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By Brent Latham
Dakar
19 February 2009
The ancient whistled language of the small island of La Gomera, off the coast of Africa, has been driven to the brink of extinction by new technology and globalization. Now, a 21st-century Web company has taken on the task of saving the language by marrying history with technology.
Silbo Gomero, a language used only on La Gomera Island off the coast of Morocco, sounds to the untrained ear like few other known languages.
The sounds that make up this language, used solely by the residents of the island, part of Spain's Canary archipelago, are made by whistling, rather than by speaking. The language, which locals say was brought to the islands by African settlers many centuries ago, has been adopted by Spanish colonists over the years.
To communicate among the sparsely populated inland hills and valleys, shepherds perfected the whistle language, which residents say can be heard and understood over distances of up to eight kilometers, compared to about 200 meters for the spoken word.
With the development of new technologies like the cellular phone, the number of Silbo Gomero whistlers has declined to around 1,000. Many of the older generation of islanders fear the language, which they consider to be a cultural heirloom, may become extinct.
But the incursion of modern technology and globalization that threatens this and other endangered languages worldwide may now help to save Silbo Gomero. Busuu.com, a Web site based in Madrid, has launched a campaign to teach Internet users worldwide to communicate using the languages' unique whistles.
"We really liked the whole story of the Silbo Gomero because it is really a fun language," said Bernard Niesner, the company's co-founder. "It is a real language, people really use it there. The same functionalities, the same methodology that we use for teaching Spanish or English, we use it to teach Silbo Gomero."
Niesner says he and his partner, Adrian Hilti, came up with the idea when searching for an idea for a viral marketing campaign for their company that serves people interested in learning languages interactively. Niesner says one of the founding principles of the Web site was to promote learning languages in danger of extinction.
"If Busuu really works out like we think, it would be an amazing tool for language learning all over the world," Niesner said. "The name of our Web site itself comes from Busuu, the language from Cameroon, which is spoken by only eight people."
Niesner says he hopes the worldwide community of Busuu.com users, numbering more than 80,000 in 200 countries, will take up the call to help preserve Silbo Gomero.
To combat the language's decline, the government of La Gomera mandates the teaching of Silbo Gomero in the island's schools and, with the Web site, has appealed to the United Nations to declare the language a Masterpiece of the Oral Tradition of Humanity.
Busuu.com was named a project of UNESCO's year of languages program in 2008. A language is defined by UNESCO as in danger when older speakers no longer pass it on to younger generations. The organization says that of the world's approximately 6,000 languages, about half are in danger.
Africa is one of the richest, yet least studied continents for language diversity. UNESCO estimates that of the nearly 1,400 local languages, 250 are in immediate danger of extinction.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Thursday, February 12, 2009
West African Health Officials Tackle Resurgent Polio
http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-02-12-voa28.cfm="http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-02-12-voa28.cfm">
West African Health Officials Tackle Resurgent Polio
By Brent Latham
Dakar
12 February 2009
Health officials across West Africa have launched a coordinated campaign to vaccinate the region's children against the polio virus. The campaign is an effort to eradicate the disease, which has re-merged in countries that had been declared polio-free.
Ghana has joined a number of other countries across the region in the renewed effort to control polio, by launching efforts to vaccinate children throughout the country. Polio, a highly contagious disease, has recently reappeared in countries across West Africa where it had previously been controlled.
The vaccination campaign in Ghana includes thousands of volunteers and health workers, who are spanning the country during a three-day effort to locate children and administer the oral vaccine.
Nurse trainee Eva Ewuah is among the volunteers working the neighborhoods of the capital.
"We are doing this exercise for three days. We are starting from today. We are going until Saturday, so three days. We are going from house to house across the whole country," she said.
Ewuah says the campaign is national. In order for the highly communicable disease to be quelled, it is important for every child to be vaccinated.
The campaign is coordinated by UNICEF and the World Health Organization, in conjunction with the Ghanaian ministry of health. A second round of vaccinations, to assure thorough administration of the vaccine, will commence within a few weeks.
The Ghanaian campaign is the most recent in a series across the region aimed to treat 20 million children. Officials in Togo, Benin, and Burkina Faso are also preparing campaigns this month.
The first round of vaccinations is coming to an end in Nigeria, which last year had more than 800 reported polio cases, the highest figure in the world.
Wild polio remains endemic in areas of northern Nigeria, where stigmas against vaccination, including rumors that the vaccine carries AIDS, and that it is meant to sterilize young Muslim girls, have made reaching full vaccination in the area impossible until now.
Much of the rest of the region had been declared polio free in 2005, but cases were found again last year in several countries, including five in Ghana, and three in Togo.
West African Health Officials Tackle Resurgent Polio
By Brent Latham
Dakar
12 February 2009
Health officials across West Africa have launched a coordinated campaign to vaccinate the region's children against the polio virus. The campaign is an effort to eradicate the disease, which has re-merged in countries that had been declared polio-free.
Ghana has joined a number of other countries across the region in the renewed effort to control polio, by launching efforts to vaccinate children throughout the country. Polio, a highly contagious disease, has recently reappeared in countries across West Africa where it had previously been controlled.
The vaccination campaign in Ghana includes thousands of volunteers and health workers, who are spanning the country during a three-day effort to locate children and administer the oral vaccine.
Nurse trainee Eva Ewuah is among the volunteers working the neighborhoods of the capital.
"We are doing this exercise for three days. We are starting from today. We are going until Saturday, so three days. We are going from house to house across the whole country," she said.
Ewuah says the campaign is national. In order for the highly communicable disease to be quelled, it is important for every child to be vaccinated.
The campaign is coordinated by UNICEF and the World Health Organization, in conjunction with the Ghanaian ministry of health. A second round of vaccinations, to assure thorough administration of the vaccine, will commence within a few weeks.
The Ghanaian campaign is the most recent in a series across the region aimed to treat 20 million children. Officials in Togo, Benin, and Burkina Faso are also preparing campaigns this month.
The first round of vaccinations is coming to an end in Nigeria, which last year had more than 800 reported polio cases, the highest figure in the world.
Wild polio remains endemic in areas of northern Nigeria, where stigmas against vaccination, including rumors that the vaccine carries AIDS, and that it is meant to sterilize young Muslim girls, have made reaching full vaccination in the area impossible until now.
Much of the rest of the region had been declared polio free in 2005, but cases were found again last year in several countries, including five in Ghana, and three in Togo.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Chinese President to Promote Africa Ties in Visit
http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-02-11-voa30.cfm
By Brent Latham
Dakar
11 February 2009
Chinese President Hu Jintao will begin a week-long, four-country visit to Africa with a stop Thursday in Mali. Chinese officials say the visit is intended to demonstrate that China's interests in Africa are not purely economic.
Hu Jintao (file photo)
Hu Jintao (file photo)
Arriving in Bamako, Chinese President Hu Jintao begins a week-long visit to Africa with which he will attempt to highlight Sino-African cooperation and relations.
Mr. Hu will be in Mali for two days, before traveling to Senegal, followed by visits to Mauritius and Tanzania.
The Chinese president will join Malian President Amadou Toumani Toure at the opening ceremony for the construction of a bridge in Bamako. Mr. Hu will then travel to Dakar, where he will meet with Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade to inspect the construction site of the Chinese-funded National Grand Theatre.
At a 2006 Sino-African summit in Beijing, China agreed to increase aid and loans to African nations, and the Chinese are helping to finance infrastructure projects in all of the countries included on this week's agenda.
The investments are part of a plan to finish the promised distribution of $5 billion of loans and credit to Africa by the end of this year, Chinese officials say.
China has been criticized in the past for putting profit over people on the African continent, particularly over activities in Sudan's Darfur region. The Chinese ambassador to Senegal, Lu Shaye, says the president's trip proves that China's interests in Africa are not solely economic.
The ambassador criticized members of the Senegalese press for suggesting that Chinese interests in the country are purely material. Lu says Senegal is not a mineral-rich country, and yet China has enjoyed strong relations with the West African nation since the two countries resumed diplomatic relations in 2005.
Lu says China looks to Africa for many reasons, including what Chinese leaders have called a "traditional friendship."
Lu says there needs to be a better understanding of Sino-African relations on the continent. He also hopes for a more accepting attitude towards the Chinese diaspora in Africa, now numbering close to one million long-term residents.
