´óÏó´«Ã½

DAVID - WHYS DEPUTY EDITOR (and the boss on this trip)
Two weeks ago, when we flew into Abuja airport, it was hard to imagine we'd ever reach the end of this trip - the longest and most ambitious WHYS has ever done. Four countries and fourteen hours of live radio later (not to mention any amount of malaria pills and other medicines!) there are the usual mixed feelings. I think we're all amazed that we managed to do most of what we set out to do, we're looking forward to seeing loved ones again, but above all we're sad to be saying goodbye to so many new friends and colleagues.

It's been incredibly humbling to meet all of you who've come to our shows in Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda and Kenya. It's no small thing to give up an evening to be part of the show. But it's something else to take days off work or travel hundreds of kilometres to join the audience, as Sam, Joseph, Abdi and many others did on this trip. Abdi's journey
took him from his home right on Kenya's dusty border with Somalia, far from any reliable access to the internet, to the luxurious Hemingway Bar of the Safari Park Hotel in Nairobi for Friday's show.

I'll look back on this trip and see so many faces: the kids climbing over each other to peep through the gaps in Issa's gate as we set up for the show from his house in Kampala....the students at Makerere University who crowded into our seminar room having heard the show live on their student radio...all those who joined our team for a day to
help present or edit the show...regular listeners like Julie and Isabel in Nairobi, and so many more.

We're bringing back about six hundred cards with contact details for people who want to stay in touch with the show. Also in our luggage are the two tiny paraffin lamps that were given to us by David in Nairobi. He's a welder who listens to several hours of ´óÏó´«Ã½ radio every evening from his home in the Nairobi slums, but his big concern is global warming and he said we should light them once a month to save electricity. We will.

I wish we could have stayed longer in Africa and gone on to places like Malawi and Botswana. I hope it's not too long before we return to some of the places we been to. And we'd love to take up invitations like the one from Kingsley in Nigeria, who offered to take us round the Niger Delta and set up a show from there. Lots of ideas for the future.

Finally, a few thanks are in order. Richard's done a tremendous job setting up the trip, finding all the venues and keeping in touch with people who wanted to join the shows. Michael Kaloki, our amazing Mr Fixit in Uganda and Kenya, also did us proud. Shona and James dealt with the formidable technical challenges with their usual brilliance and good humour. Vicki did a great job producing on her first trip with WHYS. Ros was like a kid in a candy store and pulled off some superb shows. And most of all, thanks to all of you who took part in the shows either in person or from outside. I just hope you enjoyed the experience as much as we did.

RICHARD - WHYS PRODUCER (and grand planner for this trip)
Hi there, Richard here with my thoughts about the last few weeks on the road. Where do I start? Over the last 6 weeks this trip has been my life, from the locations to the guests and the dreaded visas I've pretty much thought about noting else.But now that it's over I actually feel quite sad, the things we've seen and the people we've met have humbled me far more than I'd expected.

It seems like a lifetime ago that we were standing in the lobby of the Sheraton Hotel in Abuja at 4am wondering why our rooms weren't ready. But 18 days and 14 hours of radio later we've finished and, in my opinion, achieved some real milestones. We've had listeners editing and co-presenting the show, we've broadcast from some of our most challenging locations yet, namely a listener called Issa's house, and I've heard our Editor, David, take control of the piano in the Safari Park hotel and give all in the Hemmingway bar a sweet dose of some Scott Joplin.

As the big boss, Mark put it before we flew out, "I'm not sure we'll ever do a trip like this again, so do us proud." I don't think I'm the best person to judge if we've achieved that, you are. So, as always, we'd really like your thoughts and feelings about what you've heard.

Before I sign off I've got to give big personal thanks to a few people. Firstly, Michael 'Fanta' Kaloki who in between drinking his favourite soft drink helped pull the East African leg of the mission together flawlessly. Adeloa, who performed above and beyond the call of duty when assisting us in Nigeria. Christine, who made the Kofi Annan centre in Ghana happen when it was beginning to look very bleak. In fact, all of the fixers, (James in Ghana, Alli in Uganda) and the rest of the people who've given up their time and expertise to help me. But most of all my thanks has to go to the hundreds of listeners and guests who've turned up at each venue, some from thousands of kilometres away, to have their say and talk to the world.

