Not yet. Switzerland says the EU will continue to assist in helping release Max Göldi, a businessman held in Libya since July 2008 and now serving a prison term for immigration violations. He and another Swiss were picked up after Geneva police arrested a son of Moammar Gaddafi.

So far the Swiss have apologised, made overtures about compensation and dropped a pan-European travel ban on top Libyan officials. It's been fruitless.

Experts I spoke with today say there's not much leverage. Göldi’s prison term is up in 12 weeks.

The whole story is here.

I suppose being copied and pasted should be considered a compliment. Today in my Google News update, I happened upon an article in the Tripoli Post entitled "Swiss Irrationality Drags EU into Dispute with Friendly Libya".

This has all to do with the case of two Swiss businessmen who were picked up in Libya in July 2008 after Geneva police arrested a son of the colonel for beating hotel workers. That touched off a diplomatic storm between the two countries, basically because you don't mess with Moammar.

It also gave journalists in these parts a break from writing about cheese, chocolate and banks.

Curious, I clicked the link. Unsurprisingly, the top of the article read pro-Libya. I continued.

About ten paragraphs in, came this line:

There is a possibility that the negotiations to solve the dispute that entangled the rest of Europe will continue in Berlin on Friday.

Odd, I thought. I had used the "entangled" just a few days ago in one of my own pieces. And those negotiations were last Friday, not two days from today.

The further I read, the more I felt a sense of déjà vu. Hmmm, I mused. This writer is really improving in the bottom half of his piece. Really. Amazing. Prose. Strong finish, mate.

And then this:

A move by Switzerland to impose Europe-wide visa restrictions against nearly 200 prominent Libyans may have backfired, a Geneva-based expert tells swissinfo.ch.

Followed by:

The Swiss decision, made last autumn, was one of many salvos in a two-year bilateral dispute and sparked Tripoli to bar citizens of Schengen zone nations from entering the country.

Marcelo Kohen, a professor of international law at Geneva's Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, said that Bern chose the wrong strategy.

In late 2008, the Swiss ban would have produced few ramifications outside its own borders.

But since entering the 25-country Schengen Area, Switzerland and its neighbours have been able to restrict the ability of people from outside the area to move freely within it.

That's exactly what Switzerland did. The Libyans alleged to be on the Swiss list are still permitted to enter other Schengen countries but must apply for individual visas.

That of course, was lifted directly from a Q&A I did last week with a Geneva-based professor.

The original article is here. A follow-up, describing the reaction of the Swiss media is here.

Things generally get better in February. After a busy autumn and pre-Christmas - complete with trips to the Middle East, Bangladesh and a couple of hops to Canada - 2010 has settled in quite nicely.

On the news front, it's been interesting: we've had a very anticlimactic sailing race (overshadowed by those pesky Olympics), a surprise escalation in Switzerland's spat with Libya and I took a closer look at whether Twitter is a useful tool for journalists.

Swiss billionaire Ernesto Bertarelli lost the America's Cup after years of legal wrangling. Bertarelli, a biotech scion, had matched his team, Alinghi, against Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison. Both teams probably spent hundreds of millions on massive multi-hull yachts, that as I wrote a couple of weeks ago "look like insects and are the size of apartment buildings". Really. They had 50-metre sails.

Bertarelli, unfortunately, sailed with a traditional sail. Ellison built a carbon fibre wing 80 percent longer than the one attached to a Boeing 747. It allowed BMW Oracle to decisively win two races in a row.

Switzerland has annoyed Italy by blocking certain Libyan citizens from obtaining Schengen visas. They've taken advantage of a solidarity clause, which allows them to essentially block people from travelling within the 26-nation bloc. Libyans can still enter Schengen countries but need individual visas.

The Italians are upset and say Switzerland has dragged them into a bilateral dispute. The Swiss aren't saying much at the moment.

I spoke with a Swiss journalist a week ago who took part in an experiment. She and four other journalists holed themselves up in a French farmhouse and tried to report the news using Facebook and Twitter. The results were less than successful.

