads don’t seem to mix well with a warm climate, especially in the countries that I’ve been visiting that don’t have proper sanitation. Only 2% of the people here in Chad have basic sanitation and only ½ of the homes in the cities have access to potable water. My mind is starting to play tricks on me with all of this daydreaming of good, quality food – it has been quite a while since I’ve had any.

After a less than comfortable night of sleep in my Marriott-priced Motel Six quality motel, I wake up and wash all of my clothes by hand. This is something that I’ve done in bathroom sinks since I’ve left Kosovo. Otherwise, it could be as high as $5USD per shirt to have them cleaned for me. My friends, you can calculate that bill if you have to change your clothes daily! There are many times lately that my shirts have been a different color by the end of the day. With all of the dust and pollution down here, my white shirts either become black by the time I get back to my hotel or red, due to the soil down here in these dry African countries.

After washing my clothes in the morning, I get into a taxi and find that he too is very difficult to bargain with as far as prices go. I guess I will pick my battles and settle for using him though, since I need to have some reliability during our busy work days. He seems nice, as do many of the people that I meet here in Chad, but they are tired of high prices. Many of them complain to me about many things that they see wrong with their country. Since Chad has a history of being one of the most corrupt governments in the world, I am starting to see why. I will say, though, that I do notice that the government has been making some improvements here, as far as infrastructure (roads, bridges, newer hospitals and buildings, etc.).

As far as the media, they all seem very nice. However, like the last country, Central African Republic, Chad’s newspapers are only published once or twice a week and are usually only 4-8 pages long. I am guessing that they must not be able to afford to publish them every day. All of the media staff were all very nice, professional and willing to bring our message of Kosovo’s independence to their people and their government. A few of them even wanted to take my picture with me in my pilots uniform and epaulettes. I am guessing that they like official people over here.

Thanks to Mr. Ngarbe Ferdinand with the newspaper ‘Quotidien Le Progres’; Mr. Edpuard Takadj with the newspaper ‘L’Observateur’; Mr. Yamalbaye Ritidn Gar with the newspaper ‘Le Temps’; Mr. Mahamat Gamougane with the newspaper ‘La-Voix’; and Mr. Touroumbaye Geoffroy, Redacteur En Chef, and Mr. Djimasra Parfait, both with ‘N’Djamena Hebdo’ newspaper.

Thank you to the wonderful teams at the ONR TV, Office de Radio and Television Du Tchad (Ms. Halime Assadya Ali and her journalist Mr. Assane Lame both had great personalities to work with) and Mr. Mahamat Issa Djarat with Radio Ngato FM 89.6 MHZ for his in-depth interview.

Next stop was the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. They were all very friendly, open, courteous and professional. The Director of the Protocol, Mr. Nouradine Mahamat Alio, took the letter that I delivered from Vlora Citaku and promised that he would pass it on to his boss (the Minister of Foreign Affairs himself). He was very knowledgeable and personable and mentioned that he would do anything that he could and try his best to help our country and our people. He even gave me his personal cell phone and told me not to hesitate to call him.

Finally, I have noticed that I am beginning to enter into a bunch of conflicted territories here in Central Africa. In Eastern Chad, there has been lots of ethnic violence going on. There have been almost 200,000 people displaced here because of that, in addition to the many refugees here from other countries. Sudan is to the east and the UN estimates that in 2008 there were over a quarter of a million refugees that fled here from Darfur. There are also around 55,000 refugees reportedly here from the Central African Republic. Not to forget the child trafficking in this area of Africa. Many children here are forced into labor (such as forced servitude, cattle herding, etc.) and commercial sexual exploitation. Many of them are sent further on toward the coastline in order to work in the fishing industry.

The next country up is Nigeria, but I am really struggling with getting my visas in a timely manner. It looks like I will have to jump back and forth between countries for awhile. Though I was expecting some complications here in Africa, it is very timely and costly to have to jump back and forth. Regardless, I am still committed to the essential goal of our mission, which is to visit all of the countries on this continent. Though progress is slower than I would like, I am glad that we are still moving somewhat forward.

Best wishes to the great people of Chad.

