← From Our Own Correspondent
From Our Own Correspondent
The Best Nightclub in Africa
00:27:54
Story-telling from around the world. In this edition Charlotte Pritchard travels to in...
Loading summary
Transcript12 lines
- [00:00]
A
You have downloaded from our own correspondent. This edition is the latest one broadcast on BBC Radio 4, and here to introduce it is Kate Ady.
- [00:09]
B
Hello. Today, the man who's travelled 5,000 miles to Ukraine to fight in someone else's war. The Baobabs are still there. So are the Limas, but the tourists are staying away. And for Madagascar, the outlook is bleak. Colombia's writers gather amid tropical colors and architectural gems. 2015, they say, is a make or break year for their country. And cooler. Box full of drinks. Tick. Camping chairs in place. Tick. We're all set for a night of car park pimping in Botswana. The Ukrainian president is today expected to order government forces to start removing heavy weapons from their positions in the east of the country. The pro Russian separatists they've been fighting against say they've already started to pull back their weapons as part of an agreement brokered earlier this month. Yesterday, Kiev said none of its soldiers had been killed in the east of the country in the previous 24 hours. A spokesman described it as the first day without fatalities in several weeks. Paul Adams says the season's changing in eastern Ukraine. Whether or not the ceasefire will take a firm hold is less clear.
- [01:17]
C
It's almost spring in the Donbass. The ice fishermen are still out on the frozen lakes, but the surfaces are slushy now and. And out in the fields, the snow has melted. The freezing fog of winter is giving way to a strong, bright sun that carries with it the promise of rebirth. And in the trees, woodpeckers are drumming. It's been a long, hard season of war. And even though the latest ceasefire has reduced the fighting, no one thinks it's over. I was last here in the immediate aftermath of another ceasefire, but that one broke down soon afterwards. The front lines have changed a bit since then, but the chasm that divides Ukrainians has only deepened. And with reports of Russian tanks gathering near Mariupol and mysterious explosions killing people in the country's second largest city, Kharkiv, it's easy to see how this conflict could still spread. And everywhere you go, you see a landscape even more scarred than before and lives more wretched, too. Near the front lines, there are almost empty motorways where shelling has left downed bridges and potholes that no one is bothering to fix. Factories reduced to ugly skeletons, coal mines, idle trees with broken limbs in some places, scenes of ferocious battle. Outside Debaltseva, which fell to the rebels last week, we came across the checkpoint where fighting raged for three weeks until government forces were routed. The charred Eviscerated hulks of tanks, a discarded Ukraine football mug, a Bible, a dog blood staining its yellow fur. And two dead government soldiers, their skin waxy. After three days stretched out on the freezing ground, our guide through this deadly wasteland was a fighter who called himself Pitbull. He said he was from vladivostok, more than 5,000 miles away. It's a long way to come and fight in someone else's war. The conflict is almost a year old now. How many more winters will there be? The civilians you meet are exhausted and dangerously resigned to the collapse of their entire world. Elena, living alone in a freezing cellar month after month sipping tea by the thin guttering light of a candle. The rumble of distant artill fire penetrating her subterranean cave on the outskirts of Donetsk. Or Anatoly, standing dishevelled and bitter amid the ruins of the house he's lived in all his 62 years. On the night the last ceasefire came into effect, while he and his 86 year old mother, Anna Andreyevna, were sleeping, a shell exploded outside and the house in the frontline town of Orlivka was engulfed in flames. He showed me how he dragged his mother down the garden path and left her sheltering in the outside toilet while he tried to put out flames. There's nothing left of the house but charred, gaping walls and a teetering chimney. Anatoly, who hasn't received his pension since last May, is at his wit's end. As we left him, he was wringing his hands and muttering with fury. Away from these scenes of despair, the rebel projects continue to take shape. The two self declared People's Republics, Donetsk and Luhansk, have their own motley collections of leaders, ministries, spokesmen and militias, and they rally support with patriotic displays. On Monday, a big crowd turned out here in the center of Donetsk to mark Defender of the Fatherland Day, which dates back to the origins of the Red Army, a holiday effectively banned by Ukraine's president Petro Poroshenko, who last year declared that the country should not be celebrating holidays from the military historical calendar of Russia, but under an imposing statue of Lenin to the people of Donetsk, appeared to celebrate with gusto. There were red flags, Soviet songs and even some pictures of Stalin, a man who starved millions of Ukrainians to death in the 1930s. I confess it was a baffling sight, testifying perhaps to the amnesiac effect of World War II and decades of subsequent propaganda, which disappeared for a bit after the collapse of communism, but is now back with a vengeance. It's even more astonishing to think that less than three years ago, during Euro 2012, this city was awash with the blue and yellow of the Ukrainian flag. Was this the other Donetsk, populated by people who have now gone, or at least gone quiet? Or is it that some of the same people who were happy to see themselves as Ukrainian back then, at least at a football match, have now reverted to something atavistic? More deeply rooted war has taken hold of this part of Europe. Perhaps not even the melting of the ice will loosen its grip.
