The World is Talking About…

Zouerate is Talking About...Train travel

Note: Author and travel show presenter Michael Palin rides this train in his TV series and book, Sahara.

Tough Commute on a Train Not Meant for People

Sahara ride rough, but everyone gets window seat

By Sharon LaFraniere, New York Times

Nouadhibou, Mauritania - One might ask why any sane person would ride 419 miles through the Sahara in a railroad hopper, scorched by a blazing sun, surrounded by goats, fated to pass 17 hours watching desperate companions relieve themselves over the side of the car.

For one, it is free. And two, it is virtually the only way to get to Zouerate.

“Take a car and try to drive, you will be scared to death,” said Mohamed Vall Ould Cheikh, who has been hopping the train for 12 years. “You will be driving in the middle of nowhere, no road, no water and no restaurant. If your car breaks down, you are dead.”

One might also ask why any sane person would go to Zouerate (pronounced zoo-WARE-ate), a spot in remote northwest Mauritania whose only feature is a gargantuan open-pit hematite mine. Yet on any given day in Nouadhibou (pronounced noh-AH-dee-boo), a rough-hewn town of 90,000 on the shores of the luminescent green Atlantic, maybe 100 people are bound and determined to make it to Zouerate — or at least to Choum, a dusty outpost of 5,000 about two-thirds of the way.

Nouadhibou is the western terminus for one of the world’s longest, heaviest trains, a 220-car, mile-and-a-half colossus that ferries iron ore from Zouerate to ships waiting in Nouadhibou’s cluttered harbor. It is not meant for passengers, although it pulls one or two token, ramshackle passenger cars at the end.

But for Mauritanians, who have to get from one place to another in northern Mauritania without paved roads or planes, the train is the closest facsimile to a mass transit system, even if most of what passes for seating is in 10-foot high, open-air iron hoppers.

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Uganda is Talking About...Trash

Why Uganda Hates The Plastic Bag

Uganda joins the growing number of East African countries which have banned the plastic bag in an attempt to clean up cities and prevent environmental damage including blocked drains.

By Mark Whitaker, BBC News

Kampala, Uganda - efore your eyes become accustomed to the sight and the stench, the Chitezi municipal dump - which serves the Ugandan capital, Kampala - is like a scene from a painting by Bosch, a premonition of the Apocalypse, or a vision of Hell.

High in the sky, great birds wheel around on the thermals. At first glance, they look like giant vultures, casting ominous shadows on the ragged human scavengers strewn around below.

But as they touch down on the grey, stinking moonscape, they seem to take on a ghastly sub-human form themselves. Like cowled priests bent over the rotting piles.

With their moth-eaten plumage, grotesque "alopecia-ed" heads, and sinister reptilian eyes, these are Africa's nightmare birds - marabou storks - fencing with their murderous bills over the carcass of a plastic sack they have ripped apart.

Flocking here in their hundreds, the ravenous birds are making a feast of Kampala's refuse, squabbling with their human competitors over the richest pickings.

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Monrovia is Talking About...Reverse Immigration

Liberia's Elites Leave American Comforts for War-torn Home

Newly elected Harvard-educated President a huge factor in instilling confidence in emigres.

By Matthew Clark, Christian Science Monitor

Monrovia, Liberia - Africa's best and brightest have long flocked to rich countries for opportunities unavailable at home. Brain drain costs the continent millions of dollars per year, depriving it of thousands of sorely needed professionals.

But the reverse is now true in Liberia, a country of 3-1/2 million that is trying to pick up the pieces in the wake of a debilitating civil war.

"It's crazy - everywhere I go here, I meet someone else I knew from the States who's just come back," says Gama Roberts, a Web designer who recently left a lucrative job and comfortable life near Atlanta, Ga., to start a Web-development business in a capital city where few have running water or electricity.

Since 1990, Africa as a whole has lost some 20,000 professionals per year, according to the Geneva-based International Organization for Migration. The cash-strapped government does not have records on the number of skilled Liberians who've moved back from developed countries in the past year. But anecdotal evidence indicates that highly educated professionals who, like Mr. Roberts, left decades ago and found success abroad, are coming back in droves to help rebuild a country they've long seen as too dangerous or underdeveloped.

"It's a concrete manifestation of the confidence people have that peace is here to stay," says William Allen, director of Liberia's Civil Service Agency. "There's clearly a reversal of the brain drain going on, and it's a validation of the confidence Liberians in the diaspora have in the future of the country," he says.  Read more...

