Through the Looking Glass

The new Casa del Karen -- without the groovy terrace or the excellent washing machine -- but with a little TV and air conditioning and a flush-toilet and bathtub. There's a lizard in the closet and I've killed three cockroaches so far. I am cooking on a charcoal stove (once a day is about all I can muster, usually pasta or rice. The market has mangoes, tomatoes, garlic and onion, plus all the ingredients for jollof rice.)



Napoa, above, firmly believes she is still practicing.



Assiba, above, has no sons and was accused by her rival's son's wife -- she treated the boy as a son when he was growing up, bringing him candies and new clothing.

Just arrived back in Accra after my first two weeks at the witch camp and I feel mentally exhausted. It feels like I fell through the looking glass...

I arrived in Gambaga with 50kgs of luggage in tow, most of it electronics and food items, to snag the last room at the NORRIP guesthouse, which has been empty each time I've stayed there in the past. This time it was full to capacity with Afrikaner miners flying helicopter surveys of northern Ghana in search of minerals. (How bizarre. They work five hour shifts
and spend the rest of the time drinking. The first time we met, it was because one of them had been trying to light a brandy bottle (why?) and burned his hand. They suspected I might be a nurse and could help them out. Much harrassment ensued until I finally gave up and left. They are tolerable when sober, but slightly frightening drunk. The Ghanaian staff are all
keeping a very wary eye on them, especially as relates to pure little me.)

I made my initial visit to my contact, Simon, who helped me sort out a list of who I need to speak to, where and by when. He came up with a list of women and worked out a guy who could translate, then took off for the remainder of my time. The translator turned out to be a total peach. He's doing his teacher training in Tamale, so I only get one week with him, but he was so fantastic I said, "Gee, Carlos (a weird first name for a Ghanaian kid) I wish you had a twin brother." And, of course, Carlos does have a twin brother, so he'll be my translator from here on in.

The only thing I need to sort out is transportation. I thought I'd be able to make it by scamming motor bike rides and hiring taxis, but the road is so incredibly intolerable that it's kinda not feasible. It's like driving on a corrogated roof. We did a 40-km journey on the Tuesday and I could feel it for two days afterward. (Poor Simon had the earliest symptoms of giardia at the time; I don't know how he did it.)

The women themselves are real mind benders. Lots of sad stories of jealousy, or outbreaks, or just old ladies outliving their usefulness. I'd walk away a true believer, then consult Carlos who invariably said, "Oh Madam!" in a real disappointed,
what-a-gullible-dunce sort of way. He firmly believes every one of the women is a witch and we had all sorts of trippy conversations about what makes a witch and how to identify a witch. The theme: trust no one.

I feel more confused than ever and have hardly commited a word to paper.

Splattered...

The first bird with the slit neck landed rather gracefully in the middle of the semi-circle, jumping and flopping like a popcorn kernel in a hot kettle before landing on its back at the edge of the crowd. It was the semi-annual sacrifice in Yong-duuni, a small village on the outskirts of Tamale and the village and their neighbours were honouring the ancestors in hopes of peace, good crops and fertility.

A procession of chiefs and chiefs' wives made their way to raucous drum beats down to the "earth shrine," a spot in a clearing that was protected by a pile of ancient-looking wood. The chief moved slowly -- the "cold" was hurting his bones -- and a man twirled a brilliant red and green umbrella over him the whole way. His wives were collecting coins for the drummers, who were keeping up a steady, chest-shaking rhythm and shouting out the history of the Dagomba as they walked.

We were not allowed to take pictures of the actual sacrifice, which involved a calabash of pinkish liquid scooped over the ground and the ritual killing of a dozen chickens and one very unhappy goat. ("Make the lambs stop screaming...") The way the chicken lands as it dies determines the answer of the ancestors -- whether they'll honour the request for peace and prosperity -- and the first chicken landed well, on its back, to the relief of the crowd. The second, a speckled brown hen, landed on its feet, trying in vain to squawk with its slit throat, blood pouring with the effort. It flipped and flopped into the crowd. Throats were being split like an assembly line and there were flipping and flopping chickens everywhere and everyone wanted them to land without interference, so they could interpret the ancestors' answer.

I was trying to get out of the way of one bird when another landed at my feet. My skirt had already been sprayed with blood and there was a droplet on my minidisc recorder. Something warm slid down my foot and I looked down expecting to see cherry red blood. Instead, it was white and mucusy: chicken shit.

The process was repeated again at the house of the ancestors, although this time the chickens were simply slit and shoved into the circular mud hut. The ground where the libations had been poured was mashed into round, sticky balls of mud and everyone tore off a piece and smeared it on their forehead. It was protection from evil spirits.

More drumming followed and coins were tossed by the jubiliant crowd, which by this time was worked into a frenzy. We made our goodbyes -- the chief gave us a guinea fowl and three yams in thanks for our coming, and offered me a bed for the night -- before slipping back to the main road, feeling exhausted from the chaos.

Freelancing 101

In the past few weeks, I've had a couple emails from people asking for advice about freelancing. Most of the emails go something like this: "I stumbled across your blog (hope you got your fridge issues sorted) and thought I would ask your advice about freelancing from Africa." Then the person either says he is moving to Africa in about three days and would appreciate any advice or contacts (meaning he would like my contacts, please) or, the person says he is thinking about moving to Africa in about three months and would appreciate any advice or contacts (meaning he would like my contacts, please).