- [05:50]
B
Paul Adams In Donetsk, there's been fierce fighting between government forces and rebels in the northeast of Myanmar, formerly Burma. A state of emergency has been declared in Kokan Province, close to the border with China. The government claims that with air support, it's captured a number of rebel positions. It's believed that more than 50 soldiers and 70 rebels have died. Myanmar's president says he won't concede an inch of territory to the rebels and won't be negotiating a ceasefire. Jonah Fischer says thousands of civilians have fled to China.
- [06:23]
A
For safety, we drive along the winding road towards the Kokan Special Region, not expecting to get far. With the state of emergency in place, the Burmese military is in complete control, and for us, that's not good news. The army is allergic to journalists at the best of times. But we travel in hope, past turquoise rivers and through narrow gorges before stopping for the first time. Not far from the Chinese border, a battered truck flying a Red Cross flag heading in the other direction comes to a stop next to us. Inside, there's a mood of mild hysteria. Some of those on board are clearly in shock. We're told they were part of a convoy evacuating people from cocaine and had come under fire. We're shown a bullet hole and damage caused by the explosion of an artillery shell. Aid workers in another vehicle were injured, we're told. In the back, looking understandably traumatized, are 30 tired and hungry men and women and a few children. They tell us they're migrant workers who'd been building roads and laboring in sugarcane fields in the Special Region. The roots of this latest conflict lie in the late 1980s, when the Burmese Communist Party broke apart. But the rebels of today owe little to Marx, Lenin or Mao. Back then, the country's ruling generals, facing a growing pro democracy movement and a mounting number of conflicts along their borders, cut a deal with what was left of the Communists. They created several special autonomous regions along the border with China and in return for peace, handed the leaders of the different factions control for two decades. They were left to their Own devices. Kokan is one of those regions. It's still technically part of Myanmar, but its people are ethnically Chinese and they speak Mandarin. For most of the last 20 years, it's been led by a man called Phone Jiaxin, who they say established Myanmar's first heroin factory. The region earned a reputation as a hub for drug trafficking and production, and eventually Fengjiaxin was driven out of Kokan and into exile in China. For years, little was heard of him. Aged 84, many assumed he died, or at the very least, that he was politically finished. But two months ago, the aging warrior emerged to say he was making a comeback. And in the last two weeks, there's been intense fighting between the Burmese army and his rebels. Determined to take a look for ourselves, we eventually talked our way into the special region and made it to the border town of Qin Shwe Ho, close to where the fighting's been taking place. It was empty. The shops were shuttered, and stray dogs walked the streets as if they owned them. When the fighting broke out, tens of thousands of the ethnic Kokan fled across the border. And as we talked to some nervous soldiers, a group of about 20 refugees arrived from the other direction, from China. They were non cocan migrant workers. They told us they'd walked for two days, heading first into China before crossing back into Myanmar. At a point where they thought they'd be safe, the soldiers gave them some hot rice and chicken and called for a truck to take them further. Several times we watched as convoys sped off in the direction of the fighting, with young soldiers crouched in the back of pickups, shielded only by flimsy canvas sheeting. It's easy to understand how the rebels have inflicted casualties. Cochan clearly is a local issue, an aging drug lord trying to regain control of his tiny mountain kingdom. But it's also shining a light on the fault line in Myanmar's most important relationship with China. Beijing denies giving support, but there are currently at least three rebel groups, including the Kokan, fighting along the Chinese border. They cross at will to rearm, regroup, and then launch new attacks, and are clearly being helped by some Chinese officials. Many inside Myanmar see the rebels as a foreign force, and the conflict has struck a nationalist chord. There's a general election here later this year, and the military's undemocratic role in politics have been coming under scrutiny. But now it seems a patriotic war is underway, and the previously much criticized Burmese army is enjoying an unlikely surge in support.
