Adam Hooper (the blog)

I've uploaded pictures of my summer abroad.

Between my take-off from Montreal and my return four and a half months later, I took 4,675 pictures. Fear not, though: I've only published 50 in this album.

Two years ago on this blog, I made a victim out of a friend.

Quoting myself:

One week later, the employers hired a replacement. They would never see their old house girl again.

...

She is beyond rescue. No well-meaning person can do anything about her situation. In the darkest parts of our hearts, for all our pride of our notions of feminism and gender equality and statistics, we know this. And in the darkest part of your heart, you already know all the stories and statistics and words I can muster.

Pendo, this is your eulogy: more respect than most women ever receive in Africa.

Actually, they saw her just last week. And so did I. A few weeks after I wrote my story about her being "abducted" by family, Pendo returned to Dar es Salaam and started sewing dresses for a living. Currently she's unemployed and job-hunting, but her smile is wider than ever.

How did I write a story so far from the truth? I've since learned enough about journalism to explain.

First, I didn't use any primary sources. I didn't talk with either Pendo or her brother: I just used hearsay and prejudice.

Second, I tried to predict the future. I'm no expert at divination, women's issues or even Tanzania: my predictions are worthless.

Third, I used derogatory terms. I wrote words like "beyond rescue" and "eulogy" and I injected venom in "Africa".

I wrote as if Pendo would never read my website. I behaved like a superior, somebody wiser than she about her own life story. In taking away Pendo's individuality, I was grossly unfair.

I apologize to those who read my "I Hate Men" story and felt they learned something from it.

But I didn't have enough time or Swahili skills to tell Pendo about the original story or this correction, either. So Pendo, I apologize ... twice.

Thursday night, twelve university students competed to become Tanzania's Miss Higher Learning.

Number 12 was absent: I suspect she lost her nerve. This was an important event, after all: these competitors, averaging 21 years of age, already placed in their respective universities' beauty pageants. The three winners of the Miss Higher Learning contest would move on to compete with winners from other pageants for the title of Miss Tanzania.

There were plenty of cameras.

There was a lot of smiling.

Each student wanted to best fulfil the judges' expectations.

The audience had expectations, too.

I admit, I didn't attend as a journalist. I was here in support of Rahma.

Rahma is 21 years old. She's studying business and when she finishes school she hopes to join the fashion industry.

Halfway through the pageant, six contestants were eliminated. The judges chose Rahma as one of the top five to move on and participate in the quiz and dance. These top five all received prizes, though only the top three would compete for Miss Tanzania. Rahma looked gorgeous in her dresses and bikini, her smile was spot-on, and she answered her surprise question about Tanzania's anti-malaria campaign confidently and completely.

Her competitors performed very well, and the most vocal audience members were cheering for Contestant Number Six.

In the end, Rahma placed fifth.

I was humbled by all the contestants' bravery. Not many people have the courage to be quantized, and these young women faced stresses most of us never will. I congratulate them wholeheartedly.

The Internet is a gold mine of information. But if you write that cliché on your web page, you dilute my "gold mine" search results.

A "gold mine" is a place where miners extract gold from the ground.

Most of Google's top search results for "literally" point to suggestions that you avoid the word, even if you mean it.

Everybody has the habit of writing clichés, just as everybody naturally spends more time choosing adjectives and adverbs than the nouns and verbs they adorn.

Need incentive to improve your style? Tell Google to email you daily search results of a cliché. I'm researching gold mines, and it's painful. I suppose I should be thankful I'm not researching gun smoke or red hands.

I'm (occasionally) helping a Tanzanian organization called Femina. Femina creates and distributes magazines about gender, sexuality and HIV.

My job is to help make sure those magazines get to their intended readers.

Femina's flagship publication, Fema, is Tanzania's most popular magazine, probably because it's donor-funded and free. Femina distributes hundreds of thousands of copies of Fema to schools across the country, and an independent study recently confirmed Femina's calculation that on average, 15 people read each copy.