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Another long flight today (more than six hours) from Douala to Bangui, the capital of the Central African Repulic.  More importantly though, most of the flight was spent flying over dense jungle.  While most of this country is savannah (flat land), I am flying through the south side of the country, where there tends to be more jungle.  Folks, that is a lot of time to spend flying over lions, tigers, giraffes, elephants, monkeys and thick forests!
Many times I have heard stories from other pilots about crashing in the jungle.  They say that the chances of being found are slim because the trees of the jungle end up covering sight of the airplane from above.  On top of that, in remote places like this, any type of search and rescue would take forever, since they would have to use animals to travel out here and not cars.  Thanks to God that my baby plane’s engine held out and didn’t quit on me.  Otherwise, my wild friends would have been having lunch with me.
During the last two hours of my flight, I begin to see more signs of human life and activity.  Particularly, I start to see lots of fires.  This is a surprise to me, but at this point, whatever I see here is a surprise to me.  Since I never imagined in my wildest dreams that I would ever visit this part of the world, I didn’t have any idea of what to expect here.  It looks like in this area, the farmers have a tendency to burn things I guess.
I’ve also notice that this country is very rural.  Though it’s large geographically (about 60 times the size of Kosovo), the population is only twice the size of our country.  It looks like most people live in tribes and live a subsistence lifestyle, relying on livestock.  After landing and being in town for a few days, I also learn that the country is about 50% Christian (there are a lot of missionaries in this part of Africa) and the next major religion tends to be the indigenous beliefs.  It appears that Islam is only a small portion of the belief system here.
I might mention here that I was also struggling during the flight with my navigational system.  My GPS (global navigational system) stopped working during the last hour of the flight.  This was great news, since it was also getting dark and now seemed to be the time that I remembered the fact that this part of Africa has many electricity shortages.  Not only did my navigation system stop working while flying over my friends the lions and tigers, but by now it was complete darkness around me as I could not see very many lights below and there were all of those fires as I mentioned.  It felt like I was flying into a smokey little ghost town.
Whew!  Thanks to God that I landed safely in Bangui.  The airport is smaller than I anticipated (and only half of the landing lights were working) and looks deserted.  There isn’t much activity going on for this being an international airport.  Oh well, that makes it faster for me to clear customs and get a taxi.  Here in the Central African Republic, I did not have a choice in which taxi I would take.  It was ordered for me by the military police.  I guess this country has has some politically stability issues for quite awhile, which explains all of the police and UN workers I see.
I am starting to noitce more and more that there is a lot of UN presence in this part of Africa.  I’ve been seeing more and more UN planes lately.  From what I can gather, this country in particular seems to rely on the UN for a lot of their services.  There also appears to be a lot of ‘other’ ways to make money here, like moving alcohol, diamonds, ivory, etc.
After a good night’s sleep, I wake up to a rather lazy day.  It is Sunday, so I can’t get much done as far as the mission goes.  So I spend the day trying to catch up on my writings, doing laundry, checking emails and making phone calls home.
On Monday, I was off to a good start, thanks to all of my media friends in the country.  Every country that I go to now, the media people become my main contacts.  On top of the taxi drivers, which help me to learn about their country, the media people are a great resource when it comes to learning about local life.
Here in the Central African Republic, I quickly learn that there are not many media houses.  That must be due to having such a small population and being so rural.
Thanks to my new friends in the media here who gave me great interviews and for all of the interest that they have shown in covering the mission and Kosovo’s independence.  Thanks to Mr. Samual Turpin, who authorized my interview with Radio Ndeke Luka.  I like that name because because it roughly translates to ‘lucky bird’ or ‘bird who delivers a message’.  Mr. Turpin has worked in  many countries and was very knowledgeable about Kosovo since he worked there during our conflict and was in charge of establishing one of our radio stations there.  Also thanks to Mr. Fred Yapendet, the journalist with a great personality who actually did the interview with me.
Since radio is a huge media resource down here, I also went to Radio Nehemie.  Mr. Jean-Piere Nambate Dounia was very knowledgeable about Kosovo.  It was nice to hear that some of the listeners were asking if I could do the interview in Sango, one of the local languages.  Even if I was able to do that, I hear that there are over 80 ethnic groups (all with their own language), so it would still have been hard to be understood by everybody.
My third radio interview was with Mr. Keven Junior Zackou-Wangui at Radio Notre Dame (there’s a history of French colonialism here too).  I owe him a big thank you for his in-depth interview.
At the newspaper Le Confident, Mr. Banale Fleury and Mr. Etienne Madondabou helped me do an interview and at Le Citoyan, it was Eddy-Stephane.  Mr. Samba Ferdinand and Dotte Geoffroy Hyacinthe were the great personnel at the Le Democrate newspaper and Mr. Jimmy Nzecko and Mr. Sylvestre Krock at the newspaper Hirondelle were also very helpful in getting the word out about our mission.
Finally, the Director of the National television station, Mr. Michael Ouambeti authorized his journalist Mr. David Nvale to interview me.
At the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Attachee de Protocole du Minister, Ms. Viviane Nancy Dalemet had a great personality and was very persistent in getting me a meeting with her boss, the Minister himself, Mr. Antoine Gambi.  During that meeting, Mr. Gambi gave me undivided attention and was very pleasant when discussing our mission.  He mentioned that his personal position on Kosovo was that self-determination is a right that everyone should have and that he agrees with our independence.  However, their file on Kosovo must go to his government so that they can make a decision as a group.
I hope that my visit to this remote and mostly tribal country will make a positive change here as far as Kosovo is concerned and that a decision will come out of this beautiful place soon.
Speaking of decisions, I find out that on this coming Sunday is when this country will have its next political election.  As I mentioned earlier, this country has a history of political instability.  This election alone has been postponed numerous times.
On a lighter note, I cannot forget to thank my taxi driver, Mr. Bruno Zoua.  Though he ended up changing prices on me throughout the day (despite having agreeing to a set price in the morning), he was a trip to spend time with as he had the personality of a space cadet.
I am glad to have made progress here after wondering if I would ever make my landing.  It was nice to spend my time here with humans instead of my friends the wild African animals.  The next country up is Chad.
God Bless the Central African people.

Le Citoyen

La Redaction

L’HIRONDELLE

Le Confident PDF

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