Half day

Two years ago, on my first trip to N'Djamena, the capital of Chad, I spent barely a few hours -- long enough to grab the appropriate government permits and set off for the east of the country, where thousands of Darfur refugees live in camps.

After more than a week on the Chad-Sudan border, much of it riding in a steamy, battered SUV along roads as sandy as a beach, I returned to N'Djamena one afternoon and managed to book a flight home to Kenya for that same night. I spent my last few hours in Chad sitting on my duffel bag in an overly air-conditioned U.N. office, reading a magazine with a title like "Disarmament Quarterly" and waiting to leave for the airport.

This time I vowed to spend a little more time getting to know the city, which is not very well visited even by journalists. N'Djamena, which apparently derives from the Arabic for "a place of rest," is about the remotest capital in Africa, far from either ocean and hemmed in to the north by a vast desert. The name is misleading. The Chadian government being highly unstable, N'Djamena sees coup attempts about as often as Malibu sees mudslides, the most recent in February.

The heat is oppressive -- reaching 104 degrees today (although, as weather.com helpfully pointed out, it felt like only 100), and likely to go higher as we edge closer to the "hot season." And yet the men -- nomad-chic in their skullcaps, sunglasses and flowing, body-length cotton caftans -- look as comfortable as can be.

Friday is a half-day in N'Djamena, so when I took a taxi into town for a meeting at around lunchtime, the streets were already half-empty. The French colonial influence remains strong, and the few street vendors still working were hawking some nice looking baguettes. We drove past the large French military base and the dilapidated hotel de ville, N'Djamena city hall. We also passed the fortress-like American Embassy, which was reportedly damaged during the February coup attempt, but signs of the destruction weren't visible from the road. (Read an embassy staffer's dramatic account of being evacuated from the compound as fighting raged.)

There is a story about an attempted coup here in 2006 that goes something like this: a few well-armed rebels marched from the Sudanese border right into N'Djamena and appeared ready to seize the presidential palace. But it turned out the rebels -- not city folk, these guys -- didn't know exactly where the palace was. They got utterly lost, took heavy fire from Chadian and French forces, and turned back. It's become known as the coup that was thwarted because of poor signage. And it's true, as I scanned the sun-bleached city today, I didn't spot a single street sign.

Bring on the migration

Kenya's all-important tourism industry, battered by the bloodletting of January and February, is gearing up for what typically is the most lucrative time of year. July and August bring the annual migration of wildebeests, zebra and other native animals north into the Masai Mara, the famed game reserve in central Kenya. Having a couple of friends in town from the United States was the perfect opportunity to play hooky for a day last week to visit the Mara.

The first sign that all still was not well with the tourism industry was the cut-rate deal that we were able to finagle from one of the more exclusive camps in the Mara. The camp, set into a hillside overlooking a vast savannah, has counted Keira Knightley, Don Cheadle and Vanessa Williams and Rick Fox as its guests in recent years. Last week, the four of us had the entire site -- a collection of luxurious tents  outfitted with fireplaces, rain showers and chaise lounges -- completely to ourselves.

Isaac, our expert and gregarious guide, described just how tough things were at the height of the violence. Ninety percent of their bookings were canceled. The owner had stocked up on food in anticipation of the January rush, and when the visitors never showed the camp staff took much of the meat and perishables home. Many staff members were laid off, and most haven't returned.

May is typically a quiet month in the Mara, and although Isaac and his trusted Maasai tracker (at right) take pains to avoid other safari vehicles, in two days there we didn't see another group of tourists. The long golden grass, not yet chomped down by the hordes of wildebeest, obscured all but a handful of lions -- cats being, for me anyway, the highlight of the Mara -- but made for beautiful viewing as the blades swayed in the breeze.

Although we were thrilled just to be out there in all that sunshine and scenery, Isaac was noticeably perturbed that he couldn't show us more animals. His mood brightened, however, when on our second day we came upon a small group of black wildebeest, new arrivals to the Mara. It was a sign that the migration was beginning.

"This is how it starts," Isaac told us. "A few at a time, a few at a time, and then you wake up one morning and there are thousands of them."

You could tell he was hoping the same thing of the tourists.

See no evil

I saw this in downtown Nairobi yesterday: a mural calling for propriety during Kenya's elections, which were five months ago. In Kiswahili It reads: "A free and fair election. Be vigilant; it's your vote, it's your country."

Well, we all know how that turned out.

I couldn't tell if the Kenyan passerby had his hand to his face because it was warm that afternoon -- or because the mural triggered unpleasant memories. Either way, they should paint over the thing.

South Africa's foreigner problem

The pictures out of Johannesburg today, like the one at left by Bloomberg, are deeply troubling, if not unexpected.