But distribution isn't as simple as a phone call to Canada Post.

For one thing, the timeline is different. Femina's distribution contractor promises that most magazines will get from the warehouse to the schools within 60 days.

Even the address list is a challenge: it's hard to figure out what schools are actually out there and where they are. There are no postal codes in Tanzania, and there are few official street names and even fewer numbers. For many schools, Femina only knows a misspelled school name and perhaps its district. Femina sends out a box with the school's name on it and hopes for the best.

In that district, receiving the box from its weeks-long trip over whichever roads have survived the rainy season, somebody from the distribution company has to exchange it for a confirmation stamp.

If the school exists, he may know where it is or he can ask around for it. But maybe his path is blocked by a flooded road. Maybe nobody has heard of the school. Maybe the headmaster is hundreds of kilometres away at a wedding or funeral and will only be back next week. Maybe the school has permanently closed. Then maybe the headmaster from some other school Femina never heard of intercepts our intrepid delivery person, confirmation stamp in hand, says his school isn't receiving copies, and asks if everything wouldn't be easier if he put that box down right over here instead of getting all wet and dirty and oh, hey, is that your delivery slip? Let me stamp that for you. And you can keep a nice, glossy copy for yourself.

Donors are skeptical when their recipients don't know what their money is doing, so Femina needs to know where its copies are going.

With my computer skills, I find ways to tell the computer what happened (not many existing programs include a "school closed all month because of bat monster" checkbox). Femina then uses the program I wrote to tell donors how well it's doing and tell the delivery company how to improve.

Femina sends far fewer magazines to nonexistent schools now than it did when I first arrived, three years ago.

The community team even gathered actual addresses for many schools, using a questionnaire. This could be the most complete and accurate database of schools and non-profit organizations in the country. Few organizations apart from Femina know, for instance, that the address of Buchambi Secondary School, in the Maswa district of Shinyanga, is "Maswa".

After all, there are still no postal codes in Tanzania, and there are few official street names and numbers.

As I was interviewing a refugee in a camp about his inspiring story, an outsider came to make sure I was telling it properly.

"You're getting how wretched people are here, right?" he asked.

Refugees play volleyball instead of being wretched.

The outsider, who is not a refugee, would benefit politically if I wrote a story about wretchedness. He'd hold my story up high, proclaiming, "look! even a Westerner wrote that these people are wretched!" and if that helped him achieve his ends ... he'd get richer.

As a journalist, there's nothing I hate more than an interview with an agenda. I can trace it back to my first "real" interview for my first story assignment at school in Ottawa: my very first character told me, "you have to write X."

To keep the conversation going, I bit my tongue over my retort: "actually, I don't. I'm not writing this for you."

In East Africa, most journalists are writing for their subjects. Reporters here expect free food, transport, gifts and even cash from people with vested interests. The outsider at the refugee camp assumed I had been paid to write the story his way. (I had turned down the money.)

My refugee was different. He wasn't worried about looking rich or poor, confident or concerned, lucky or stoic. He told me the easy and tricky aspects of his life because, well, I asked.

As a journalist, there's nothing I love more than agenda-free honesty. I stayed up all night writing his story.

Peter Erlinder presented his defense with his Kenyan lawyers in High Court on Monday.

As a guest and journalist in Rwanda, I've been trying to find an expert on the Erlinder case who can explain to the world what's going on in court.

There may be such an expert, but I don't know who it is. So here's what I know, having attended Erlinder's hearings.

What is Peter Erlinder's crime?

Erlinder is accused of genocide denial, which is punishable by a prison sentence under Rwandan law. Critics say the law is too broad and can be used for political reasons, while proponents say it is crucial to maintaining Rwanda's peace and preventing another genocide.

What will Erlinder plead?

Erlinder will plead not-guilty.

