Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Sunday, May 18, 2008
More Pictures!
Friday, May 2, 2008
Some pix finally!
I like baby goats - even in the rain!
Skin care is very important -- even in Togo. Trust me -- this climate is ruinous on a girl's complexion.
Ummm, my friend Jason brought over Budweiser in a can to a cookout we had last night. SERIOUSLY?! Budweiser in can?! Do you know how long it had been since I had seen that nectar of the American gods? Look at my face. No idea how he got it here. Doggon embassy and their goodies.
This is at Kevin's apt. Baltimorons, please note "Bertha's" sticker and Maryland flag on the fridge. Once a Baltimoron, always a Baltimoron. Even in Togo.
Meg & I at Mandingue, jazz club in Lome. Some residents call it the center of the universe. I have video of the band jamming the other night & Kevin on the drums, but given how long it takes to load a picture, well. That will have to wait.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
The Rain Comes
Oh glorious Togo rain! All of a sudden, the house completely darkens at 11 in the morning. I look outside and the air is full of violent dust and the palm trees are going crazy. Neighbors scurry everywhere to get their clothes off of the line and babies are crying. The temperature drops 20 degrees and rain falls. Thank god, the rainy season is here!
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Go Togo!
Please read the following article written by the President of Togo and published this week in the Washington Times. Wow! PS - Togo, not necessarily the fondest of their former colonizers. . .
Ending African 'history'
By Faure GnassingbeMarch 16, 2008
French President Nicholas Sarkozy addressed "Africa's Young" in a speech at the University of Cheik Anta Diop in Dakar, Senegal, on July 26, 2007. Africans widely and roundly criticized the speech, little noted by the U.S. media, as racist and condescending. Mr. Sarkozy offered up the "accepted" litany of difficulties confronting his "wounded continent" of Africa " wars, genocides, dictators and corruption. He asserted that it was not the slave trade and/or European colonialism that gave rise to these problems, but rather, he opined, "that the African has not fully entered into history," preferring to hold on to some "mythical past" rather than launch "himself towards the future."
It would appear Mr. Sarkozy chooses to end African "history," not like Francis Fukuyama in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall, but rather at African independence. He seems to argue that Africans missed this early universalization of Western liberal democracy and opted to pursue instead a return to a "golden age "of Africa that "never existed." Africans, he implies, chose Hobbes' "First Man" (solitary, poor, nasty, and brutish) over Fukuyama's "Last Man" (free, universal, just, and reasoning).
Mr. Sarkozy is curiously silent on the effects of post-independence African interaction over 50 years with the international system, including the former colonial powers. It is more in that interaction, I would argue, that we discover the genesis of the problems that Africa faces today. We, African leaders, must make an honest appraisal of this recent past, acknowledge its darkness and accept and/or assign responsibility for decisions made and/or avoided. Only then can we shine a harsh, but cleansing light on the continent's current state of affairs, permitting us to undertake necessary corrective action.
We must recognize that African states emerged from the colonial era with nascent political, economic and social institutions, an immediate and direct consequence of the colonial experience. The Cold War sent those institutions into stasis until 1989. The leaders of neither "West" nor "East" concerned themselves with the authoritarianism, corruption, stagnation or abuse that arose across Africa. With the fall of the Berlin Wall, however, Africans were asked to demonstrate immediately democracy, free markets and tolerant, open civil societies. African states were expected to emerge like Athena from the forehead of Zeus, full-grown and clad in armor " an improbable, if not impossible prospect.
Moreover, many of the challenges of the post-Cold War era African leaders are asked to address were not foreseen in the immediate post-colonial period. You need only consider the many and varied consequences of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, climate change and the globalization of trade and finance. Africa's national institutions were not, and are still not, as yet sufficiently broad, deep or flexible enough to deal effectively with this range of varied and complex issues in a systematic and timely manner.
But addressing these concerns is not simply a question of capacity building. While it is true that African leaders can affect change through coherent national institutions that bridge the gap between the state and society, providing necessary services to the people, this assumes the leader has this as an objective. All too often, African leaders, faced with the choice of building an integrated national political process and permitting it to mature or retaining personal control, have chosen control, submerging collective goals for the sake of personal advantage and interest.
Weak institutions are not in a position to constrain such a leader's ambitions and are more susceptible to facile manipulation. Many African leaders have been all too ready to resort to "neo-patrimonialism," using the institutions of the state to deliver personal favors. Rather than imbuing society with idealism and a sense of possibility and responsibility, some African leaders fostered self-serving sycophancy focused on posturing, personalities and egos without regard or concern for the nation. It is all too easy to understand why many African leaders have not seen Cincinnatus as a role model, but rather sought to cling to the perquisites and trappings of power.
Africa's greatest problem is failed leadership, in a moral not technical sense. No matter how many finely crafted International Monetary Fund/International Bank for Reconstruction and Development adjustment programs are put in place or how much development assistance donors pledge or how often "free and fair" elections are held, if this continent's leaders are not prepared to serve the needs of its people, Africa will remain Mr. Sarkozy's "wounded continent," unable to affect an exodus from its plagues.