Part of the problem, and I'm hardly the first to point this out, is that Twitter is saturated with useless information. Useful things do pop up but are buried under mountains of repetition and less-than-insightful commentary. One of the blogs I read likened the situation to pre-Google search, in that there's a lot out there but no means of sorting through everything.

I'm still undecided about how Twitter can help me. Breaking news, perhaps. And trends. But there's no clear indication to me that there's a lot of value, at least easily-accessible value, for people who want to find out useful things about the world.

One of the experts I spoke with suggested I take off my journalist hat when thinking about the value of information- think of it as a tool for people to keep track of what's important to the people who are important to them.

I'm reminded of the fact that I personally know few people I follow, or that follow me.

In June 2006, I visited a school in Lunsar, Sierra Leone. It was my first trip upcountry having arrived at the beginning of the month and we were there to do some inspections of schools where children had received grants for uniforms. I would later find out more about the importance of school uniforms within Sierra Leone culture (more on that another day).

One of the stops was a Catholic school and since we were guests, it of course meant we would be treated to a song. One of the teachers, Sister Frances, asked her class of third-graders who wanted to start with the song. No hands went up. She surveyed the room, picked out the least shy student, pointed at her and exclaimed: "This one is ready to sing!"

I returned with a few photos and video, material for what turned out to be my first music project in the country. I was able to rip the audio from the video after I returned to Freetown. Using a small laptop, a copy of Cakewalk's Sonar DAW, the Atmosphere soft synth, some drum loops and an evening hunched over a pretty basic M-Audio MIDI controller, I remixed it. It's here.

01 This One is Ready to Sing

Around six weeks into my time in Sierra Leone, I took on the persona of my too expensive shoe and wrote a long running narrative about my existence. I think I did this one after a blistering hot, humid day. Since it was July, I probably got rained on on the way home.

Kinsei: first-world shoe in a third-world country
July 17th, 2006

I’m a duality: two separate yet equal parts, working in tandem to do great things. Left Foot. Right Foot. Though they live in an independent and autonomous state, they’re inseparable. They are two, but they are one. They are me. This is my story.

I know little of my history. What I can tell you is that I was conceived far away in a mind’s eye by a great visionary. He had seen those like me before, and he was displeased. He sought to build a better, more efficient version of what he saw around him. He constructed me with care from the finest materials and gave me a body for sacrifice and a soul for speed, if it were to be my destiny. And he saw that I was good.

I was sold into slavery by a man named Bruce in the early spring while I was still young. Bruce worked in a paradoxical way- he spoke of my virtues. He was my champion. He loved me like a father might yet in singing my praises, delivered me into a life of hardship. I had experienced nothing short of birth and darkness when I learned of my relocation. I knew neither my destination nor how my life would unfold. But even if I did, it wouldn’t have mattered. I was born to experience my fate, wherever it would lead me.

My master broke me in slowly. In the beginning, life was easy. Days were short and were spent navigating the streets of Europe. We moved from the cobblestone roads of Paris to the fields of Switzerland to the rolling hills of Tuscany. The work was light, the sun bathed me in its warmth for the first time, and the women were sweet.

Yet I was lonely. But this was my burden.

Several weeks were spent in isolation. I remember little, save a few dark journeys nestled in with some foul-smelling textiles. The dark times ended. Then resumed.

Light came suddenly, though not unexpectedly. The air grew warmer and more humid. In my soul - intrinsically - I became aware that I had entered my raison d’etre. The sand was sweet, but the pavement was hard. I spent my days in the sun, but unlike my Master, my color remained constant. It was only my soles that became red from the loose arid dirt that lined the streets here.

Today was particularly tough. My master brought me into the wilderness to test me. To tempt me. To break me. The beginning was deceptively easy. He either went slow and even when his speed increased, he kept me on the sand, where the remnants of small blue waves would refreshingly tickle my sides as they died on the beachhead. I drank it in.