Cairo is Talking About...Ful

For Egyptians, Life is a Bowl of Ful

Street food as a way of life and identity

By Michael Slackman, New York Times

Cairo, Egypt - Tucked beneath a highway overpass, just beside the railroad tracks, and behind a parked taxi, Farouk Salem's eyes dart back and forth nervously as he awaits customers. The sun has barely risen, worshipers are shuffling out of the nearby mosque having finished their morning prayers, as the first customers make their way to Salem. A few quick flicks of a ladle, shakes of a bottle or two, and breakfast is ready.

Salem is selling ful, the fava bean stew that is a staple of Egyptian cuisine - a cheap, tasty, hearty breakfast for the equivalent of just 20 cents US. The problem is that Salem is an unlicensed street vendor. He is one of the many, many hundreds of thousands of Egyptians who make their living in what economists here describe as the country's informal work force, selling, delivering, cooking, cleaning, serving, ferrying, shoe shining, anything that will provide work income.

Rashad Abdou, a professor of economics at Cairo University, estimates that this informal sector could account for as much as 60 percent of Egypt's economy.

"As long as I keep a low profile, they don't bother me," Salem said as his brother worked behind their parked metal cart, dishing out bowls of ful.

The police have forced him to move many times and have even confiscated the cart. But it is hard to keep a really low profile when the food is good and the prices are cheap.

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Johannesburg is Talking About...An Historic Restaurant

Kapitan of Courage and Curry

Mandela ate here: An apartheid oasis of interracial mingling is still a spicy hotspot.

By Stephanie Hanes, Christian Science Monitor

Johannesburg, South Africa - Nelson Mandela wrote his regrets in cursive; wide, looping letters cleanly following the lines on paper now yellowed by age. The date stamp on the note is 1989 - months before his release from prison.

He wrote that he will always remember the place that he patronized as a young lawyer - in part because of the food, in part because it was one of the only restaurants in Johannesburg that would serve both blacks and whites during apartheid. "Sincerely," he signed, "Nelson."

The letter is now laminated, hanging on a wall not far from a table of four, digging into their curry. Kapitan's Oriental Restaurant, it turns out, didn't close in 1989, newspaper articles and gossip to the contrary. It didn't close in 1990 when Mandela was released from prison or in 1995 when he was president - although almost every year, owner Mandajit Ranthod promises to retire.

Today the restaurant is as popular as ever, attracting tourists to its living, cooking history. And Kapitan's can write the brutal story of Johannesburg in meals and curries past. The struggles against apartheid, the crumbling of the downtown, the recent, tentative urban renewal - Mr. Ranthod has seen it all in this restaurant.

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Enoosaen is Talking About...Mutual Aid

A Kenyan Town’s Offer of Aid Pays Dividends for Its Youth

“We did what we knew best,” said an elder, Mzee ole Yiamboi. “The handkerchief we give to people to wipe their tears with is a cow.”

By Jeffrey Gettleman, New York Times

Enoosaen, Rift Valley Province, Kenya - When Masai tribesmen marry, they give cows. When a son wants to earn the respect of his father, he gives cows. When there is a friend in need or a condolence call to make, more cows.

So it was, in this one-cow-fits-all spirit, that the elders of Enoosaen four years ago donated 14 prized bulls and heifers to the people of the United States to help ease the pain of the Sept. 11 attacks.

But there was one little problem: the cattle — and how to get them from here to there.

Instead, they will be blessed, and their offspring will be used to pay for education for the children of Enoosaen. To get the cow trust fund going, the Americans are donating 14 high school scholarships.

“What you did to help us will not be forgotten,” said the new American ambassador to Kenya,  Michael E. Ranneberger.

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Burundi is Talking About…Hair

The 'do,' Burundi-style

For the people of this central African nation, attending to hairstyles is a favorite pastime.

By Melanie Stetson Freeman, Christian Science Monitor

Bujumbura, Burundi - On a recent afternoon in the dustry suburb of Kamenge, Burundi, every seat in the 112 Boys hair salon is filled.

Just next door in Ja Rule salon - named after a popular American rap artist - a woman gets a short unisex trim. For 500 Burundi francs (about 50 cents), customers can get the popular Marine cut - a buzz, a bit longer on top. More difficult hairstyles cost a bit more.

In one of the poorest countries in the world, hair styling apparently is a popular business to get into - requiring little overhead or tools. Many hairdressers are self-taught. On this busy thoroughfare, it seems that every other business cuts or styles hair…

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