Trade in 2008 between China and the African continent is estimated to have topped $100 billion, a more than 30 percent increase over the previous year.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
The Hex is Coming
http://www.yanks-abroad.com/get.php?mode=content&id=4377
The January transfer window has come and gone, and this year has been much quieter than recent ones in terms of Americans moving overseas. Many of America's stars in Europe are riding the pine, hoping for brighter days to come over the summer transfer window.
The dearth of overseas transfers leaves fans in a quandary, especially in the midst of the long MLS winter. Besides Landon Donovan's latest adventure in Germany, there is less to follow right now in Europe. So what's an American soccer fan to do while waiting and hoping things will get better in the fall?
Worry not. This year brings non-stop action for the Stars and Stripes on the international stage to keep even the most soccer hungry fan satisfied.
While the World Cup is obviously the most exciting individual soccer event, the year before a World Cup is arguably a more exciting year for international soccer. For the US national teams, the schedule for 2009 is tantalizing, as youth teams with a good deal of potential join the full national side in a full slate of action.
The US will have further chances this year to earn respect on an international stage, This summer, the full national team will take on top competition, including Brazil and Italy, in its quest for the Confederations Cup in South Africa. The Gold Cup follows that, with the Americans looking to defend their title.
Then in the fall, very promising American U-20 and U-17 teams, if they can qualify this spring, will be searching for the United States' first ever FIFA championship at tournaments in Egypt and Nigeria, respectively.
So American teams will be in action throughout the year, starting with the World Cup qualifying match February 11th at Columbus Crew Stadium. The preliminary stages are over, and the real deal for the Americans begins when they take on arch rivals Mexico in a match that will set the tone for the entire year.
The Mexico match comes at a pretty good time for the Americans. The Mexicans are still reeling from their near-death experience in the semifinal round, from which they advanced over Jamaica on goal differential alone.
Add that a few injuries to top players, and a typically Mexican row over Sven Goran Eriksson's calling of four nationalized players into the squad, and El Tri is in disarray.
Never has a US team been so resounding a favorite over the southern neighbors, and never has the resulting pressure for a result been so high.
So, with the first game that counts approaching, let's take a look at Hexagonal field. While prognosticating a year long tournament with numerous unknowns is clearly fool's errand, I won't let that stop me.
United States
The US can get a result against Mexico that sets the tone for the Hexagonal. For reasons outlined below, I expect the match in Columbus to be as tight as ever, and an American victory is far from guaranteed.
Even if the Americans can't find a way to win, though, there's just not enough quality and depth in this year's hexagonal to challenge Bob Bradley's deep and disciplined unit. The Americans will sail through to South Africa, atop the Hexagonal group for the second straight time.
Bob Bradley's squad, with by far the deepest and most experienced team in the "Hex," can handle the pressure. Experience and poise are important attributes over the grueling, year-long, ten match day schedule.
Those are also attributes that the disciplined Bradley has in spades. Though Bradley has received substantial criticism in the past, much of it from here, he is an ideal coach for this qualifying format. In the Hexagonal, Bradley's ugly 1-0 wins will give the US the same three points as the multi-goal thrashings of El Salvador other teams will post.
Though there may be a few setbacks and moments of individual brilliance from certain teams, especially on the road, Bradley's win by any means approach will be more than enough to see the Americans through comfortably.
Mexico
Even with all the disarray outlined above, I have more faith than most in Sven-Goran Ericksson's project south of the border. By the end of the year Mexico should also be celebrating yet another World Cup qualification.
Frankly, if it weren't Mexico, with their alarmist soccer media, it would be hard to understand what all the fuss is about. True, the Mexicans lost to the same Swedish team that the US "B" team dominated, but Mexico was also playing with the majority of its starting lineup, just called in from Europe. Take Sasha Klejstan out of the American's lineup and the result might have different as well.
Mexico has unquestionable quality all over the field. When their stars are healthy and playing at their clubs, which, right now, they are not, Mexico's lineup is every bit as formidable as the Americans'.
Whether Mexico gets through the hexagonal comfortably or suffers this year depends largely on the team's executives. Ericksson could be out of a job at any moment, even as soon as following the game against the US.
If there is another change, Mexico is likely to continue without direction and will have to battle for qualification. If Ericksson is left to put his plan in motion, Mexico will qualify easily and perhaps surprise in South Africa. I don't, however, think that's going to happen, especially with an American victory in Columbus.
Honduras
Those who follow international soccer closely have great respect for the Honduran game. In recent years, Honduras has, arguably, had as many as or more players receiving quality minutes in leagues abroad than any other CONCACAF team.
But Honduras is traditionally inconsistent, and it has cost them in the past. The 2001 team that came to RFK and handed the USA its first home qualifying defeat in decades turned around and lost two of its last three games and failed to qualify.
This year's team is a mix of veterans, many of who were on that 2001 team, and young stars, some of whom ply their trade in Europe. It's impossible to underestimate how important World Cup qualification is to this soccer crazed nation, and this will finally be their year.
If the "Catrachos" get off to a good start and believe in themselves, they will be the team challenging the United States for first place.
Costa Rica
The ascendancy of a strong Honduran side in the "hex" is balanced by a Costa Rican team less strong then in previous years.
Costa Rica's golden generation, which won the Hexagonal going away eight years ago, and made waves at the World Cup, has slowly tapered into retirement.
Those players have been replaced by a number of promising young stars, but it is not the team of the past. Expect Costa Rica, with its youth, to improve throughout the year. Finishing fourth, they will make the play-in against South America's fifth place team very interesting.
Trinidad and Tobago
Always a scrappy team, T & T surprised some by supplanting Guatemala and taking second place in the United States' semifinal group.
Led by Sunderland star Kenwyne Jones, the Soca Warriors have some fire power, but will find winning on the road nearly impossible.
The islanders have the potential to challenge for the fourth spot and the play-in, but they are a very long shot to repeat their 2005 feat of qualification.
El Salvador
El Salvador has gotten this far only because of the completely unbalanced semi-final format, in which they shared a group with the likes of Haiti and Suriname. This is one of the weakest teams ever to make the final six.
El Salvador hosts Trinidad and Tobago in the first round. The USA comes calling next. If they can't win that first match, it will be a long year for the Salvadorans, one which could see them setting the record for futility by taking less than four points from ten matches.
So mark your calendar now for an exciting string of international soccer action, and take full advantage of this year. That is, up until December, when the crushing reality of the World Cup draw, and the inevitability of another Group of Death, takes hold.
The January transfer window has come and gone, and this year has been much quieter than recent ones in terms of Americans moving overseas. Many of America's stars in Europe are riding the pine, hoping for brighter days to come over the summer transfer window.
The dearth of overseas transfers leaves fans in a quandary, especially in the midst of the long MLS winter. Besides Landon Donovan's latest adventure in Germany, there is less to follow right now in Europe. So what's an American soccer fan to do while waiting and hoping things will get better in the fall?
Worry not. This year brings non-stop action for the Stars and Stripes on the international stage to keep even the most soccer hungry fan satisfied.
While the World Cup is obviously the most exciting individual soccer event, the year before a World Cup is arguably a more exciting year for international soccer. For the US national teams, the schedule for 2009 is tantalizing, as youth teams with a good deal of potential join the full national side in a full slate of action.
The US will have further chances this year to earn respect on an international stage, This summer, the full national team will take on top competition, including Brazil and Italy, in its quest for the Confederations Cup in South Africa. The Gold Cup follows that, with the Americans looking to defend their title.
Then in the fall, very promising American U-20 and U-17 teams, if they can qualify this spring, will be searching for the United States' first ever FIFA championship at tournaments in Egypt and Nigeria, respectively.
So American teams will be in action throughout the year, starting with the World Cup qualifying match February 11th at Columbus Crew Stadium. The preliminary stages are over, and the real deal for the Americans begins when they take on arch rivals Mexico in a match that will set the tone for the entire year.
The Mexico match comes at a pretty good time for the Americans. The Mexicans are still reeling from their near-death experience in the semifinal round, from which they advanced over Jamaica on goal differential alone.
Add that a few injuries to top players, and a typically Mexican row over Sven Goran Eriksson's calling of four nationalized players into the squad, and El Tri is in disarray.
Never has a US team been so resounding a favorite over the southern neighbors, and never has the resulting pressure for a result been so high.
So, with the first game that counts approaching, let's take a look at Hexagonal field. While prognosticating a year long tournament with numerous unknowns is clearly fool's errand, I won't let that stop me.