Erlinder has defended and attained the acquittal of several accused genocide masterminds at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), is representing widows of the assassinated former presidents of Rwanda and Burundi in a case against current Rwandan president Paul Kagame, and is defending Rwandan presidential hopeful Victoire Ingabire in another genocide denial case. He and his lawyers will argue that each allegedly-criminal statement he has made was made as a lawyer defending his clients: conditions under which he should be granted immunity.

As for the works Erlinder published outside of his professional duties: he will argue in each case that he never denied a genocide of Rwandan Tutsis and that he legally implied that other events transpired in addition to the genocide of Tutsi Rwandans he agrees happened.

Finally, Erlinder will argue that he made no questionable statements on Rwandan soil and that Rwandan law should not apply to statements he made elsewhere.

What is the prosecution's case?

The prosecution will cite Erlinder's writings and argue that he has made statements outside of his role as lawyer which deny the genocide of Rwandan Tutsis.

They will also argue that Erlinder's publications outside of Rwanda have penetrated Rwanda and therefore Rwandan law should apply while he is here.

Finally, they will argue that Erlinder leads a network of genocide deniers, either ideologically or literally, and is thus a danger to Rwanda's national security.

What is going on in court right now?

Right now, the courts are deciding whether Erlinder should be granted bail.

Erlinder has argued that he needs bail so he can get proper treatment for several medical conditions (he's been to hospital four times since his arrest), and he has promised to return to Rwanda to face the government's allegations. As collateral, he has staked his reputation and told the courts they can have him kicked off the ICTR defence team (which he leads) and professionally disciplined by the American Bar Association.

The prosecution wants the bail request denied, arguing that Erlinder cannot be trusted to return to Rwanda should he be released, that he will tamper with potential witnesses and evidence, and that he is too dangerous to national security to be allowed out of Rwanda or even out of prison.

Last Monday, the intermediate court judge sided with the prosecution and denied Erlinder bail. Erlinder is appealing that decision in high court.

What are Thursday's possible outcomes?

The judge will not decide whether Erlinder is guilty or not: he will only decide whether to grant bail.

Should the judge grant Erlinder bail, Erlinder will likely return to America and be reunited with his family, under the condition that he comply with the Rwandan prosecution and return to Rwanda when summoned for questioning.

The judge could deny Erlinder bail, in which case he will remain in prison while the prosecution gathers evidence against him for his trial, which will likely take place in July.

I do not know whether Thursday's bail decision can be appealed in Rwanda's Supreme Court.

Finally, the judge could grant bail with restrictions. This would satisfy neither Erlinder nor the prosecutors, but in his appeal hearing Monday Erlinder hinted that he would accept any restrictions the judge deems necessary. Nobody has stated what those restrictions might be.

Erlinder's client, Victoire Ingabire, was previously granted bail but her passport was confiscated.

If you know the president is coming, there are two ways to get his picture:

1. Buy an expensive telephoto lens
2. Run around like crazy

I'm a very nascent photo-journalist, so I can't do either very well. But I worked on the latter at today's gorilla-naming ceremony.

(Or, yes, you can just walk up to Don Cheadle and ask for his picture. Some Japanese guests and all my housemates did that. But those pictures just aren't as interesting to me.)

The key to getting a picture few others will get is to go somewhere few others will go. Therein lies a problem, of course: permission. Your best means of accessing a place you may not have permission to access is confidence. I had an identity card of some sort and an air of self-importance, and that got me far.

After that? The usual photography stuff, such as shooting from different angles, fiddling with camera settings and watching your subject's background.

I feel I got a good mix. What do you think?

The obligatory crowd shot. There was no way to capture it all, so I recklessly cropped it.

President Paul Kagame's signature wave. I hadn't expected to see this one, except that ....

... Kagame, aware of the August election, played to the audience and took an unplanned detour that led to the shot. There were more smiling faces, but by cropping I managed to focus on the best one and tell a joke, though at an imperfect angle.

This band announced Kagame's entrance. I could have taken a picture from the front, but security would have pushed me back and I didn't want to annoy them too early on. (These are the choices we make as journalists: annoy people now, or annoy them later when it may be worth more?)