Last year I blogged about attacks on Somali immigrants in South Africa. Now black South Africans, frustrated by persistent unemployment and rising food prices, have begun venting their anger at just about any African immigrant they can find. Mobs wielding sticks and torches roamed through the townships of Africa's most industrialized city, targeting immigrants from Mozambique, Malawi, Somalia, Zimbabwe. Police said today that 22 people had been killed over the past week.

Like in Kenya a few months ago, the saddest irony is that these attacks pit this country's poorest against one another. The end of apartheid has not cured South Africa's problems. Its leaders talk of a "Rainbow Nation" but the sprawling townships are full of poor blacks who still can't afford a pot of clean drinking water, let alone anything else.

At the same time, South Africa's overall prosperity has made it a magnet for refugees from countries with bigger problems. Large communities of Somalis, Congolese, Angolans and other foreigners crowd the cities to wash cars, clean houses, do anything. South Africa doesn't have refugee camps, so immigrants can go straight into the well-off cities and earn jobs that no one else wants to do.

Of the country's 50 million people, about 5 million are immigrants -- 3 million from Zimbabwe. Xenophobia is an epidemic. South Africans blame foreigners for the high crime rate, but immigrants say that they're the main victims. Congolese, who don't speak the language, are easy targets for the odd mugging or beating. And yet for them, the promise of being hated in a stable country is better than the

The latest flare-up comes as thousands of Zimbabweans stream into South Africa, fleeing post-election violence in their tinpot nation. South Africa has no plan to deal with these people. Its president, Thabo Mbeki, lamely called today for an "expert panel" to investigate.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Nobel laureate, pointed out today that it was South African blacks who, not long ago, in the darkest times of apartheid, sought shelter in countries like Zimbabwe. Now that South Africa's economy, the engine of the continent, is struggling, all of Africa could be imperiled. The first people to see that up close, sadly, are the foreigners living in the Rainbow Nation.

How to spend your oil billions

May 23 Correction: The Associated Press has issued a correction to the story referenced in this post. Sudan said the reward for Ibrahim's capture was being offered in the country's old currency, which is valued at 1,000 times less than the new notes. So AP says the bounty is actually valued at $122,000. Not a trifling sum in a poor country, but still nowhere near the figure that was originally reported, and what I had reacted to. Thanks to two readers who pointed this out. My sincere apologies for the error, and I've removed the offending text from the post.

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Sudan is one of the world's leading oil producers, pumping out half a million barrels of crude each day (some 40 percent of it bound for China). So what does a dictatorship do with that kind of cash?

Today the Sudanese government posted a $122,000 bounty for Darfur rebel leader Khalil Ibrahim. Ibrahim is the alleged mastermind of the surprising events of the weekend, when members of his Darfur-based Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) staged a dramatic -- if short lived -- raid on Omdurman, a city just across the Nile from the heavily fortified capital, Khartoum. After a couple of tense hours of fighting, Sudanese troops drove the rebels out and began arresting political opponents. But it was the first time that the five-year-and-counting war in Darfur made it from the hinterlands to the seat of Sudanese power, and how the rebels made it several hundred miles undetected by security forces is something of a mystery.

Media and expert accounts have described the raid alternately as "daring," "quixotic" and "suicidal." As faraway as Darfur feels for many in the United States, it's just as distant to many in Khartoum, a boomtown where oil money has fueled one of Africa's fastest growing economies -- and insulated it from the crises in the far reaches of the country.

The JEM raid has deeply embarrassed the ruling party, which swiftly cut diplomatic ties with neighboring Chad, which most believe helped bankroll the attack. Those who watch Sudan closely are bracing for a military response that could put more civilian lives at risk in Darfur. The bounty on Ibrahim -- who's believed to have fled to remote northern Darfur -- is offensive to some Sudanese, but there's no clearer evidence of how ticked off the government is by this whole episode.

Daring and dramatic, yes, but JEM may have bitten off way more than it can chew.

Amman Americana

A final observation from my recent Mideast stint: I challenge anyone to find a more American corner of the world than Terminal 2, Queen Alia International Airport, Amman, Jordan.

There, in the space of a few yards between the duty-free shops and the security check, you find the following outposts of Americana: Popeye's Chicken & Biscuits, Pizza Hut, Cinnabon. (The Starbucks is in the other terminal, a short walk away.) The saturated-fat-to-square-foot ratio may be the highest in the Middle East.

Such an agglomeration wouldn't be surprising most other places in the world, but I found it unusual for the Middle East. True, a lot of Americans pass through Amman. Jordan, with its dazzling sights and American-friendly regime, is sort of like the Middle East for beginners, and the country has made a lot of money by developing itself into a safe, slightly sanitized tourist destination, with all the five-star hotels you could want. Besides that, untold numbers of military contractors pass through on their way in and out of Iraq. Fried chicken is a good business to be in here.