United States
The US can get a result against Mexico that sets the tone for the Hexagonal. For reasons outlined below, I expect the match in Columbus to be as tight as ever, and an American victory is far from guaranteed.
Even if the Americans can't find a way to win, though, there's just not enough quality and depth in this year's hexagonal to challenge Bob Bradley's deep and disciplined unit. The Americans will sail through to South Africa, atop the Hexagonal group for the second straight time.
Bob Bradley's squad, with by far the deepest and most experienced team in the "Hex," can handle the pressure. Experience and poise are important attributes over the grueling, year-long, ten match day schedule.
Those are also attributes that the disciplined Bradley has in spades. Though Bradley has received substantial criticism in the past, much of it from here, he is an ideal coach for this qualifying format. In the Hexagonal, Bradley's ugly 1-0 wins will give the US the same three points as the multi-goal thrashings of El Salvador other teams will post.
Though there may be a few setbacks and moments of individual brilliance from certain teams, especially on the road, Bradley's win by any means approach will be more than enough to see the Americans through comfortably.
Mexico
Even with all the disarray outlined above, I have more faith than most in Sven-Goran Ericksson's project south of the border. By the end of the year Mexico should also be celebrating yet another World Cup qualification.
Frankly, if it weren't Mexico, with their alarmist soccer media, it would be hard to understand what all the fuss is about. True, the Mexicans lost to the same Swedish team that the US "B" team dominated, but Mexico was also playing with the majority of its starting lineup, just called in from Europe. Take Sasha Klejstan out of the American's lineup and the result might have different as well.
Mexico has unquestionable quality all over the field. When their stars are healthy and playing at their clubs, which, right now, they are not, Mexico's lineup is every bit as formidable as the Americans'.
Whether Mexico gets through the hexagonal comfortably or suffers this year depends largely on the team's executives. Ericksson could be out of a job at any moment, even as soon as following the game against the US.
If there is another change, Mexico is likely to continue without direction and will have to battle for qualification. If Ericksson is left to put his plan in motion, Mexico will qualify easily and perhaps surprise in South Africa. I don't, however, think that's going to happen, especially with an American victory in Columbus.
Honduras
Those who follow international soccer closely have great respect for the Honduran game. In recent years, Honduras has, arguably, had as many as or more players receiving quality minutes in leagues abroad than any other CONCACAF team.
But Honduras is traditionally inconsistent, and it has cost them in the past. The 2001 team that came to RFK and handed the USA its first home qualifying defeat in decades turned around and lost two of its last three games and failed to qualify.
This year's team is a mix of veterans, many of who were on that 2001 team, and young stars, some of whom ply their trade in Europe. It's impossible to underestimate how important World Cup qualification is to this soccer crazed nation, and this will finally be their year.
If the "Catrachos" get off to a good start and believe in themselves, they will be the team challenging the United States for first place.
Costa Rica
The ascendancy of a strong Honduran side in the "hex" is balanced by a Costa Rican team less strong then in previous years.
Costa Rica's golden generation, which won the Hexagonal going away eight years ago, and made waves at the World Cup, has slowly tapered into retirement.
Those players have been replaced by a number of promising young stars, but it is not the team of the past. Expect Costa Rica, with its youth, to improve throughout the year. Finishing fourth, they will make the play-in against South America's fifth place team very interesting.
Trinidad and Tobago
Always a scrappy team, T & T surprised some by supplanting Guatemala and taking second place in the United States' semifinal group.
Led by Sunderland star Kenwyne Jones, the Soca Warriors have some fire power, but will find winning on the road nearly impossible.
The islanders have the potential to challenge for the fourth spot and the play-in, but they are a very long shot to repeat their 2005 feat of qualification.
El Salvador
El Salvador has gotten this far only because of the completely unbalanced semi-final format, in which they shared a group with the likes of Haiti and Suriname. This is one of the weakest teams ever to make the final six.
El Salvador hosts Trinidad and Tobago in the first round. The USA comes calling next. If they can't win that first match, it will be a long year for the Salvadorans, one which could see them setting the record for futility by taking less than four points from ten matches.
So mark your calendar now for an exciting string of international soccer action, and take full advantage of this year. That is, up until December, when the crushing reality of the World Cup draw, and the inevitability of another Group of Death, takes hold.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Senegal Arrival Document
It is six in the morning at Dakar’s Leopold Senghor airport. The African sky is pitch black as I descend the stairs from the cabin of the Boeing 767, onto the wide, black tarmac.
I look around.
A young man in uniform stands next to me at the bottom the stairs. He stares at me with a confused look, urging me along with his gaze.
“The baby stroller?” I ask him, in the best French I can muster after months away. At any rate I can only loosely translate the term into African French. Having had the baby for only a month, and the stroller just a bit longer, all of that time having been in the English – or Spanish - speaking United States, I don’t know what to call this thing in French. Neither does he understand what I am trying to say, it would seem.
“Where is the baby’s little car?,” I ask again, nodding at the infant peaking out from my wife’s arms, as I congratulate myself on how reasonable my request sounds. We checked the stroller at the gate when departing, so technically it should be here now. This plane will soon go on to South Africa, and my daughter’s stroller will too, if I don’t straighten this out soon.
“Move on,” the young man finally says, in a manner as sudden as it is brisk, his deeply accented English striking passively at my attempts to communicate in the generally accepted local language. His boyish face suggests he couldn’t be out of his twenties, but his long, thin frame towers over me.
“I checked a baby stroller at the gate,” I insist, this time in English. The overnight flight with a crying, unhappy baby has done little to augment the patience that I would do well to display.
The young man stares blankly at me. “In this country, one should speak French,” interjects a man standing just behind him, frowning at me sternly. I hadn’t noticed him blending into the black of the night. “Suitcase is in the hall inside.”
I give up, and move on.
Next to the bus to the terminal, there is an older woman with a clipboard. I repeat my question to her, and show her the baggage ticket. She calls to the same man who had just sent me on my way. After an exchange in Wolof, one of the more legitimate local languages, he walks slowly off to retrieve the stroller, after casting a long, serious look of annoyance at me.
Not that there is much use for a baby stroller here in Senegal. I remember commenting to my wife before the trip that I couldn’t recall having ever seen one here. It’s just that there’s not much room to stroll. There are few sidewalks to speak of in the downtown area where we live, at least not passable ones. On the rare days we do take the baby out, I would never trust her security to an apparatus not directly connected to my person, given the way people drive around here. Putting the baby in a stroller adds those extra few feet of insecurity in an insecure land. Here, something as precious as a child is to be wrapped and held close to the body, safe and warm. Last year my wife was hit by a car coming the wrong way down a one-way street, though her injuries turned out not to be serious. The car was driven by the chief of the local police.
So this device now being handed to me, having admirably performed its function in transporting the baby around the grand airport promenades of the United States, has done its job for now. In fact it has already become a bit of a hindrance. I keep it folded next to me as the bus rumbles towards the terminal. When the bus stops, I move it back onto the tarmac along with the rest of our carry-on luggage. Not knowing exactly what to do with it now, I unfold it, and place the baby inside.
But to reach the terminal, we’ll need to climb a short set of stairs. So I pick up the entire stroller, baby and all, and carry it up the stairs to the immigration area. A handful of airport employees look on, less confused than amused. Though they may never have seen exactly this stunt, they have seen similar strange things many times before.
We stop inside, and I pause to fill out the immigration forms on a counter along the side of the hall. It’s not long before a soldier comes wandering along, automatic rifle in tow.
“Bonjour, chief, how’s it going?” I ask with a smile, as he bends down over the carriage, his rifle swinging to one side.
He closely inspects the stroller. “This device,” he asks after a contemplative pause, “transports the little one?”
“That’s right, chief,” I tell him.
He smiles. “That is very good. I also have many children,” he smiles. “Two wives, you know. One is very fortunate to have children, thanks to God, and more fortunate still to have such a device as this.”
I smile as I discretely pull the stroller away towards my wife, and put myself between it and the guard. She takes the forms and the stroller and moves towards the line.
We both know where this exchange is headed. If I allow myself to be engaged for too long, we are at risk of seeing the stroller end up as a “gift” for the soldier’s wives.
With the stroller out of the picture I easily beg my leave of the friendly officer, and, headed for the immigration line, take out our passports. The immigration official laughs as he stamps the baby into the country. “Only American babies need passports,” he says with a half smile, before resuming the serious countenance expected of him, as an official of the Senegalese government.