Ending African 'history'
By Faure GnassingbeMarch 16, 2008
French President Nicholas Sarkozy addressed "Africa's Young" in a speech at the University of Cheik Anta Diop in Dakar, Senegal, on July 26, 2007. Africans widely and roundly criticized the speech, little noted by the U.S. media, as racist and condescending. Mr. Sarkozy offered up the "accepted" litany of difficulties confronting his "wounded continent" of Africa " wars, genocides, dictators and corruption. He asserted that it was not the slave trade and/or European colonialism that gave rise to these problems, but rather, he opined, "that the African has not fully entered into history," preferring to hold on to some "mythical past" rather than launch "himself towards the future."
It would appear Mr. Sarkozy chooses to end African "history," not like Francis Fukuyama in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall, but rather at African independence. He seems to argue that Africans missed this early universalization of Western liberal democracy and opted to pursue instead a return to a "golden age "of Africa that "never existed." Africans, he implies, chose Hobbes' "First Man" (solitary, poor, nasty, and brutish) over Fukuyama's "Last Man" (free, universal, just, and reasoning).
Mr. Sarkozy is curiously silent on the effects of post-independence African interaction over 50 years with the international system, including the former colonial powers. It is more in that interaction, I would argue, that we discover the genesis of the problems that Africa faces today. We, African leaders, must make an honest appraisal of this recent past, acknowledge its darkness and accept and/or assign responsibility for decisions made and/or avoided. Only then can we shine a harsh, but cleansing light on the continent's current state of affairs, permitting us to undertake necessary corrective action.
We must recognize that African states emerged from the colonial era with nascent political, economic and social institutions, an immediate and direct consequence of the colonial experience. The Cold War sent those institutions into stasis until 1989. The leaders of neither "West" nor "East" concerned themselves with the authoritarianism, corruption, stagnation or abuse that arose across Africa. With the fall of the Berlin Wall, however, Africans were asked to demonstrate immediately democracy, free markets and tolerant, open civil societies. African states were expected to emerge like Athena from the forehead of Zeus, full-grown and clad in armor " an improbable, if not impossible prospect.
Moreover, many of the challenges of the post-Cold War era African leaders are asked to address were not foreseen in the immediate post-colonial period. You need only consider the many and varied consequences of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, climate change and the globalization of trade and finance. Africa's national institutions were not, and are still not, as yet sufficiently broad, deep or flexible enough to deal effectively with this range of varied and complex issues in a systematic and timely manner.
But addressing these concerns is not simply a question of capacity building. While it is true that African leaders can affect change through coherent national institutions that bridge the gap between the state and society, providing necessary services to the people, this assumes the leader has this as an objective. All too often, African leaders, faced with the choice of building an integrated national political process and permitting it to mature or retaining personal control, have chosen control, submerging collective goals for the sake of personal advantage and interest.
Weak institutions are not in a position to constrain such a leader's ambitions and are more susceptible to facile manipulation. Many African leaders have been all too ready to resort to "neo-patrimonialism," using the institutions of the state to deliver personal favors. Rather than imbuing society with idealism and a sense of possibility and responsibility, some African leaders fostered self-serving sycophancy focused on posturing, personalities and egos without regard or concern for the nation. It is all too easy to understand why many African leaders have not seen Cincinnatus as a role model, but rather sought to cling to the perquisites and trappings of power.
Africa's greatest problem is failed leadership, in a moral not technical sense. No matter how many finely crafted International Monetary Fund/International Bank for Reconstruction and Development adjustment programs are put in place or how much development assistance donors pledge or how often "free and fair" elections are held, if this continent's leaders are not prepared to serve the needs of its people, Africa will remain Mr. Sarkozy's "wounded continent," unable to affect an exodus from its plagues.
Friday, February 8, 2008
Papa came to Togo -- and you can too!
Quick post while on acceptable internet connection (thank you embassy) -- Papa came to Togo on a last minute trip and stayed for a month! And he is alive! And he had fun! See, not so hard?
On another note -- I have no idea where the last 20 some-odd letters I have written have ended up. It makes me a bit sad because life here is at the point where things aren't so foreign and so neat stuff doesn't stand out anymore.
All I can do is try and be better about posting on here myself and forgo the letters home.
I love Togo, I am here to stay (for the next 2 years anyway).
hy
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Amerika!
Ok, I am home in the US and will therefore be hunting down the last several letters I sent home to post on here and pictures too. Yeah internet! It is quite odd to be here. I am happy to see my friends and family but already miss the sounds of fufu being prepared, the Fanmilk honk, people balaying, etc. etc. I won't go so far as to say I miss the yovo song. Well, maybe a little.
Merry Christmas! Will get my usual cell number turned on today. Give me a call and buy me dinner!
Kisses,
hy
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