Then things changed. Master decided more speed was necessary. Companions that had joined us faded into the distance and for a brief moment, we were airborne. The pavement almost broke me. I lost all consciousness, only to fade back in, then out, ripe with agony and delirious from the thick air. Master kept going, but I noticed his stride began to change. Like me, he felt the pain.

Like me, he felt pain. But his weakness was that he succumbed to it. Where I owned my pain, he was owned by his. He mistook my submission for acquiescence and paid the price.

In the forty-third minute, the bad foot and the bad air had caught up to him. He favored Left Foot and wheezed when the black smoke of the afternoon traffic engulfed his senses. We passed several piles of trash and pools of filthy water. I could hear Master hold his breath as he alternated between running and resting, trying to save face in the midst of his peers. I sensed we were moving closer to his – our – home.

The pavement faded and I felt the rough texture of the dirt and stones of Signal Hill. I sensed conversations in the smoky air and laughter. The conversations were in a language I recognized but was unable to decipher.

We passed men, women, and children. They were laughing with increasing intensity as we moved closer. Perhaps they were laughing at him- at us. The hill grew steeper and Master had a second wind.

It was over quickly. We were home. I felt us hobbling up a set of stairs, indicating our presence on the ceramic times. I felt myself being loosened and simultaneously stretched. We were kicked off and left in solitude by the door. Our movement had ceased and we were left to rest. For the time being. Out of the corner of my eye, I sensed Master sinking his feet into a bucket of ice water. He was finished, at least for today.

Fast forward. CelTel, the mobile phone company that sponsored everything, has been bought by Zain, a Middle Eastern company that sponsors everything.

But speaking of beauty, have a look at Aschobi Designs. It's a company started a couple of years ago by a young Sierra Leonean designer, who after having studied at Parsons Paris, set up shop in the heart of Freetown. There's also a Facebook page.

Put your arms together for Miss University
August 1st, 2006

Embrace. Beauty.

CelTel seems to sponsor everything around here. Beach bars are painted in the red and yellow colours and small booths selling phone cards dot the roadsides. So it was no surprise that Miss University 2006, ostensibly one of the most happening events in Freetown, would be sponsored by Africa’s leading mobile service provider.

Embrace. Beauty. CelTel’s entire marketing campaign is based around grammatically incorrect sentences and phraseology; and while I do not understand the rationale, I’m sure it is intentional. Miss Universe 2006 was the event we had been looking forward to since we saw the banners over a month ago. We even skipped an overnight trip to River No. 2 to make sure we could be in attendance.

The show was advertised to start at 9:00 in the evening, and we arrived at 9:30. Although Sierra Leone is four hours ahead of Eastern time, they were running on Standard African Time, which is anywhere from one to two hours behind schedule. Nobody seemed to care, and members of the large crowd appeared to be having a good time waiting in their seats, some munching on small pieces of meat on a stick.

Entrance cost 20,000 Leones, meaning many of those in attendance had probably saved up for quite a long time to attend. Twenty thousand Leones is around eight dollars.

It wasn’t exactly a classy affair.

This writer is playing a difficult game balancing accurate reporting with not being patently offensive to his host country. The dress for many consisted of relatively short bottoms accompanied by tops that reciprocated in coverage and lack of taste. One young lady donned a top with strategically-placed rips meant to tempt, tease, and entice but not give away the secret; except it shifted. Surprise! Everybody can see your nipple.

There were two fights.

Things got underway at 10:45 with several “artists” performing musical acts. And by artists, I mean what appeared to be regular people. And by musical acts, I mean lip-syncing and really bad dancing. Crowd response was lukewarm and my brow was furrowed.

Music was followed by the hosts, and the hosts carried scripts in their hands. I was reminded of something we did back in primary school called reader’s theatre. It was when we hastily put together a script of a quality which reflected our grade level and traveled to different classrooms reading and making up actions. I can’t say this was much better. Coordination between backstage and talent was lacking.