And so we move on to the luggage carousel, though to call it that is to give it an unearned measure of validity.
It’s here, just outside the weapon-secured officialdom of the closed immigration area, that the real adventure begins. The luggage claim area, aside from the first truly Senegalese experience for arriving passengers, is also the workplace of the most senior of the airport hustlers. A clever breed of men who make their living off the bustling economic activity, and resulting urgencies and necessities, of the airport, they are attuned to searching out profit from the confusion of this overcrowded area. For a price any one of them would make a fine ally in the journey to get out of the airport in tact. Without pay, each seems quite determined to complicate to the utmost this part of the trip.
Unfortunately, for me more than for them, I have long had little patience for buying friendships, and so I usually get into trouble here, much to my wife’s consternation.
“Why don’t we just pay one of them a few thousand francs, and they will keep the others from bothering us, aside from handling the luggage” she always used to say, though she has long since given up trying to convince me.
It’s not that I don’t see the logic of her argument. I just don’t see it as simply as that. First, I tell her, Africans have suffered centuries of colonization and economic subjugation. If this were simply about paying a man a small fee to carry our bags, I would happily do it after the exhausting journey.
But my compulsive habit of analyzing even the simplest socio-economic activities leads me to other conclusions. To me, accepting the imposed services of one of these men enforces the preconceived and deeply held belief that light skinned people arriving from abroad are best, and easily, manipulated for economic gain. Perhaps it’s not a belief universally held across Senegalese society, but it is a perspective the manifestations of which make life as a foreign resident here annoying all too frequently, and it seems to be the fundamental premise of the majority of those working here at the airport, at least in the baggage claim area. And I won’t be a part of it.
Of course my refusal to accept help will not go very far in quelling that general belief. There’s far too much evidence to the contrary here.
On a much more basic level though, I’m also trying to avoid an unpleasant exchange at the end of all this. That exchange will go something like this: once this man’s services have been rendered, and the bags safely conveyed by him to their endpoint, there will be an argument about how much should be paid. Any prior negotiation I might undertake or perceived agreement we might arrive at now, no matter how valid it may seem at this point, will be discarded. No matter how much I give him, he will look at it, then me, and scowl. He does this not necessarily in disappointment at the amount remitted, nor because of any personal distaste or irritation with me, but rather as part of a rational and functional plan to get paid more. When I give him more I will then be seen by him, implicitly of course, as the light skinned foreigner to whom money means so little that I am willing to give more on top of the outrageous amount I already paid for simply carrying my bags for me. And still, there will be no way that, after contracting his services, I can make him go away happy.
I don’t want to get into that situation. So I carry my own bags.
But how to coherently and quickly explain such a relatively complex and unfortunate socio-economic structure to the man who, seeing me taking the bags one by one off the carousel, is now grabbing at my suitcases without any consent whatsoever, as if sent specifically from some bag-handlers’ headquarters to help me with my luggage?
“No, no,” I say, quickly waving a finger at him. He’s unfazed by my resistance, and moves quickly on to the next target, a light-skinned man dressed in a Hawaiian shirt, who looks to have gotten off the plane in the wrong city. The presumably Hawaiian man looks on perplexed as this stranger rearranges his luggage.
I shoo a second “helper” away as I roll the overloaded baggage cart towards the customs area. The jilted attendant scowls at me. My theories are reinforced by the rapidity with which his feigned friendliness turns to anger as the realization that, despite my light skin, I am not the equivalent of an ATM, sets in.
The man makes a spiteful but half-spirited attempt to block my progress, but I bump him out of the way with the luggage cart, and proceed towards the x-ray machines at the customs area.
These machines are the final step to freedom from the airport bureaucracy. I’ve never been sure exactly what they serve for, except of course to x-ray the luggage, though usually the attendant is paying scant attention to the results. I have never been stopped or questioned, no matter the contents of my bags, but perhaps that is special treatment as well. An acquaintance, a political activist and strong critic of the government, tells me he has had his anti-government books confiscated here several times, though his story is never quite the same, and he has never properly described how an x-ray could identify potentially slanderous material, though I suppose there are plausible explanations.
At any rate, if we can navigate the traffic jam in between us and the machines, made all the worse by the unorthodox form of line-making that anyone who has travelled in a developing country will be familiar with, then we will be out in the open.
Unfortunately no one seems to recognize the purpose of the baby stroller, and it takes a few bumps from other luggage carts as my wife pushes it ahead. Fortunately our daughter seems to think this is all a game, and she looks about excitedly at the hubbub surrounding her, like a little queen on tour in her carriage.
Before long, after emptying the luggage onto the x-ray machine, then stacking it once more on the cart, we’re through, safely, to the outside world. Just outside the baggage claim, a perimeter has been fenced off, to be used only by airport patrons. Here, only the hustlers with the wherewithal to pay off the police that guard the perimeter can get in, so despite the still numerous taxi drivers and bag handlers in the way, we manage to find the driver who has been sent by my wife’s employer.
But he, and the car he has brought, are on the outside of the perimeter, and we will need to be too, with our luggage, if we are to get home and get some rest.
I wheel the luggage, and my wife the baby, close to the gate which provides the only exit from the relative safety of the perimeter.
Here, where the gate opens to the street in front of the airport, an army of hustlers stands in waiting. These are the airport’s final line of defense, and it will be our last, but most difficult test. Mostly teenagers without the means or experience to get closer in, they are the economic scavengers of the airport hustler set, picking off the remains that those inside have left. But, like any good apprentice, they have learned all the tricks of the trade. An armed guard keeps them at bay, but only menially. If we are to get to where the chauffeur waits, just beyond, we must get past them.
They see us coming from many yards away. The group, in a semi-circle blocking the exit, starts to bustle about in anticipation. It is here that having contracted one of the baggage handlers inside would have been best. He would have kept them at bay. Of course I could just pay these boys to get out of the way, or even to help, but what kind of a lesson would that be for these youths?
I tell my wife to wait as I take the bags out one by one. Only a narrow street now separates us from the car.
I grab the first two suitcases and head towards the wall of boys blocking the entrance. I head straight into them. The wall gives way partially, and I am out onto the street. As I move I am surrounded by a fluid sea of adolescents anxious to discover my needs. I remember how nice it is be in a country with a culture where open thievery is so deeply scorned. One less worry.
“Taxi?,” a few of the boys ask in an a capella chorus, as others try to deftly pry the bags from me, to help with the remaining five feet of the journey. I push them gently away, but they follow intently.
As I lift the bags into the car, a young man puts his hand under one and does his best to help shove it into the trunk, but instead knocks it onto the ground. A few other boys scramble to help me pick it up again and place it in the trunk. Then the first boy puts out his hand. Our driver berates him in Wolof as he secures the baggage.
I push my way back across the street, avoiding the passing cars and spinning around the boys, who constantly seem to be contriving to block my path.
Back inside, I pick up the other two bags. In much the same way as before, I manage to get them across the street and into the car. Now just my wife, and the baby, remain on the wrong side of the fence.
She has already started across the street pushing the baby stroller. One of the younger boys darts towards the baby carriage, and with a jerk, snatches the handle and begins to pick it up recklessly.
I lurch over to the carriage and push him away. He shoves me as hard as his little arms can push. “Bad, bad, person,” he cries disapprovingly, but the other boys are on him in a flash. One of them clobbers the boy across the side of the head. They won’t let the situation get out control. Their position here, and their economic well-being, depends on respecting a certain level of civility.
I use the respite to usher my wife and the baby to the car. With them safely inside, we are ready to go. Several of the boys have now reappeared next to the passenger door, pushed up close to me, hands out. They still require payment for this hassle.
I spot the boy who separated his younger companion from the baby carriage. I reach in my pocket and find a coin worth five hundred West African francs, more than a dollar. It’s far too much, and I realize that by giving it to him, I am incentivizing the counterproductive behavior these boys have just displayed. If everyone would stop paying to be hassled, the airport would become a much more civil place very quickly. But I’m still searching for that middle ground.
I give the boy the coin, knowing it will be shared among the group. He looks at it with a frown. “Very small,” he says, and extends his hand again. But I’m not wiling to negotiate further.
“Bad person,” he yells at me as I wedge myself through the door and into the car. I’m not surprised by his assessment of me.
“Let’s go,” I say to the driver. “It’s quite difficult to negotiate these airport crowds,” I say, a bit saddened and disappointed, as many times before, to have still not found a more agreeable approach to the airport arrival.