- [11:00]
B
And That's Jonah Fischer. 2015 is a big year for Colombia. After decades of violence involving the FARC and other rebel groups. After 220,000 deaths, the prominence of drug cartels and shocking human rights violations, it's hoped that this might be a year a peace deal is finally signed. When President Juan Manuel Santos was returned to power last year, he promised the start of a new Colombia. And with rich reserves of oil, coal and precious minerals, this nation is raring to go and to rebrand itself as a place of prosperity, peace and culture. Rosie Goldsmith's been to the Caribbean city of Cartagena, where some of the country's leading writers have been holding their own peace talks.
- [11:44]
D
Cartagena overflows with tropical colours, architectural gems and loud Afro Caribbean music. But rising above it all is the sound of Spanish spoken at full throttle. The writers have hit town. Santiago Gamboa is one of them, author of the acclaimed novel Necropolis and a forthright political columnist. Cartagena is special, he tells me, a safe place where we seek refuge. Even politicians relax and walk around in shorts. 2015 is a big year for Colombia and for Santiago. He turns 50. It's 20 years since his first novel and 30 since he left for exile in Spain. Now he's back. I've returned to Colombia because the peace process is, for us, an historical moment. I want to write about it. Millions of us left in the bad years. Now we're returning. 2015 is a make or break year. Santiago leans against the orange walls of the 17th century colonial jewel, Santa Clara. The former convent is a hotel and festival venue. When I left, Colombia was dark and conservative, lost like an island, he says. There were very few books in the shops, just photocopies. My novels were printed in Spain. Now Colombia has books and publishers. Everything is modernizing, even our minds. In Anglo Saxon countries, he continues, there's a big gap between politics and fiction. Not here. We treasure intellectuals. My form of activism is writing. Cartagena's most famous son, Nobel Prize winner Gabriel Garcia Marquez, also combined politics and fiction and was an unflinching critic of Colombia's dark deeds. He died last year, but lives on in special tours, in conversations in Cartagena's architecture and streets, fictionalised in his magical realist novels. Like One Hundred Years of Solitude, Marquez ran a parallel government here in Cartagena. World leaders paid homage to him. This is the fated young author, Juan Gabriel Vazquez, talking to me. Marquez and his generation reinvented South America through their writing. They always met in Cartagena. For us younger writers, meeting them here was like sitting down with Dickens or Flaubert. I find only One bricks and mortar bookshop in Cartagena proudly displaying Marques's novels. An old ice cream barrow serves as a portable shop. Ad hoc book stands line the city walls, but Colombia is building new bookshops and libraries, the city of Medellin leading the way. In rural areas, the ingenious biblio buros, or book donkeys, act as mobile libraries, reaching readers in remote villages. Books won't banish Colombia's problems. At Cartagena's bus terminal, you can see the poor and wounded. There are 5 million internally displaced people in Colombia and thousands of traumatized fighters needing rehab. But Juan Gabriel Vazquez argues that books matter, especially now. I've moved back to Colombia, he tells me, after 13 years. Every novel I write is a form of inquisition into a dark place. Writers have a big responsibility. We belong to a tradition of public intellectuals questioning politics. How does he feel about Colombia today? I ask. The peace process is the most important event in a hundred years, he says. But there's also resistance, a dirty war being waged by some to sabotage it. Colombia is one of the most polarized countries on earth. He frowns. I sympathize with those who aren't comfortable with the peace process. After 50 years of terrorism, they think it's hideous to share power with former rebels and see them take seats in Congress. But he pauses. If it falls apart, we won't get a second chance. There's another writer I've been waiting to meet in Cartagena. So in demand is Hector Abad. His smile lights up the room. Tears come easily to his eyes. His story is well known. Although his father was murdered by the paramilitaries in 1987, he never left Colombia. As well as writing fiction, he runs a bookshop in his home city of Medellin, teaches at Medellin University, is director of its new library, and has just launched the first ever national literature prize. For many of our sector, Abad explains, colombia was the promised land. I dreamed, I stayed, always hoping it's time to reclaim our promised land. When the war is over, we'll find a beautiful country. The only funerals we attend should be of our parents after long lives. Like much of Latin America, Colombia respects its authors and produces a fair number of politician writers that other Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa campaigned to become president of Peru. Would Hector Abad ever want to become president of Colombia? The answer is a hearty laugh. Does President Santos write books? I ask. No, but he's a reader. Does that make him a good president? Hector Abad laughs again. I don't know. But fiction broadens the mind. So a book loving President
- [16:50]
B
Rosie Goldsmith in Cartagena, the Indian Ocean island of Madagascar off the coast of Africa, is like nowhere else on earth. It's been isolated for so long that most of its mammals, half of its birds, and most of its plants exist nowhere else. Despite substantial natural wealth, most of the islanders are desperately poor. A coup there in 2009 only made matters worse. International donors like the EU, suspended development aid. A new president was finally elected last year. But last month the government resigned and the country remains unstable. Not then the most relaxing of travel destinations, despite the beautiful, sometimes otherworldly landscapes. So one can perhaps see why Rob Crossan was a bit thirsty at the end of the day.