Today was a gorilla-naming ceremony for the 14 newest endangered creatures in Rwanda. The real gorillas don't come to the ceremony, but fake ones did. The key here is to shoot people close together: the viewer should be able to clearly understand what everybody is doing. Except if he's in a gorilla suit. Oh, okay, and I'll explain: the ranger is just standing there, like the gorillas.

The ceremony had a bunch of world environmental leaders (it was World Environment Day, organized by the United Nations Environment Programme) announce the names of all the gorillas.

Of course, like any proper ceremony, it also had music. Lesson from television here: if you're going to use two similar-looking pictures in a row, make sure people in the second picture aren't facing in the same direction as people from the first.

These dancers were expertly synchronized. And I failed here in shooting their backs: I had fifty shots of dancers but most were too spaced-out to bring the neat line I craved and emphasize their perfect timing.

I ducked out of the spot I used for the last three shots (yes, it was the same spot--bad Adam!) to circle back to where I predicted Don Cheadle, who announced the name of the final gorilla, would arrive. I was right, and we were only about five people with cameras and three with video cameras. I could snap for a while and pick the shot that excludes everybody else.

Think about the perspective for a second: this is a downward shot. You can argue that's artistic; truth is, I was one row back in the media scrum and I was holding the camera over my head. My secret weapon was my SLR's swivel screen and its "live view" mode that makes it act like a point-and-shoot.

The final trick to a photo story is selection. I took about 500 pictures today but set my limit at 10. The ones I gave here seek to tell a story or convey an emotion. You may think I did a lousy job at this, but there was very little news value to the event. To me, the story was, "Adam running around shooting whatever he can see."

If you were hoping for "Adam with Kagame" or "Adam with Cheadle" pictures, I may post them. Somebody else took those shots.

Bitenga is about as remote a village as you can find in Rwanda, and I needed to be in Kigali as quickly as possible.

Five hours in minibuses and two hours of uphill walking had gotten me here, but as a journalist I had failed. The village next door had been displaced into Bitenga to make way for trees and chimpanzees, but I couldn't report on it: as I walked towards the villagers' new homes, I was firmly redirected to an official's bedroom, where the dozing authority called his faraway boss and told me I couldn't interview anybody without permission.

Off the record, the village is a journalistic treasure. There are winners and losers, but nobody dares put a name next to a complaint for fear of making life worse. Several people told me, "come back with permission and I'll tell you all about it."

These new homes shelter untold stories. It's a pity I couldn't tell them.

I didn't have time to get permission. I had dinner plans in Kigali. It was 1:30 p.m., and I had meant to leave at noon. The race was on.

I had walked the last 15 kilometres, but I didn't have time to return that way. The villagers, who swarmed me but withheld interviews, called up a motorcycle taxi from Gakeri, the nearest village with minibus service. I chatted and snapped some photographs while I waited.

The motorcycle came and I hopped on, and with an imaginary "hi-ho silver!" I was zipped downhill. The driver told me he knew all the issues here, too, and he speaks four languages so can help with translation if I ever want to come back.

Race or not, I had to dismount to snap a shot.

I told the driver of my haste and with a friendly "no problem," he promised I'd catch a minibus soon. But when we got to Gakeri and I dismounted, he asked around and discovered a minibus had only just left.

It was 2:00 p.m. and it would be a while before another minibus came.

He told me to get back on, and I, bemused with nothing to lose, did.

"Sit closer," he warned.

The motorcycle transformed into a rocket and we bounced down the dirt road as quickly as a small avalanche, beeping but never slowing for amazed passers-by. Ten minutes later, we caught up with the minibus and, with a wave of the driver's hands and honks of his horn, stopped it.

There was still room! I climbed in and willed the road to be less bumpy. The obstinate road would hear none of it, and we plodded downhill for hours.

A girl behind me asked me if I could help her enter Canada.