“You should just ignore them,” the driver says. But I know there’s no dignity in that for anyone.
I look around.
A young man in uniform stands next to me at the bottom the stairs. He stares at me with a confused look, urging me along with his gaze.
“The baby stroller?” I ask him, in the best French I can muster after months away. At any rate I can only loosely translate the term into African French. Having had the baby for only a month, and the stroller just a bit longer, all of that time having been in the English – or Spanish - speaking United States, I don’t know what to call this thing in French. Neither does he understand what I am trying to say, it would seem.
“Where is the baby’s little car?,” I ask again, nodding at the infant peaking out from my wife’s arms, as I congratulate myself on how reasonable my request sounds. We checked the stroller at the gate when departing, so technically it should be here now. This plane will soon go on to South Africa, and my daughter’s stroller will too, if I don’t straighten this out soon.
“Move on,” the young man finally says, in a manner as sudden as it is brisk, his deeply accented English striking passively at my attempts to communicate in the generally accepted local language. His boyish face suggests he couldn’t be out of his twenties, but his long, thin frame towers over me.
“I checked a baby stroller at the gate,” I insist, this time in English. The overnight flight with a crying, unhappy baby has done little to augment the patience that I would do well to display.
The young man stares blankly at me. “In this country, one should speak French,” interjects a man standing just behind him, frowning at me sternly. I hadn’t noticed him blending into the black of the night. “Suitcase is in the hall inside.”
I give up, and move on.
Next to the bus to the terminal, there is an older woman with a clipboard. I repeat my question to her, and show her the baggage ticket. She calls to the same man who had just sent me on my way. After an exchange in Wolof, one of the more legitimate local languages, he walks slowly off to retrieve the stroller, after casting a long, serious look of annoyance at me.
Not that there is much use for a baby stroller here in Senegal. I remember commenting to my wife before the trip that I couldn’t recall having ever seen one here. It’s just that there’s not much room to stroll. There are few sidewalks to speak of in the downtown area where we live, at least not passable ones. On the rare days we do take the baby out, I would never trust her security to an apparatus not directly connected to my person, given the way people drive around here. Putting the baby in a stroller adds those extra few feet of insecurity in an insecure land. Here, something as precious as a child is to be wrapped and held close to the body, safe and warm. Last year my wife was hit by a car coming the wrong way down a one-way street, though her injuries turned out not to be serious. The car was driven by the chief of the local police.
So this device now being handed to me, having admirably performed its function in transporting the baby around the grand airport promenades of the United States, has done its job for now. In fact it has already become a bit of a hindrance. I keep it folded next to me as the bus rumbles towards the terminal. When the bus stops, I move it back onto the tarmac along with the rest of our carry-on luggage. Not knowing exactly what to do with it now, I unfold it, and place the baby inside.
But to reach the terminal, we’ll need to climb a short set of stairs. So I pick up the entire stroller, baby and all, and carry it up the stairs to the immigration area. A handful of airport employees look on, less confused than amused. Though they may never have seen exactly this stunt, they have seen similar strange things many times before.
We stop inside, and I pause to fill out the immigration forms on a counter along the side of the hall. It’s not long before a soldier comes wandering along, automatic rifle in tow.
“Bonjour, chief, how’s it going?” I ask with a smile, as he bends down over the carriage, his rifle swinging to one side.
He closely inspects the stroller. “This device,” he asks after a contemplative pause, “transports the little one?”
“That’s right, chief,” I tell him.
He smiles. “That is very good. I also have many children,” he smiles. “Two wives, you know. One is very fortunate to have children, thanks to God, and more fortunate still to have such a device as this.”
I smile as I discretely pull the stroller away towards my wife, and put myself between it and the guard. She takes the forms and the stroller and moves towards the line.
We both know where this exchange is headed. If I allow myself to be engaged for too long, we are at risk of seeing the stroller end up as a “gift” for the soldier’s wives.
With the stroller out of the picture I easily beg my leave of the friendly officer, and, headed for the immigration line, take out our passports. The immigration official laughs as he stamps the baby into the country. “Only American babies need passports,” he says with a half smile, before resuming the serious countenance expected of him, as an official of the Senegalese government.
And so we move on to the luggage carousel, though to call it that is to give it an unearned measure of validity.
It’s here, just outside the weapon-secured officialdom of the closed immigration area, that the real adventure begins. The luggage claim area, aside from the first truly Senegalese experience for arriving passengers, is also the workplace of the most senior of the airport hustlers. A clever breed of men who make their living off the bustling economic activity, and resulting urgencies and necessities, of the airport, they are attuned to searching out profit from the confusion of this overcrowded area. For a price any one of them would make a fine ally in the journey to get out of the airport in tact. Without pay, each seems quite determined to complicate to the utmost this part of the trip.
Unfortunately, for me more than for them, I have long had little patience for buying friendships, and so I usually get into trouble here, much to my wife’s consternation.
“Why don’t we just pay one of them a few thousand francs, and they will keep the others from bothering us, aside from handling the luggage” she always used to say, though she has long since given up trying to convince me.
It’s not that I don’t see the logic of her argument. I just don’t see it as simply as that. First, I tell her, Africans have suffered centuries of colonization and economic subjugation. If this were simply about paying a man a small fee to carry our bags, I would happily do it after the exhausting journey.
But my compulsive habit of analyzing even the simplest socio-economic activities leads me to other conclusions. To me, accepting the imposed services of one of these men enforces the preconceived and deeply held belief that light skinned people arriving from abroad are best, and easily, manipulated for economic gain. Perhaps it’s not a belief universally held across Senegalese society, but it is a perspective the manifestations of which make life as a foreign resident here annoying all too frequently, and it seems to be the fundamental premise of the majority of those working here at the airport, at least in the baggage claim area. And I won’t be a part of it.
Of course my refusal to accept help will not go very far in quelling that general belief. There’s far too much evidence to the contrary here.
On a much more basic level though, I’m also trying to avoid an unpleasant exchange at the end of all this. That exchange will go something like this: once this man’s services have been rendered, and the bags safely conveyed by him to their endpoint, there will be an argument about how much should be paid. Any prior negotiation I might undertake or perceived agreement we might arrive at now, no matter how valid it may seem at this point, will be discarded. No matter how much I give him, he will look at it, then me, and scowl. He does this not necessarily in disappointment at the amount remitted, nor because of any personal distaste or irritation with me, but rather as part of a rational and functional plan to get paid more. When I give him more I will then be seen by him, implicitly of course, as the light skinned foreigner to whom money means so little that I am willing to give more on top of the outrageous amount I already paid for simply carrying my bags for me. And still, there will be no way that, after contracting his services, I can make him go away happy.
I don’t want to get into that situation. So I carry my own bags.
But how to coherently and quickly explain such a relatively complex and unfortunate socio-economic structure to the man who, seeing me taking the bags one by one off the carousel, is now grabbing at my suitcases without any consent whatsoever, as if sent specifically from some bag-handlers’ headquarters to help me with my luggage?
“No, no,” I say, quickly waving a finger at him. He’s unfazed by my resistance, and moves quickly on to the next target, a light-skinned man dressed in a Hawaiian shirt, who looks to have gotten off the plane in the wrong city. The presumably Hawaiian man looks on perplexed as this stranger rearranges his luggage.
I shoo a second “helper” away as I roll the overloaded baggage cart towards the customs area. The jilted attendant scowls at me. My theories are reinforced by the rapidity with which his feigned friendliness turns to anger as the realization that, despite my light skin, I am not the equivalent of an ATM, sets in.
The man makes a spiteful but half-spirited attempt to block my progress, but I bump him out of the way with the luggage cart, and proceed towards the x-ray machines at the customs area.
These machines are the final step to freedom from the airport bureaucracy. I’ve never been sure exactly what they serve for, except of course to x-ray the luggage, though usually the attendant is paying scant attention to the results. I have never been stopped or questioned, no matter the contents of my bags, but perhaps that is special treatment as well. An acquaintance, a political activist and strong critic of the government, tells me he has had his anti-government books confiscated here several times, though his story is never quite the same, and he has never properly described how an x-ray could identify potentially slanderous material, though I suppose there are plausible explanations.
At any rate, if we can navigate the traffic jam in between us and the machines, made all the worse by the unorthodox form of line-making that anyone who has travelled in a developing country will be familiar with, then we will be out in the open.