- [17:38]
E
It's for you. Shouts the grinning man dressed in a Barcelona football shirt and what looks like the bottom half of a leotard. He thrusts an ancient telephone receiver, not connected to anything, at me. I ignore this bizarre interruption and carry on my original conversation with another man who's standing next to a stained, rusting picnic cooler. What I'd really like is a beer. It's dusk in Baobab Alley, a stretch of road in the Manabi district of western Madagascar, and the sun is bleaching the sky hues of grapefruit, ochre and peach. Baobab trees, with the immense slate grey girth of their trunks as wide as lighthouses and their strangely flattened high branches like squashed heads of broccoli, are, along with the native population of lemurs, the main reason for visitors to head to Madagascar. These twin wonders of nature survive amid an intensely precarious situation, a vast island nation that has suffered countless military coups since independence from the French colonial yoke, plus intense deforestation, rice shortages, a rapidly escalating population, and woeful infrastructure which has turned the capital Antananarivo, into the very quintessence of the dysfunctional African capital city where French expats eat foie gras and quaff Burgundy wine whilst the immense homeless population sleeps in the doorways and car parks. In Baobab Alley, the poverty is of a less brutal but equally hopeless rural variety. Children play on top of a water pump donated by the Japanese. Hawkers attempt to sell wooden carvings of the baobabs to the occasional visitor. Business is bad, one trader tells me between puffs on a hand rolled cigarette as the sun slowly sinks behind us. Since the last coup, so few people visit us now. That Coup was in 2009. It resulted in scores of overseas businesses closing down their factories in Madagascar and made the nation, according to one survey, the poorest country on earth that isn't currently at war. The national beer, a decent pilsner known as Three Horses, is still being made, and it was my attempt to purchase a bottle from the trader with the cooler, which had drawn the attention of Telephone Man. Wait. The trader exclaimed. My friend keeps the beer at his house. He will get you one. So off went Telephone man, the ancient contraption tucked under his arm, to fetch a beer. To pass the time, I chat to the trader, who only calls himself Mr. Alain, about lemurs, the tree swinging creatures which remain the nation's number one draw for tourism. People still think that some breeds of lima bring bad luck, and so they're killed, Mr. Alain tells me. There's so little forest left. The last government banned slashing and burning, and in 2004 there wasn't a single fire in the whole country. But that's all changed now. There's not enough forest, so it's being destroyed to make way for rice fields. But there's not enough rice either. People overseas don't want to help us anymore. They can see that our government can't be trusted. How can they tell the money isn't being stolen? They're not stupid. Madagascar has plummeted down the rankings of the World Corruption Perceptions Index in the last few years, keeping company with the likes of Togo and Nigeria. Mr. Allen's musings seem to give little cause for optimism, but the prospect of a cold beer still lifts my spirits. Telephone man returns, panting slightly, and hands me a glass bottle thickly caked in dust. No beer today, monsieur, he says, but I bring you something better. As the cluster of baobab trees casts looming, bruise colored shadows over the sandy road, I smile, unscrew the bottle, and blindly take a large swig. It tastes like burnt rice. And that, Mr. Alan tells me, is exactly what it is. Known as ranavola, it is essentially water strained from the bottom of a pot of burnt rice and mixed with more water. The alcohol content is, of course, zero. I can't help but screw up my face, not at the acrid taste, but more at my last vanishing hope of obtaining a beer. Noticing my displeasure, Telephone man folds his arms and places his contraption on the ground. No calls for you now, sir, he pouts and walks off into the sunset, leaving just me and the bewildered Trader standing in the enveloping gloom. What will you do with the telephone? I ask. Don't worry. He always comes back for it. He likes to pretend he's Speaking to the President on it. Sometimes I wondered what on earth he would say to those in power who rule over this desperately born nation. But my guess is that like most Madagascans, he'll stay cut off from electricity, from communication, from power for a long while yet.