Soon, at another village, an old man and a teenager joined the rest of us passengers. Then the all-too-familiar conversation started, in Kinyarwanda:

"It's a white person!"

"What's he doing here?"

"I think he doesn't understand Kinyarwanda."

(I don't, for the most part, but I gave a knowing smile anyway.)

"He does know Kinyarwanda!"

"Do you know Kinyarwanda?"

"I'm learning Kinyarwanda," I answered. Switching languages, I continued: "but I know Swahili."

"He understands Swahili!"

The old man fell asleep, and the teenager quite confidently borrowed his radio. It was as long as the kid's forearm and expertly wrapped in white tarpaulin recycled from a bag of charcoal, slitted along the side for access to the dials and fastened in the front by a big, white button reading, "BASIC CONTACT."

He switched it on and fiddled with dials, and a Tanzanian song enlivened the minibus.

I'm looking for a beautiful woman...

"Hey, I know this song! It's from Tanzania," I said.

The bus laughed and agreed. "Yes, it's in Swahili."

The kid discovered the antenna and extended it. Static was triumphing over music until the kid stuck the antenna in his mouth and the singer's voice became clear again.

I went to Morocco (in Dar es Salaam), there weren't any...

"I've been to Morocco. This guy certainly wasn't looking very hard," I said.

That got some laughs.

We continued, for hours, plodding our way down the green hills adorned with green tea leaves, green sugarcane, green banana trees, and green weeds. Rocks wore green moss and motorcycle taxi drivers and passengers wore green helmets. The road seemed exhausted from contrast and tried its best to look green, too.

We finally reached Gisenyi, the Rwandan town bordering Democratic Republic of the Congo. And at 4:10 p.m., I jumped out of the minibus and ran to the Belvedere bus ticket counter.

I waited in an illogical and immobile line for ten minutes, only to find that all buses until the 6 p.m. one were booked.

I sprinted to the Virunga Express offices. Their office was more organized, but their buses weren't any more empty; and as I dejectedly purchased my 6:00 p.m. bus ticket, the 4:30 bus I so coveted left for Kigali.

But I said I'd be there for dinner! I began an apologetic text message, then a thought struck me. I'm white, right? I can break the rules!

I hopped on the 5:00 p.m. bus and stood at the front. I located somebody who spoke Swahili and unveiled my plan:

"You are on a 5:00 p.m. bus. I have a 6:00 p.m. ticket to Kigali. I will pay 2,000 Francs (about $4 USD) to anybody willing to swap tickets."

The message was translated and re-broadcast, and the silly white guy at the front of the bus grinned and waved a bus ticket and 2,000-Franc note like an idiot. And at the last minute, somebody agreed.

On the bus home, my editor called to ask how the story went. I told him it was a failure and he gave me a new assignment: to prepare to cover the case of Peter Erlinder, the American lawyer who was arrested in Kigali on Friday for genocide denial. I spent the entire three-hour trip on my phone, texting, emailing and web-surfing to find contacts and learn what I could, until I ran out of airtime.

I disembarked at the hectic Nyabugogo bus stop, escaped attention, bought more phone credit, found a motorcycle taxi and threw my phone at him. He took directions from my hosts and finally, after 8:00 p.m., I arrived.

The meal was great.

"You are a slow learner, Winston," said O'Brien gently.

"How can I help it?" he blubbered. "How can I help seeing what is in front of my eyes? Two and two are four."

"Sometimes, Winston. Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once. You must try harder. It is not easy to become sane."

I relived George Orwell's terrifying scene from 1984 last week.

I was at the border and there were two customs officers.

The government said there were four.

I tried hard to see four. I tried for an entire week, reformulating and re-posing questions. But despite my efforts, I just couldn't see four officers.

So I wrote the story.

In Canada, I could get away with alarming headlines. Here in Rwanda, I'll keep it tame: Government spokesperson insists there are four employees at the border, but people at the border say there are two, working 40-hour shifts.