Unfortunately no one seems to recognize the purpose of the baby stroller, and it takes a few bumps from other luggage carts as my wife pushes it ahead. Fortunately our daughter seems to think this is all a game, and she looks about excitedly at the hubbub surrounding her, like a little queen on tour in her carriage.
Before long, after emptying the luggage onto the x-ray machine, then stacking it once more on the cart, we’re through, safely, to the outside world. Just outside the baggage claim, a perimeter has been fenced off, to be used only by airport patrons. Here, only the hustlers with the wherewithal to pay off the police that guard the perimeter can get in, so despite the still numerous taxi drivers and bag handlers in the way, we manage to find the driver who has been sent by my wife’s employer.
But he, and the car he has brought, are on the outside of the perimeter, and we will need to be too, with our luggage, if we are to get home and get some rest.
I wheel the luggage, and my wife the baby, close to the gate which provides the only exit from the relative safety of the perimeter.
Here, where the gate opens to the street in front of the airport, an army of hustlers stands in waiting. These are the airport’s final line of defense, and it will be our last, but most difficult test. Mostly teenagers without the means or experience to get closer in, they are the economic scavengers of the airport hustler set, picking off the remains that those inside have left. But, like any good apprentice, they have learned all the tricks of the trade. An armed guard keeps them at bay, but only menially. If we are to get to where the chauffeur waits, just beyond, we must get past them.
They see us coming from many yards away. The group, in a semi-circle blocking the exit, starts to bustle about in anticipation. It is here that having contracted one of the baggage handlers inside would have been best. He would have kept them at bay. Of course I could just pay these boys to get out of the way, or even to help, but what kind of a lesson would that be for these youths?
I tell my wife to wait as I take the bags out one by one. Only a narrow street now separates us from the car.
I grab the first two suitcases and head towards the wall of boys blocking the entrance. I head straight into them. The wall gives way partially, and I am out onto the street. As I move I am surrounded by a fluid sea of adolescents anxious to discover my needs. I remember how nice it is be in a country with a culture where open thievery is so deeply scorned. One less worry.
“Taxi?,” a few of the boys ask in an a capella chorus, as others try to deftly pry the bags from me, to help with the remaining five feet of the journey. I push them gently away, but they follow intently.
As I lift the bags into the car, a young man puts his hand under one and does his best to help shove it into the trunk, but instead knocks it onto the ground. A few other boys scramble to help me pick it up again and place it in the trunk. Then the first boy puts out his hand. Our driver berates him in Wolof as he secures the baggage.
I push my way back across the street, avoiding the passing cars and spinning around the boys, who constantly seem to be contriving to block my path.
Back inside, I pick up the other two bags. In much the same way as before, I manage to get them across the street and into the car. Now just my wife, and the baby, remain on the wrong side of the fence.
She has already started across the street pushing the baby stroller. One of the younger boys darts towards the baby carriage, and with a jerk, snatches the handle and begins to pick it up recklessly.
I lurch over to the carriage and push him away. He shoves me as hard as his little arms can push. “Bad, bad, person,” he cries disapprovingly, but the other boys are on him in a flash. One of them clobbers the boy across the side of the head. They won’t let the situation get out control. Their position here, and their economic well-being, depends on respecting a certain level of civility.
I use the respite to usher my wife and the baby to the car. With them safely inside, we are ready to go. Several of the boys have now reappeared next to the passenger door, pushed up close to me, hands out. They still require payment for this hassle.
I spot the boy who separated his younger companion from the baby carriage. I reach in my pocket and find a coin worth five hundred West African francs, more than a dollar. It’s far too much, and I realize that by giving it to him, I am incentivizing the counterproductive behavior these boys have just displayed. If everyone would stop paying to be hassled, the airport would become a much more civil place very quickly. But I’m still searching for that middle ground.
I give the boy the coin, knowing it will be shared among the group. He looks at it with a frown. “Very small,” he says, and extends his hand again. But I’m not wiling to negotiate further.
“Bad person,” he yells at me as I wedge myself through the door and into the car. I’m not surprised by his assessment of me.
“Let’s go,” I say to the driver. “It’s quite difficult to negotiate these airport crowds,” I say, a bit saddened and disappointed, as many times before, to have still not found a more agreeable approach to the airport arrival.
“You should just ignore them,” the driver says. But I know there’s no dignity in that for anyone.
Friday, January 2, 2009
Rongen Got It Wrong
http://www.yanks-abroad.com/get.php?mode=content&id=4315
The news that Borussia Dortmund defender Neven Subotic has chosen to play for Serbia came as little surprise to those close to the situation.
Subotic has rebuffed continued overtures from the USSF ever since Under-20 coach Thomas Rongen decided to criticize Subotic on top of dropping him from the Under 20 squad that made the quarterfinals in Canada in 2007.
So when Subotic finally wrote US soccer to tell them he had chosen the nation of his cultural heritage over his adopted homeland, the announcement provoked more self-evaluation than shock.
What went wrong, and when, will be a subject for debate for years to come, especially if Subotic, who just turned 20, continues on the fast track to stardom. All signs indicate that he will, which will in turn be a thorn in the side of US soccer fans for years to come.
Compared to the fervor over previous defections, especially the other highest profile case of Italian-American forward Giuseppe Rossi, the Subotic decision has been met with equanimity. But, in many ways, losing Subotic is much harder to swallow.
While Rossi was born in the US, his Italian father moved him to Italy in his teens to train there. He signed a professional contract in Italy, always wanted to play for the Azzurri, and is largely a product of the Italian soccer system.
Subotic's career, on the other hand, is a largely American story.
His family moved from war torn Bosnia to Germany, then on to the US (when Germany kicked them out) when he was still in his formative years. Subotic, unlike his teammates on the 2005 U-17 quarterfinalists, was not a blue chip youth prospect, but rather was plucked from the parks of Bradenton, where his family moved so his sister could pursue a tennis career, and melded into the squad that finished as quarterfinalists in Peru.
That 2005 tournament in Peru was a coming of age for Subotic, and soon after he impressed in a trial for Mainz, he was on his way from South Florida to Germany. The rest is history.
Sufficed to say Subotic, arguably, has developed into an international star at a faster pace than any field player in US history, with perhaps the exception of Rossi. But the fact that Subotic would never have reached his potential so quickly without the help of the USSF makes this situation much more difficult to swallow.
The fact is, whether fans are willing to admit it or not, the US could use Subotic over the long term, just as it could have used Rossi, or New Mexico native and Mexican international Edgar Castillo.
It could be argued that those three represent more than 25% of the would-be US starting line-up for the 2010 World Cup. Even if you think Oguchi Onyewu and Carlos Bocanegra are superior players at this point, it is impossible to argue that Subotic would not have been among the most important figures in the squad over the next decade.
There is little evidence that the US will soon produce more players of Subotic's quality. The US' next best young central defender is Chad Marshall, who is not only nearly five years older than Subotic, but by comparison recently tried out for the role he vacated at Mainz, and was not offered a contract.
Maryland product Omar Gonzalez is on everyone's radar screen as he heads for MLS, but he is still raw, and was on the U-17 team in 2005 with Subotic, which gives a sense of their relative achievement thus far.
All this understandably makes many American fans furious, and the easy way out is to blame Subotic or Thomas Rongen.
Until Subotic decides to speak to the media about his decision, something he has steadfastly refused to do, we can only speculate about why he chose Serbia, a country for which he will still have to solicit a passport (he has never lived there).
A few months ago, I wrote generally about why dual national Americans would choose to play for another country. A primary reason would be fame in the other country, and Subotic promises to become a very famous Serb. But, in this case, I don't think that was his primary motivation.
In Peru in 2005, I had the chance to sit down with Neven at length for a story I wrote for YA about the team. The story was about the diversity of heritage of the members of that team, whose parents came from over a dozen different countries.
Despite that diversity, the team appeared to be unified, but Subotic was a bit more of a loner. He also struck me as a principled, intelligent, straight-forward young man who was very proud, perhaps more than the other players, to represent the United States, and not afraid to say so.
Neven was frustrated only when some of his Latino teammates spoke to each other in Spanish. He explained that he and others felt excluded. Perhaps Neven longed more than the others for a sense of belonging, after having been uprooted so many times as a youth.
It did look like he had found that in his American teammates. After the final match for the team at that tournament, a disappointing 2-0 loss to Holland in which the US suffered from horrendous officiating and Subotic saw a second half red card, the defender intimated that he felt the referee was “anti-American.” To me, that indicated a strong sense of identity with the stars and stripes.