The show got underway. Each young woman was introduced to the crowd. More than one was named Fatmata, several were 5’6”, and a few enjoyed playing basketball. All were dressed in identical jean miniskirts and red CelTel t-shirts tied at the bottom to reveal as much midsection as possible. Each strutted out, posed, and shook her way down the catwalk, then back towards the stage to take her place among the others.

The host then asked us to “put our arms together for Miss University”. We decided to clap instead. Then we left to sit over some Sierra Leonean beer in a beach bar, which by that point, seemed to be the more sophisticated option.

Before asking us to put our arms together (which I still haven’t figured out yet), the host had asked us to wait patiently for things to get underway and the excitement to materialize. And before that, we heard that tonight, we would be witnessing real Sierra Leonean beauty.

Right… I saw many things that evening, but I’m not sure I saw beauty. I saw vanity, exhibitionism, and overall trashiness, but I did not see beauty. I saw women and girls who conducted themselves as though the road to a man’s heart runs directly through his pants (and men who would believe it), but I did not see beauty.

I saw eight young women making their first impressions to the world dressed in identical out-of-date denim miniskirts, emblazoned with a logo.

Embrace. Beauty.

I saw over a thousand people, many of whom probably paid more than a day’s wage to witness the Western phenomenon of chauvinism and vanity mixed together in a cheap soup.

Embrace. Beauty.

I thought about some of the people in a polio community I visited the other day. I thought about their sheet metal walls and their tarp roofs, and of their ragged clothing, their gnarled hands, and of the simple tools they use to construct the five dollar stoves they make from scrap metal.

Embrace. Beauty.

There is no shortage of beauty in this country, but not here, not this night. Rather, it is nestled in the vernacular, buried in the everyday, and typically obscured by a flaking veneer of poverty and drudgery. It lives in the candid moments when nobody pays attention; on the streets and in the fields, and in the daily struggle to survive. But like light through a pinhole, it is a beacon- visible to those who seek it, it summons us to compassion and illuminates our humanity.

I'm not sure how "breast is best" translates into Krio but this video is a good explanation.

We made this on my last visit to Sierra Leone, in August 2008.

Viewed in light of safety and reliability standards in the developed world (especially Switzerland), riding this whirlybird was unadulterated stupidity. But a necessity. One year later, the day before I would leave Sierra Leone, one of the helicopters caught fire on its approach to Lungi airport. Two of its three pilots bailed. They hit tarmac and died. The third pilot survived. The sport delegation from neighbouring Togo, in town for a football match, was consumed by flames.

I've decided that I will want to re-upload all my movies to YouTube in HD. I had fortunately brought along one of the first pro-sumer HD cams that existed at the time. Even if it were possible at the time, uploading HD would have been impossible given the reliability of internet in Sierra Leone.

Day 1
June 7th, 2006

We arrived last night in Freetown ninety minutes late. Typical. The international airport here is quite undeveloped, and there are a few small planes kicking around, and various helicopters in disrepair. There are few lights from the air, and almost none on the ground.

Getting off the plane, I felt the warm, air cling to my skin like some kind of blanket I would have been happier without. This is the cold season. The wait to get through customs was thirty minutes or so, and there was a group of Canadian teenagers there on a 3-week trip with an international organization.

Our flight was the only one that arrived that evening, and the 200-or-so people there waited for one of 6 customs officers to allow us into the country. Some people had a long and difficult time, but I passed through in less than a minute, without any problems. Our baggage came in on one of two carousels. I hadn’t locked my bags and was afraid it might have been torn open, but it arrived unharmed. Even my piano was in decent shape.

I was spared the normal customs routine of having everything ripped open and eyed by the inspectors.

Apparently they ask you if they can have some of your stuff. I’m not sure what the right answer would be. We waited in a terminal that really looked like an oversized barn for our helicopter. Our ticket was a wooden tag. The helicopter looked equally primitive. It was a Ukrainian beast. There were three crew members and some of the windows were open. It was loud, but at least there was a breeze.