And so, in the name of efficiency:

How to be a Freelance Journalist in Africa in 12 Easy Steps

1. Don't send emails asking for another freelancer's contacts. This shows you have never freelanced, have no contacts and have no idea how difficult it is to establish contacts. Once you've spent a few months combing the Internet for the *actual* address of the foreign editor for a freelance-friendly paper in Dallas, you'll understand why freelancers can be so territorial about their contacts.

2. Buy "The World on a String." It's an excellent guide, particularly for people with limited journalism experience, covering everything from scouting markets to cold calling editors to sending pitch letters to writing invoices.

3. Buy the Writer's Guide or Writer's Market or Similar. Nothing makes me angrier than Canadians who decide to freelance from African and can think of no other outlets for their articles but the Globe and the Star. The world is a big place and there are tons of markets in it.

Don't forget about trade mags, specialty publications and websites. Some of them pay big bucks.

Look at where other freelancers working outside your intended area are working -- many keep blogs or websites with clipping files -- and take some clues from it.

Decide where you'd like to pitch and then start sending out emails introducing yourself, your credentials, your intended destination, your date of departure and a line or two about story ideas. Be realistic. If you have no writing experience, you might want to save the New York Times for a few months.

Whatever you do, keep it short. This is good advice for all of your contact with editors. They fancy themselves busy people and get annoyed at any emails that go beyond a page. If they respond to your email -- many editors don't bother if they don't take freelance or aren't impressed by your letter -- make sure you ask for the contributor's guidelines and freelance agreement. It'll be easier to sign and fax when you're in a place rife with telephones, Internet access and fax machines. Get an email for their assistant and another for their deputy.

4. If it's at all possible, get a newsroom job before you leave home, even if it's sorting mail and answering telephones. Even if it's only for a couple months, you'll learn so much about the pace of a news organization, what gets them excited, what makes them angry, what causes their eyes to glaze over. You'll meet lots of people with plenty of advice and a few war stories and you'll make great contacts. You'll see your potential list of editors to contact blossom and they'll be more likely to respond to an email from someone they know. And you'll get a chance to look at the "sked" of stories. You'll have a sense of what makes it into the paper, what the writing style is and how best to summarize your story into a nutgraph.

5. Practice pitching. It's the key to your success. If you can't pitch, you can't freelance.

Pitches, generally, should mirror the top five or six paragraphs of your actual story. If you send in a boring skedline, it shows you're a boring writer. If you send in a scattershot pitch, shotgunning all the elements of your story, it shows you're an unfocused writer who lacks a good sense of news.

Generally, a pitch should borrow from the top of your story, give the word length, reveal whether there's photos and offer a date by which the story can be delivered. You want to include your contact information. And again, keep it short.

6. Read about Africa. There are amazing books out there by Africans and non-Africans, as well as some real crap. Try Achebe, Robert Guest, Beryl Markham, Emma's War, They Poured Fire, the Purple Hibiscus, The Village of Waiting, Blue Clay People, The Beautyful Ones are Not Yet Born, The Fate of Africa and Soldiers of Light.

7. Finding a suitable market is like peering into a crystal ball. You need to know where the news is going to be and whether you're equipped to handle it. Be realistic: most editors don't know anything about Africa and have no interest in it. You need a place with good, interesting stories and a reliable communications system and a good transport system. You don't necessarily need to be in a newsy place, like Lagos or Nairobi or Jo'burg; lots of editors are looking for quirky stories about culture or trend pieces about science or technology or innovation in Africa. It may come as a shock, but lots are looking for "good news" stories that don't involve famine or drought or AIDS.

Once you decide where you're going, contact a local journalist or a foreign journalist working in the area and ask them specific questions. "Any advice and contacts" is a phrase to be avoided. One thing you need to know is who else is there and who they're working for. You don't want to arrive in Kampala only to discover that the city is flooded with freelancers who have a lock on the market.

And please, don't be one of those assholes -- pardon my French -- who decides to move to Africa and work at an African news outlet, whether paid or unpaid. You're actually *not* more qualified than African journalists and you're just stealing a job from someone who needs it.

8. Google everyone. Contacts you make may not have your best interests at heart. A case in point: a young man just turned up here in Ghana with the idea to go to Zimbabwe and do some stuff for the New York Times. He contacted a local journalist who offered to act as his fixer. The Reuters correspondent recommended checking into the local journalists' background and turns out he works at a government paper where some pretty rough stuff has happened. Who knows what he might have walked into if he hadn't done his homework.

9. Be safe! If you're a freelance journalist, no one has your back. No one.

10. Resell, resell, resell. Read those contributor contracts carefully, because the way you make money is by reselling your pieces, so if they require exclusivity, you need to weigh whether the pay is worth it.

11. Visit Africa. Seems obvious, but if you're going to relocate here, you should probably try it out first.

12. If you're a print journalist, get some radio equipment and a decent digital camera. If you're a radio reporter, get a decent digital camera. Turning your pieces into print stories and radio pieces and online pieces triples your income. Easy.

Hope that helps.