Subotic seemed in many ways to be, in essence, a typical American teenager, apart from his proficiency in the beautiful game. Given that, combined with his words a few years ago that playing for another national team would, to him, amount to being a traitor, I was surprised to see Subotic give up his US jersey.
I am sure Neven Subotic still feels a strong loyalty to America, and would have liked to join the team. When Rongen cut him from the U-20 squad, it was an opening for others, perhaps his family included, to convince him to renounce that loyalty in favor of their heritage. And being cut was probably a deeper blow than many realized at the time.
When Rongen cut Subotic from the U-20 team, he also, unknowingly, separated him from a group to which he felt a deep sense of belonging. And he cut Neven's strongest tie to America.
That is a shame on a personal level, but in soccer there is little room for hurt feelings. It is especially a shame considering the mediocre defenders that were on that U-20 roster, and how far behind Subotic they are in their development.
It would seem, though, that the experience has made Subotic a better soccer player in the end, even if that was, in many senses, at the expense of the USSF. At this point, the only reasonable option for the USSF is to try to avoid letting this happen again.
On the American side, it does look as if the USSF has learned from this error, as egregious and harmful as it may be, given their perhaps premature efforts to call in Francisco Torres.
In the meantime, the USSF, and Rongen himself, continue to look far and wide for players with potential and American roots, who might one day develop into a Premier League or Bundesliga defender. Every U-20 roster these days seems to produce a new unknown from the depths of some European team's roster. Perhaps in the future it would be best to start with the guys already on the team.
The news that Borussia Dortmund defender Neven Subotic has chosen to play for Serbia came as little surprise to those close to the situation.
Subotic has rebuffed continued overtures from the USSF ever since Under-20 coach Thomas Rongen decided to criticize Subotic on top of dropping him from the Under 20 squad that made the quarterfinals in Canada in 2007.
So when Subotic finally wrote US soccer to tell them he had chosen the nation of his cultural heritage over his adopted homeland, the announcement provoked more self-evaluation than shock.
What went wrong, and when, will be a subject for debate for years to come, especially if Subotic, who just turned 20, continues on the fast track to stardom. All signs indicate that he will, which will in turn be a thorn in the side of US soccer fans for years to come.
Compared to the fervor over previous defections, especially the other highest profile case of Italian-American forward Giuseppe Rossi, the Subotic decision has been met with equanimity. But, in many ways, losing Subotic is much harder to swallow.
While Rossi was born in the US, his Italian father moved him to Italy in his teens to train there. He signed a professional contract in Italy, always wanted to play for the Azzurri, and is largely a product of the Italian soccer system.
Subotic's career, on the other hand, is a largely American story.
His family moved from war torn Bosnia to Germany, then on to the US (when Germany kicked them out) when he was still in his formative years. Subotic, unlike his teammates on the 2005 U-17 quarterfinalists, was not a blue chip youth prospect, but rather was plucked from the parks of Bradenton, where his family moved so his sister could pursue a tennis career, and melded into the squad that finished as quarterfinalists in Peru.
That 2005 tournament in Peru was a coming of age for Subotic, and soon after he impressed in a trial for Mainz, he was on his way from South Florida to Germany. The rest is history.
Sufficed to say Subotic, arguably, has developed into an international star at a faster pace than any field player in US history, with perhaps the exception of Rossi. But the fact that Subotic would never have reached his potential so quickly without the help of the USSF makes this situation much more difficult to swallow.
The fact is, whether fans are willing to admit it or not, the US could use Subotic over the long term, just as it could have used Rossi, or New Mexico native and Mexican international Edgar Castillo.
It could be argued that those three represent more than 25% of the would-be US starting line-up for the 2010 World Cup. Even if you think Oguchi Onyewu and Carlos Bocanegra are superior players at this point, it is impossible to argue that Subotic would not have been among the most important figures in the squad over the next decade.
There is little evidence that the US will soon produce more players of Subotic's quality. The US' next best young central defender is Chad Marshall, who is not only nearly five years older than Subotic, but by comparison recently tried out for the role he vacated at Mainz, and was not offered a contract.
Maryland product Omar Gonzalez is on everyone's radar screen as he heads for MLS, but he is still raw, and was on the U-17 team in 2005 with Subotic, which gives a sense of their relative achievement thus far.
All this understandably makes many American fans furious, and the easy way out is to blame Subotic or Thomas Rongen.
Until Subotic decides to speak to the media about his decision, something he has steadfastly refused to do, we can only speculate about why he chose Serbia, a country for which he will still have to solicit a passport (he has never lived there).
A few months ago, I wrote generally about why dual national Americans would choose to play for another country. A primary reason would be fame in the other country, and Subotic promises to become a very famous Serb. But, in this case, I don't think that was his primary motivation.
In Peru in 2005, I had the chance to sit down with Neven at length for a story I wrote for YA about the team. The story was about the diversity of heritage of the members of that team, whose parents came from over a dozen different countries.
Despite that diversity, the team appeared to be unified, but Subotic was a bit more of a loner. He also struck me as a principled, intelligent, straight-forward young man who was very proud, perhaps more than the other players, to represent the United States, and not afraid to say so.
Neven was frustrated only when some of his Latino teammates spoke to each other in Spanish. He explained that he and others felt excluded. Perhaps Neven longed more than the others for a sense of belonging, after having been uprooted so many times as a youth.
It did look like he had found that in his American teammates. After the final match for the team at that tournament, a disappointing 2-0 loss to Holland in which the US suffered from horrendous officiating and Subotic saw a second half red card, the defender intimated that he felt the referee was “anti-American.” To me, that indicated a strong sense of identity with the stars and stripes.
Subotic seemed in many ways to be, in essence, a typical American teenager, apart from his proficiency in the beautiful game. Given that, combined with his words a few years ago that playing for another national team would, to him, amount to being a traitor, I was surprised to see Subotic give up his US jersey.
I am sure Neven Subotic still feels a strong loyalty to America, and would have liked to join the team. When Rongen cut him from the U-20 squad, it was an opening for others, perhaps his family included, to convince him to renounce that loyalty in favor of their heritage. And being cut was probably a deeper blow than many realized at the time.
When Rongen cut Subotic from the U-20 team, he also, unknowingly, separated him from a group to which he felt a deep sense of belonging. And he cut Neven's strongest tie to America.
That is a shame on a personal level, but in soccer there is little room for hurt feelings. It is especially a shame considering the mediocre defenders that were on that U-20 roster, and how far behind Subotic they are in their development.
It would seem, though, that the experience has made Subotic a better soccer player in the end, even if that was, in many senses, at the expense of the USSF. At this point, the only reasonable option for the USSF is to try to avoid letting this happen again.
On the American side, it does look as if the USSF has learned from this error, as egregious and harmful as it may be, given their perhaps premature efforts to call in Francisco Torres.
In the meantime, the USSF, and Rongen himself, continue to look far and wide for players with potential and American roots, who might one day develop into a Premier League or Bundesliga defender. Every U-20 roster these days seems to produce a new unknown from the depths of some European team's roster. Perhaps in the future it would be best to start with the guys already on the team.
Friday, August 22, 2008
Dakar's 'African Renaissance' Monument Project Has Detractors
Dakar's 'African Renaissance' Monument Project Has Detractors
Radio Report
August 22, 2008
A colossal monument is planned for a hill overlooking the Atlantic in Dakar, capital of Africa's western-most nation, Senegal. The Senegalese president says the "Monument to the African Renaissance" is meant to symbolize the potential and growth of the continent. Detractors say it is a misuse of funds and a distraction from the everyday problems of the Senegalese people. For VOA, Brent Latham has more from Dakar.
A foreman yells instructions in Korean to a team of workers. A large open air kiln, reminiscent of the industrial age, spews thick black smoke into the sky.
The laborers pound steel and bronze on their anvils. These are North Koreans, and they are building a monument, something they have become accustomed to after years of paying tribute to Kim Jong-il, North Korea's long time communist ruler.
But this is not Pyongyang. It is Dakar, Senegal. On a large hill at the western-most tip of the continent, the North Koreans are helping to erect an African monument to rival others worldwide. With a height of more than 50 meters, the Monument to the African Renaissance, when completed, would be taller than the Statue of Liberty, if everything goes according to plan.
The monument, which will depict a man emerging from a volcano with his wife in one arm and child in the other, is an initiative of Senegal's octogenarian President Abdoulaye Wade. The project's principal architect is Pierre Goudiaby Atepa.