The trip to the city was surprisingly long and as dark as expected. We flew low enough so that if the engines quit there would be no autorotation, but high enough that we’d die if the bad boy decided to stop flying. Luckily turbine engines are reliable and the Soviets built better helicopters than cars.

Freetown is dark at night. A few people have electricity and some people make fires. We arrived at the gate of the house. Our security guards come from Group 4. Talk about globalization. The house is relatively nice and spacious. There is a “secure” room in case of armed robbery, but I am told the risk is significantly lower than a few years ago. A couple years ago, they had to evacuate… the country.

This is an interesting place.

I've now rescued my data (thank you, Internet Archive) and plan a subsection on this site where my old posts, some complete with post-university angst, will be republished.

Some of the classics will find their way to the main page. I'm surprised I misspelled the words "commission" and "because" (the latter twice), even though I was in a rush. I blame Firefox sans spell check. Here is what I wrote post-Kenya, pre-Sierra Leone.

02.06.06 // Destination: Freetown
May 30th, 2006

Welcome to livefromfreetown.com. I’ve had a pretty good time travelling through Europe and into Kenya, and am back home for 2 days until I fly to London, and then on to Freetown. Adventure awaits.

The in-flight magazine from Nairobi to Kisumu had a very interesting article about Sierra Leone. The State Department has declared the entire country safe for travel, including border areas, which were among the most dangerous, and there is a small but growing market for tourism. Despite that it is no longer the poorest country in the world (still among the poorest), I’m not convinced that this country is Club-Med.

Nevertheless, with peace, good governance, and foreign investment (much of which coming from the Chinese), Sierra Leone may have a bright future, although there is still much need.

Friday morning will be rushed because the plan is to get my visa from the High Commission in London. If the quality of a country’s website is any indicator of development, I’d venture that only North Korea is in worse shape. Anyways, these are some thoughts. I will wait to gather impressions once I arrive.

Yet to be determined is the quality of internet access, so I’m not sure how fast I’ll get videos online, but I’ll do my best.

Stay tuned…

-----

Live from… New Jersey?
June 2nd, 2006

Well, I hope New Jersey enjoyed their thunderstorms, because I sure didn’t enjoy their thunderstorms. An unfortunate combination of bad weather and even worse service from Continental meant I missed my connecting flight at Newark, even though I was at the airport when it left.

This means I’ll be in London tomorrow and Sunday nights, and will be arriving on Monday. If i have some time to kill (likely), I’ll take a picture of my sad face here at in front of McDonalds.

And this is where I spent the night…

-----

Live from… Gatwick
June 4th, 2006

It isn’t Sierra Leone, but Gatwick Airport is a lot closer than New Jersey. At least I made it across the Atlantic. After a bit of negotiating, the airline agreed to cover my expenses for the weekend, and thus, I’m spending 2 nights at the Hilton here and eating £18.95 breakfasts. Delicious.

That’s pretty much the only thing of note that’s happened this weekend. The food. The delicious food. Other than that, it has been a lot of sitting around and watching TV, and wandering. After the last month, things really aren’t nearly as fun when you’re alone.

So today is finally go-time. I’ll be going downtown this morning to collect my visa from the High Commission for Sierra Leone, and then rushing back to catch the plane. There are two ways you can get from the airport downtown. Regular train service, or the Gatwick Express. A return on the Gatwick Express is £28, which is about $75. I think I’ll leave early this morning and take the el-cheapo, and then if I’m in a rush, I can take the express back. I’m on a budget…

That is really the last thing I have to do before I go, besides actually getting on the plane. My flight to Freetown leaves today at 3:30 pm, and arrives at about 8:30 pm. Catch you on the flip side.

A couple of stories - one about a volunteer Swiss nurse and the other about Switzerland's honourary consul to Sierra Leone - came of the adventure.

And then there was this video. We held the footage to make a little piece for International Women's Day. For more information on fistula, see the links on the right side of the page.