Loomnie

I got this from iyanandegusisoup. Pretty impressive.

I just listened to a three-part documentary series by the BBC. It is about Sub-Saharan Africans who hope to cross the Sahara, and then cross over from North Africa to Europe.

One particularly sad story is that of a 19 year old Benin (Nigeria) girl whom the presenter, Jenny Cuffe, met in Agadez, Niger. Her story is uncannily familiar, the kind of story one hears of girls who are promised that they will be taken to Europe by traffickers. Only that this time, in the case of the girl, her career in prostitution started in Niger. At some point she escaped from her trafficker who had been giving her to about 14 customers a day at a garrison town in Niger. That was when the presenter met her. The third part of the series covers her story. Ms. Cuff took the girl to the Nigerian border, handed her over to the immigration officers, who then took her to NAPTIP, National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons, in Abuja. When Jenny Cuffe went to check on her in Abuja and was told that after conducting a test, they found that she was HIV positive. She even goes to the girl’s home in Benin to see the kind of poverty that motivated her to want to leave for Europe in the first place. The thing is that poverty is always an incentive to want a better life; another incentive, perhaps a greater one, is seeing the houses built by local women who live in Europe, and the queue of people who go to Western Union points to receive money sent by relatives living in Europe.

I know that this story is familiar, but it is one of those things that simply come home to one with the illustration of a particular case.

You can download the podcasts here. You can also check the podcast page on this blog for links to other podcasts.

I said two posts ago that I am now working in Cotonou. One of my colleagues who once lived in America, and who goes to Nigeria very often, told me today that Nigerians are just like Americans. Nigerians think that the whole world hates them, that other Africans are jealous of them, and that no other African country exists apart from Nigeria.

That got me thinking, is that really true? Let’s complicate matters a little. Nollywood movies that do not show us drinking blood – something that I, Nigerian that I am, think make other Africans to be scared of us – show people living in affluence. I remember a Malawian lady asking me, sometime ago, whether most Nigerians live in big houses like in the Nollywood movies – something that might be asked of Americans with regard to Hollywood movies. My colleague goes on with the analogy to say that Nigerians generally know very little about other African countries. His reason for this was simply: by the time you finish learning about 36 states you don’t have much brain matter left to devote to other countries. This, he says, is like Americans who don’t get to learn about any other place apart from the United States of America.

I really saw reason in many of the things he said, and that troubles me.

Early this morning I listened to a technology podcast from PRI’s The World. Chris Carrol, a National Geographic writer, had been travelling around the world, looking at the way e-waste is managed. He wrote an article about it; an interview with him took a portion of the podcast. He first talked about how most e-waste is disposed in the US: A random recycler in the USA sell used computers to brokers who have connections in developing countries. These brokers load them in containers and send them to developing countries. He then went on to describe what he saw in Accra. He describes how he saw children smash up old computers and pull them apart in order to reveal the wirings. These wires are piled on top of old tires, set on fire and left to burn for about 15 or 20 minutes, with the boys standing close by the fire, in the smoke, making sure that all the covering on the wire is burned off. At the end of the burning session they pick up about 50 cents worth of copper wire from the burnt off wires. These are sold to metal buyers.

Headaches and Nausea
Those who grew up in Nigeria can probably remember the nauseous smell that comes off burning things this way. Chris said he had a headache and a general feeling of mild nausea for weeks after watching the children do this for only a couple of days. He also said that the kids said that when they first started they got sick everyday, vomited, had headaches, but after a few weeks or months their bodies got used to this. He said that a large percentage of the e-waste also end up in China. When asked whether there are reports that say whether people who are exposed to this kind of toxicity are facing health problems he replies that in a town in China, a test of the air and soil revealed that there are persistent toxins in the soil and the plants. They refused to comment on the effects on humans.

And Maybe Cancer Too
Listening to this story made me think about a discussion I recently had with Professor Francis Egbokhare of the Distance Learning Centre, University of Ibadan. We were talking about the rise in reported cases of cancer. He wondered about health problems in Nigeria, and about the possibility that this might be linked to the time of the World Bank/IMF sponsored Structural Adjustment Programme. During that period, people werenmaking their own soaps by mixing all sorts of chemicals together. Other household items were made locally and under unmonitored circumstances. He wondered about the possibility that there were carcinogenous agents in some of the chemicals used to make say toothpastes during the period. We also talked about the sachets of Pure Water and the problem that most of the ones on the streets today are not even approved by the National Foods and Drugs Administration and Control, NAFDAC.

The point of the Pure Water comes home closer when one considers Lagos. There was a time I used to joke that I would easily know that I am in Lagos by the horrible stench that meets me when the window of the car is wound down. Those who stay close to Ojota/Ketu must be very familiar with the smell that comes from the refuse dump along the road. The open incinerator burns everything, from decomposing food items to electronics. These kinds of garbage are also always burnt on almost every street in Lagos. If it can be found that soil and plant contain toxins it would be safe to assume that water from wells in these places also contain toxins. That is the kind of water that we often buy as Pure Water on the streets.

The Issues
There is a serious increase in cases of cancer diagnosed in China, and it is increasingly pressed to pay attention to it. At least tests are being carried out to find out the level of toxins in soils, plants and persons, even if the reports of the tests are never publicly available. I wonder whether our governments in Africa are paying attention to these issues. If anyone knows about any organisation or government agency – in any African country – that work on this they should please leave the name and address of such agency in a comment. And if there is nothing happening I wonder when we will, and how we can, start making the government pay attention to the issues. I am also interested in the position of African countries on e-waste management. I think it is time we started talking about things that may not appear now, but that might end up complicating our future and that of later generations.

I moved to Cotonou yesterday. From what I’ve seen, it is a pretty normal city. I will be here for a while so whoever is passing by/around could leave me a message. Of course, I will continue blogging.

Sunday morning, I went through my iTunes library and deleted some songs that have failed to serve their functions. No, it is not the fault of the tracks; I got them for the wrong reasons. See, some songs are attached to some thoughts, experiences, and feelings, and after a while, I looked for and collected them. But then, I have found that these songs do not conjure the same feelings they used to anymore. I have a feeling that many people have the same experience. I have decided to let them go, and to delve deeper into making new experiences to which some new songs might or might not be attached. I am not great on New Year resolutions, but I have started wondering whether this might not be the closest thing I would have to a New Year resolution.