"This is an idea of President Wade. Way before he became president, he wrote a book on his vision of Africa, and in part of the book, he pictured an African giant coming out of a volcano with his wife and his child, and pointing out the way to development, which is the north, America," he said. "He wrote about it and when he became president. He called his architect, which is my good self, and told me, listen, I want to make a big monument that would symbolize the African Renaissance."
Major infrastructure projects like this tunnel have become common in Dakar
The ambitious job, which Atepa hopes will be completed by the end of next year, is another in a long line of large projects undertaken by Mr. Wade's government. On the agenda for the remaining four years of Mr. Wade's second term as president are a national theater projected to be the largest on the continent, advancing on plans for a new airport, and a huge Museum of African Culture.
The president's choices have brought criticism from political opposition and citizens alike, who say that Mr. Wade has focused on glossing over the country's poverty with construction projects that serve mostly the wealthy.
The monument distracts attention from the lack of jobs in Senegal, say two men standing by the side of the road, staring up at the rising monument on the hill above them.
They make their living washing cars in an empty lot below the monument's construction site. They say they are annoyed that the government spends money on monuments and building projects, while much of the population has little to eat, and faces a lack of employment and rising food prices.
Spokesmen for the presidency have repeatedly said the monument is being funded by private sources. The architect, Atepa, says he and the president are acutely aware of the criticism. Though his explanation indicates the funding is coming from the sale of government land, Atepa maintains that the government is not spending public funds on the monument.
"As far as the funding - it is not public money. We tried, because when you are in a government that does not have money sometimes you have to think of other ways of financing things than taking public money," he said. "The monument is in a site, and next to the site the government has decided that they will sell some government land, which is laying there for nothing, giving it to Senegal entrepreneurs, who will buy the land from the government. Instead of buying it for the regular government price, which is almost nothing, we put it at the commercial price, and they are giving the money to the government to build this, at commercial price. It is not costing anything to the government."
Atepa says he understands there is little public information within Senegal about the monument project. He says the government is anxious to avoid the criticism that comes with announcing big projects like this one and not following through. He says he prefers to complete the project first, and then publicize the results.
The architect says critics need to think more of the long term. He says the building of the monument does not represent a choice to ignore the problems of poverty, but rather to tackle those problems with a long term perspective in mind. Though the advantages of the monument may not be obvious in the short term, Atepa says, the Senegalese economy will eventually reap benefits from the monument and the building spree in general.
"I am an architect and I pressure the president to do things that will make Dakar, in Senegal, I do not want to say a showcase, but as you see everyone goes to Paris because of the Eiffel Tower," he said. "I want a lot of tourists to come to come to Senegal because we will have the monument of the African Renaissance, we are doing the national theatre, we will be doing the archives of Senegal, we are doing the African museum. We are doing all these things because in the year 2010 or 2015 we want people to come to Senegal, and this is what will make Senegal a rich country."
Mr. Wade has attempted to publicize the monument abroad, giving out pamphlets to international visitors to the president's office and on his trips outside Senegal. He has promised to have replicas of the monument built to be given to other African nations.
But inside Senegal, the construction on the hilltop remains a relative mystery. Visiting the project site requires the approval of the president himself, the architect's office says.
It will be difficult to avoid talk of the project much longer.
Above the lighthouse guarding the cape where Africa gives way to the ocean, the immense base of the statue is growing quickly. The first two stories are nearly complete. Plans show a winding staircase on the front of the monument, which visitors will be able to climb for a view of the Dakar peninsula and the ocean.
As for the North Koreans, Atepa says they are expert monument builders and bronze workers. The architect hopes some of that knowledge will be passed along to his Senegalese team.
Radio Report
August 22, 2008
A colossal monument is planned for a hill overlooking the Atlantic in Dakar, capital of Africa's western-most nation, Senegal. The Senegalese president says the "Monument to the African Renaissance" is meant to symbolize the potential and growth of the continent. Detractors say it is a misuse of funds and a distraction from the everyday problems of the Senegalese people. For VOA, Brent Latham has more from Dakar.
A foreman yells instructions in Korean to a team of workers. A large open air kiln, reminiscent of the industrial age, spews thick black smoke into the sky.
The laborers pound steel and bronze on their anvils. These are North Koreans, and they are building a monument, something they have become accustomed to after years of paying tribute to Kim Jong-il, North Korea's long time communist ruler.
But this is not Pyongyang. It is Dakar, Senegal. On a large hill at the western-most tip of the continent, the North Koreans are helping to erect an African monument to rival others worldwide. With a height of more than 50 meters, the Monument to the African Renaissance, when completed, would be taller than the Statue of Liberty, if everything goes according to plan.
The monument, which will depict a man emerging from a volcano with his wife in one arm and child in the other, is an initiative of Senegal's octogenarian President Abdoulaye Wade. The project's principal architect is Pierre Goudiaby Atepa.
"This is an idea of President Wade. Way before he became president, he wrote a book on his vision of Africa, and in part of the book, he pictured an African giant coming out of a volcano with his wife and his child, and pointing out the way to development, which is the north, America," he said. "He wrote about it and when he became president. He called his architect, which is my good self, and told me, listen, I want to make a big monument that would symbolize the African Renaissance."
Major infrastructure projects like this tunnel have become common in Dakar
The ambitious job, which Atepa hopes will be completed by the end of next year, is another in a long line of large projects undertaken by Mr. Wade's government. On the agenda for the remaining four years of Mr. Wade's second term as president are a national theater projected to be the largest on the continent, advancing on plans for a new airport, and a huge Museum of African Culture.
The president's choices have brought criticism from political opposition and citizens alike, who say that Mr. Wade has focused on glossing over the country's poverty with construction projects that serve mostly the wealthy.
The monument distracts attention from the lack of jobs in Senegal, say two men standing by the side of the road, staring up at the rising monument on the hill above them.
They make their living washing cars in an empty lot below the monument's construction site. They say they are annoyed that the government spends money on monuments and building projects, while much of the population has little to eat, and faces a lack of employment and rising food prices.
Spokesmen for the presidency have repeatedly said the monument is being funded by private sources. The architect, Atepa, says he and the president are acutely aware of the criticism. Though his explanation indicates the funding is coming from the sale of government land, Atepa maintains that the government is not spending public funds on the monument.
"As far as the funding - it is not public money. We tried, because when you are in a government that does not have money sometimes you have to think of other ways of financing things than taking public money," he said. "The monument is in a site, and next to the site the government has decided that they will sell some government land, which is laying there for nothing, giving it to Senegal entrepreneurs, who will buy the land from the government. Instead of buying it for the regular government price, which is almost nothing, we put it at the commercial price, and they are giving the money to the government to build this, at commercial price. It is not costing anything to the government."
Atepa says he understands there is little public information within Senegal about the monument project. He says the government is anxious to avoid the criticism that comes with announcing big projects like this one and not following through. He says he prefers to complete the project first, and then publicize the results.
The architect says critics need to think more of the long term. He says the building of the monument does not represent a choice to ignore the problems of poverty, but rather to tackle those problems with a long term perspective in mind. Though the advantages of the monument may not be obvious in the short term, Atepa says, the Senegalese economy will eventually reap benefits from the monument and the building spree in general.
"I am an architect and I pressure the president to do things that will make Dakar, in Senegal, I do not want to say a showcase, but as you see everyone goes to Paris because of the Eiffel Tower," he said. "I want a lot of tourists to come to come to Senegal because we will have the monument of the African Renaissance, we are doing the national theatre, we will be doing the archives of Senegal, we are doing the African museum. We are doing all these things because in the year 2010 or 2015 we want people to come to Senegal, and this is what will make Senegal a rich country."
Mr. Wade has attempted to publicize the monument abroad, giving out pamphlets to international visitors to the president's office and on his trips outside Senegal. He has promised to have replicas of the monument built to be given to other African nations.
But inside Senegal, the construction on the hilltop remains a relative mystery. Visiting the project site requires the approval of the president himself, the architect's office says.
It will be difficult to avoid talk of the project much longer.
Above the lighthouse guarding the cape where Africa gives way to the ocean, the immense base of the statue is growing quickly. The first two stories are nearly complete. Plans show a winding staircase on the front of the monument, which visitors will be able to climb for a view of the Dakar peninsula and the ocean.
As for the North Koreans, Atepa says they are expert monument builders and bronze workers. The architect hopes some of that knowledge will be passed along to his Senegalese team.
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