2020 a year to watch

2020

The beginning of a third decade in the new millennium

The elections are due to be held across Africa during 2020 in:

Burkina Faso
Burundi

Cabo Verde
Cote d'Ivoire
Ghana
Guinea
Togo

That's a lot across West Africa

I've been talking to Ivorian friends about the situation locally for the next elections as that is where I'm most concerned.  After the municipal elections in early October 2018 that caused chaos in some regions of the country,  as there was one declared death (Lakota) and a lot of post-election dramas.
I asked the question; as I usually do!

The last Presidential elections in Cote d'Ivoire passed peacefully in general but that's because the Gbagboists refused to vote.

So where does that leave 2020 in the sub-region of West Africa, particularly Cote d'Ivoire?

A lot of friends are already talking about leaving the country to watch the elections pass from afar.  Personally this worries me as it hints at something more ominous.  Currently there's no clear leader to take over from Alassane Ouattara.

Having said this, over the last few years, Burkina Faso has had an de-facto government when Compaore was exiled, Burundi has seen a lot of turmoil, another country I love and was shocked to hear a hand grenade go off within an hour of my arrival a few years ago.  Burundi is in chaos and I hope it stops soon!  Ghana has a President that wants to leave his religious mark with a building resembling the Yamoussoukro Basilica despite not having schools nor regular electrical supplies, so dumsor makes today's headlines.  Guinea's fortunes change daily, I'm not going to comment on that or Togo's possible perilous future ...

2020 is a year to watch ... I hope I'll be more optimistic soon!

When you unexpectedly and unfortunately meet new friends

It was over several months I was moderating a WhatsApp group for people heading south down through the West African coast for a Facebook group.  Totally in my own time, using my knowledge and obviously unpaid I tried to assist other travellers through the minefield of red tape through West Africa.

What evolved I couldn't have made up, had nightmares about or lived through.

In early October, a world-travelled German couple settled down for the night in their pick-up camper on the outskirts of Boma, DRC, unfortunately next to a cemetary.  They were rudely disturbed by 4 masked men brandishing machetes and rudimentary flaming torches, banging on the side of the vehicle and apparently threatening to set the fuel tank alight!  The owner went out and used pepper spray which caught two of them and a 3rd apparently ran away, sadly the owner was murdered that night.

The aftermath was horrendous, despite not being on the ground but trying to support and coordinate the situation from home, it chilled me to the bone.  However, it created a friendship with people I've never met who were instrumental in helping the widow of the murdered traveller.  They had already met the couple several years ago in Venezuela and managed to catch up with them in West Africa.  The night the murder took place in Boma, they were in a nearby town, fortunately.

The body was taken to the morgue but the situation with the perpetrators had escalated.  A woman had been raped the same day, under the alleged threat of 'the same treatment as the white man' if she didn't concede.  Meanwhile the widow and friends, none of whom spoke fluent French were waiting in a hotel in Boma for consular assistance, opposite the police station where the main suspect was being held. See more in this French blog post: Assassins du touriste allemand aux arrêts

The German Embassy in Kinshasa were in contact but German public holidays were obviously of more importance as 'Unity Day' celebrations meant that they couldn't make it to Boma.  They had said they were going to travel to Boma but late in the afternoon of that day, they announced they weren't coming.  Luckily the widow and friends weren't aware that there was an Embassy party going on in Kinshasa where rumours ruled; the murderer was a soldier, the Embassy was going to organise the shipment of the vehicle back to Europe (I'd already contacted shipping companies in Matadi and the couple had organised it all on the ground).  When the widow called the Embassy to ask about progress getting herself home the answer was 'We are not a travel agency' it was all nonsense!

After almost a week, these wonderful new friends who had organised everything, dispatched the widow on a flight from Boma to Kinshasa to connect onto a flight home to her family in Germany.  The vehicle was ready to be shipped to Belgium (although due to German import tax it's now somewhere in the Atlantic heading for the USA) and the body was finally released by the Mayor who didn't want any trouble and was probably trying to cover things up.  A lot of this was also thanks to a wonderful Dutch man in South Africa with Congolese contacts, so a lot of noise was made in the higher echelons of the DRC government.  Luckily the widow left DRC with an expired visa but yet again this gentleman stepped in and sent a lawyer to the airport in case she had more dramas to live through!

Just over a month later, his widow is back in Germany trying to put her life back together after over 30 years of marriage but is determined to continue travelling, she's a brave lady!  The couple that helped her I'm dying to meet, amazing people who sent me a birthday video last month which had me in tears; we keep in regular contact via WhatsApp!  Although I'm rather jealous, they met up with the Dutch man in South Africa for a coffee earlier this week and will be flying home tomorrow ...

Nothing ever prepares you for travel in Africa!  However, this was a very unfortunate one-off incident in the western part of DRC which is generally safe ... It's often better to be surrounded by walls at night in regions like this, but so many others who have driven through have camped similarly!

I wish my new friends bon voyage on their flight home tomorrow and hope one day we can meet!!!