- [22:32]
B
And that was Rob Crossan. Now, some, but perhaps that doesn't include all Radio 4 listeners, might regard it as the best journalistic assignment possible. A group of our colleagues over at the BBC World Service have been charged with the task of finding the very best nightclub in Africa. Their efforts are producing a whole range of programmes which started in December and continue through to April. And has a favourite emerged? Well, not yet, apparently, but there are still many countries to be visited. Clubs have been inspected so far in Kenya and in the Democratic Republic of Congo. And Charlotte Pritchard's been to Botswana, a country not usually regarded as being amongst
- [23:12]
F
the continent's liveliest Cars in Africa, it seems to me, run not on petrol, but on the beeps and hoots of their horns. In most of the African capitals I've been to, you sit in traffic jams for hours amid a constant cacophony of horns and shouting drivers. But not in Haberone, the capital of Botswana. What's noticeable here is the quietness. The only sounds I can hear in the center of town are the rattles and clangs of builders constructing yet another brand new high rise. Hotels, office blocks, government ministries. The shiny new glass reflects the rays of the hot southern African sun and make the empty streets below glisten. No traffic jams, no street food stalls, no hustle and bustle. Perhaps this quietness is all the more obvious because I've got sound on the brain. I'm trying to find the best nightclub in Africa. And with not many bars or even restaurants around, I've become a bit worried that here in Botswana I might find the worst nightclub in Africa. Or perhaps no club at all. Some local DJs from a youth music station, Euronafm, show me around. One of them's the jovial Donna Mac, who talks to me during the advert breaks on his show. He reckons the quietness of Gaborone is partly down to the government's crackdown and levy on alcohol. It's a tax on sin, he tells me. The tax was brought in with good intentions. The authorities wanted to reduce the amount of drink driving and in their words, encourage responsible behaviour. New licensing hours were also introduced. It's meant that clubs have had to shut at 2am But $Mac tells me that many restaurants Bars and clubs have had to close down altogether because, thanks in part to the tax, people just can't afford to go out anymore. We're missing the Botswana we know, a girl called Sarah tells me in an exasperated tone. But young people in Botswana are pushing back. I'm talking to Sarah in a huge car park in one of Gaborone's suburbs. This is what young people are doing now. They call it car park pimping. Basically, it's a huge party in a car park. Outside a small bar playing loud music are a couple of hundred cars, some of them pumping out their own tunes. Around the vehicles are clusters of friends with two accessories essential for car park a cooler box filled with alcohol and camping chairs to sit around the cooler box. One group has even set up a pool table next to their car. This has always been a culture in Gaborone, says Bonnie Dintwa, who's also from Llorona fm. But since the alcohol levy, those who used to go to clubs come car park pimping, the numbers have increased hugely. There are some here who speak positively about the government's campaign against drink driving. Gurata Masiapeto says these days when people are drunk, they think twice about climbing into their cars and driving at 80 miles an hour. The police are always everywhere, she says. Gurata, by the way, is immaculately dressed. Gaborone, she tells me, is such a small place, and you have to look good all the time. My alternative nightlife tour continues with a drive further out of town along the highway. There are yet more building sites, these ones next to large termite mounds. They look a little sad that they're no longer the tallest things on the side of the road. We arrive at a football field in a village outside Haberone, where there's a huge outdoor festival going on. As the sun sets, the sky turns pink, and the grey smoke of a barbecue drifts up into the clouds. In the evening light, people are dancing to live performances by local artists and showing off their latest dance moves, including the particularly impressive one of balancing bottles of beer on their bums over a drink and some barbecued meat. I chat to one local DJ called Gouveia. He tells me that people like him have lost many nightclubs to play their music in. But alternative parties like this festival have given them new locations where they can reach their fans. As I make my way back to the city from this nightclub under the Stars, there's much to think about. The licensing laws, the alcohol levy, and, of course, this gathering in a football field. Oh, and I'm warned on the way back to watch out for the odd cow and goat crossing the road. But you don't have to worry about the goats. I'm told they understand the traffic lights.
- [27:40]
B
Charlotte Pritchard there on the trail of the best nightclub in Africa. It's a tough job, but somebody's got to do it. More assignments, some more attractive than others. On Saturday morning at half past eleven. I hope you'll join us. Goodbye.