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January 19, 2006
Maxwell and Ag Ahmed Zabriou
Hello. Sorry not to have posted anything for a long time. Here is something by way of an update:
Maxwell: We now have an enormous desert tortoise called Maxwell, named after Maxwell House coffee. Publicity for Maxwell House is very important if West Africa is to be released from the near-monopoly of Evil Nestlé, who Used To Do Something Unethical To Do With Baby Milk, Or So I've Heard).
My own small contribution to the anti-Nestlé campaign comes in the sequel to Sophie and the Albino Camel, when a Fulani man sings a song mourning the loss of his only milk-cow. It goes something like this:
No milk since Tuesday,
I wish I could die,
My coffee is black
And my maize-flakes are dry.
Bring back,
Bring back,
Oh, bring back Big Udders to me.
No milk since Tuesday
And that's no mistake,
I'm all of a twitter,
I'm thin as a rake.
Bring back,
Bring back,
Oh, bring back Big Udders to me.
No milk since Tuesday,
I hate to complain,
But Beastlé milk powder
Just isn't the same.
Bring back,
Bring back,
Oh, bring back Big Udders
to meeeeeeeeeeee.
Anyway, before I got sidetracked I was writing about Maxwell the tortoise, who is so big that you can stand on him as he moves along. He eats cucumber peelings and egg shells and he likes to stand up on his hind legs and head-butt the wall.
Talking of standing on hind legs and head-butting the wall, that is what I did after learning that our latest application to buy land (on which to build the radio station Djibo FM) has been rejected. We will launch the application again soon, don't worry.
Work on the dossier for the actual broadcasting licence finished today in a flurry of formatting and spell-checking. This afternoon I handed it over to Ag Ahmed Zabriou, a Tuareg journalist here in Ouagadougou (that's right, not all Tuaregs maraud across the desert with their trusty dromedaries - some have to sit at their computer and churn out 1000 words of current affairs every day). Mr Ag Ahmed owns the FM station in Gorom-Gorom and has agreed to plead our cause before the Grand Jedi Licensing Committee.
Ag Ahmed's son-in-law is Francois Ouedraogo, the President's bodyguard, who might be able to put in a good word for us with the Big Man Himself. If he were to do so whilst diving in the way of a would-be assassin's bullet, that would be particularly effective.
During the process of writing the dossier I discovered a new word (to me) - vulgarisation. It's one of the French terms for 'getting the word out' - hence the objectives of Djibo FM include the following:
- Vulgarisation des techniques améliorées d'élevage pour obtenir des animaux sains et productifs
- Vulgarisation des techniques d'agriculture pour la lutte contre les insectes et pour des récoltes augmentées
- Vulgarisation de divers aspects de la santé, y compris la santé de l'enfant, le ver de guinée, la tuberculose et le paludisme
I couldn't bring myself to write the phrase 'vulgarisation de l'evangile' (vulgarisation of the gospel), but that is also one of the aims of the station, of course.
Away from work now, I have started work on 'The Yellowcake Mystery'. Last week I emailed various eminent British nuclear physicists asking for information about AVLIS, specifically about whether it is theoretically possible to operate an AVLIS unit in a clandestine laboratory underneath the Sahara Desert. AVLIS stands for Atomic Vapour Laser Isotope Separation, and is a good way to enrich large amounts of uranium in a small space (if you want to make, say, a nuclear bomb). AVLIS is very handy for the purposes of the book, because it will enable the following scene - 'baddy ties goody to the dangerous end of the Laser Isotope Separator machine (chortling throatily, of course) and then leaves, pausing at the door to say, 'Goodbye, Mr Ag Wizbit'. Would you believe it though, not one of these so-called eminent British nuclear physicists has dignified my questions with an answer. And I asked so politely, as well. I've a good mind to make one of them the baddy. Would that be libel?
Posted by sahelsteve at January 19, 2006 06:35 PM