Still, this particular fast-food collection gave me a lot to ponder as I waited for my flight back to Kenya. In Dubai's airport, you find McDonald's, Dunkin' Donuts and Round Table Pizza (which I was surprised to learn was still in business). All seem to be doing steady business whenever I visit. The selection in Amman seemed a little more esoteric. Outside of Louisiana and parts of the South, Popeye's is a cult favorite in the United States at best. (A friend living in Santa Monica pointed out irately that he has to drive 30 min. to his nearest Popeye's.)

And, finally, I wouldn't necessarily think that hot, gooey cinnamon rolls would translate across cultures. Sure enough, I didn't see any patrons at Cinnabon.

Thanks for, um, indulging this admittedly less-than-serious post. I'm now back in Nairobi, where there are no such American chains. We get all our transfats from South Africa.

Sadr City afternoon

 
The battle for Iraq has shifted to Sadr City, the massive slum in northwest Baghdad that's home to about two and a half million people. For the past six weeks, hardly a day has gone by without a report of Shiite insurgents in Sadr City taking aim at U.S. or Iraqi (mostly U.S.) troops. The entire area is under siege in a way that many other Baghdad neighborhoods have been before in this war -- the difference being that probably no place is as big, or as hard to control, as Sadr City.

The other day, Laith and I set up interviews with Muqtada al Sadr's political organization, and were invited to his offices in Sadr City. After a two and half hour drive from our hotel -- covering a distance of only a few miles in Baghdad's otherworldly traffic -- we arrived at the Sadr office. Sadr's people were very welcoming, perhaps because Laith had told them from the start that I wouldn't be asking about politics. It was only later that I learned that the warm-faced, turbaned sayyid who sat with me for a half-hour interview had pointedly asked Laith what Muslim sect I came from. ("He is from Kenya," Laith replied, truthfully.)

A Sadr staffer escorted us through the neighborhood. We drove down a nearly abandoned thoroughfare lined with blast walls and criss-crossed with spindly power lines that had long ago ceased working. We turned down a side road and into a block of two- and three-story concrete tenements. There were a few shops still open -- a welder's, and what looked like an engine-repair place.

There were badly damaged buildings, but it was impossible for me to tell whether they had been felled by bombs or mere neglect. The only apparent sign of the war was a hand-painted sign on a black sheet that hung from one concrete wall. Laith translated it to me as a death notice for a local man, Ali Ateya, whose family we had come to visit (Ateya's story will be published in the coming days). Later I would notice those stark signs -- white Arabic characters on a black background -- were all over the neighborhood.

Next we toured Sadr City's general hospital, which a day earlier had been damaged by a U.S. military strike. It had been hard to gauge the extent of the damage in phone interviews, and the U.S. military said it had not struck the building directly. But it looked to us that day like the hospital was in trouble.

 

The first thing you saw was a series of craters outside the hospital and a big pool of water, which resulted when the U.S. missile struck the building's main water supply. Here's how we reported it:

Sadr Hospital, one of two main hospitals serving the massive Shiite Muslim slum, is operating on a backup water supply that wasn't expected to last longer than 48 hours. On Sunday afternoon, a main street outside the hospital was flooded as workmen tried to repair a series of underground pipes that ruptured when the missiles targeted what U.S. military officials described as a militia outpost a few yards from the hospital.

"If there are no more attacks, we might be able to fix it. We don't know," said a hospital security official who gave his name as Abu Sajjad. "Otherwise, in two days we will run out of water and the hospital can't go on."

While we were at the hospital, the Sadr rep who'd accompanied us through the neighborhood called Laith to say they were hearing clashes nearby, and urged us to leave Sadr City. So we didn't dawdle, stopping in to see a couple of patients who'd been injured earlier that week and hear their stories, and then we took off. I don't know whether it was the searing heat or real fatigue or something else, but I dozed off in the backseat of the car as we drove back to the office. The ride home only took an hour -- "a Baghdad miracle," Laith would later call it.

Gardenia season

With violence in Baghdad creeping back up, I find myself spending more time in the office than I'd like. The air-conditioning, artificial light, drone of TV news and steady hum of the generator gets to be too much after awhile. So I'm grateful for any respite.

Reporter Laith has been trying to inject a bit of color by bringing in gardenias from his garden at home. He puts a few pale, fragrant flowers in a little bit of water in a coffee cup and proudly sets it atop his desk, amid a tangle of computer cables, notepads and cellphones. Every so often he comes around and thrusts the petals into your face, saying, "Smell!"

I'm not generally much for flowers, but I have to say that the fragrance is lovely. (Anything to get the persistent hint of sand out of the air is welcome.)

Not surprisingly, few people keep gardens in Baghdad these days. Laith planted his gardenia bushes about three years ago, after the war had begun. He nurtured the soil with iron shavings from the local blacksmith and sheep's blood from the local butcher. In the springtime sun, the plant is doing well, but the flowers he brought in a few days ago were among his last. Gardenia season in Baghdad is nearly over.