SHONA - WHYS TECHNICIAN
Wow well we're at the end of the trip and all of a sudden i want it to carry on ..... what a team of highly talented and fun people ..... so many highlights... Africa ( Nigeria, Ghana , Uganda and Kenya) was everything and more i hoped for... the friendliest people , all interested in what we were doing ........ I'll be back to explore this great continant properly.

Top highlight was Issa's House in Kampala, working by torchlight. He welcomed us into his house..... we vitually took over, moving all of his furniture outside, getting to know him and his neighbourhood. I did let out a big yelp when a flying insect slapped me in the face while i was mixing the programme though.... that wasn't too great.

Being vegetarian is an experience .... or should i say isn't one. One waiter exclaimed " How unfortunate for you" i had to chuckle.

Technically it all worked ......just.....but that's part of the fun and if everything seemed to be going well .... well we knew something would chuck a spanner in the works... and it always did ..... the broadcast lines going down as we were trying to connect with London was top.... but David was on hand to pass a folk through a window when i was tryong to set up a satelite phone.

VICKI - WHYS PRODUCER
When WHYS asked me to come on their Africa roadshow, I jumped at the chance. Then shortly after, the second thought that popped into my head was 'Oh no, I don't know anything about Africa, will I be found out??' As a Latin-Americanist, it's not my patch and Morocco was the only place on the African continent I knew well. But I was told repeatedly by my Africanist colleagues and many people along the way on this trip, that Morocco doesn't count....

So I talked to a few of my 'Africa' counterparts back home and packed my case (admittedly rather large, but we were coming for nearly three weeks, and thankfully Ros's was as big). Apart from having printed loads of articles to read on the plane, I still didn't really know what to expect when I arrived in Africa.

First stop Abuja and we touched down in the very early hours of Saturday....in the humid dawn we sleepily loaded our 20 cases of equipment into the minibus but woke up when we saw that the guy riding up front with the driver was carrying a rifle. This leg of our trip had always been in doubt, with the ´óÏó´«Ã½ security people assessing the post-election situation in Nigeria right up until we left. But I still find it's always a shock to see guns and the like in the flesh.

Unfortunately that weekend I didn't actually get to see much of Abuja as Moctezuma's revenge got the better of me (there must be an African name for the same affliction, isn't there?)

I'm not sure from the taxi-rides I did take, driving around the relatively calm, empty streets, that Abuja gave us much of a flavour of the country. As a purpose-built administrative capital it lacked people and atmosphere somewhat. But our audiences at the British Council and ´óÏó´«Ã½ offices made up for it.

I've only just joined the WHYS team so this was my first trip with them. And their overseas gigs differ massively from what I'm used to on other news programmes. When you're working from London day in day out with audiences spread across the world, it can be hard to know who is listening. Meeting you all across Africa has been the highlight of the trip for me....meeting listeners from so many different places and backgrounds who follow and feel part of what's happening around the world through us. I was blown away by the distances some had travelled to be part of our programmes.

We've had some great discussions along the way on and off air, from women in Africa, gays, China's role in the region, to social etiquette - naming but a few. We've also had the chance to hear your thoughts and criticisms about what we do. I feel very priviledged, thank you.

Feeling hungrier in Ghana, I got out a bit more. There's a great vibe to Accra, with stalls selling everything from phone cards to plastic buckets lining the roads, cars and bikes everywhere, the city was buzzing and its inhabitants really friendly. Accra felt safe and we could wander freely around downtown into the night. During the day Ros and I checked out the beach as a possible location for an interview with London -- rather too many middle-aged white men with young African girls for our liking so we didn't hang around. With David we headed to the local market, where we were shouted at for loitering in front of someone's stall while taking photos, we were amazed by the women carrying all-sorts from trays of fish to televisions on their heads. I wasn't sure if the rest of the trip could top Accra, I really felt at home there - if admittedly hotter and more humid than London.

Next stop Kampala - despite the long and tiring overnight flight from Ghana, the views from the plane captured our attention as we flew over Lake Victoria and landed on its shore in Entebbe. The one-hour journey to Kampala gave us a rare chance on this trip to see somewhere other than a city. The small villages and tropical vegetation along the way reminded me a lot of Central America and the Caribbean. I was told repeatedly by Ugandans that there's a reason the country is known as the pearl of Africa, and I'd certainly have liked to see more.

Kampala itself was chaotic with bodabodas (motorbike taixs) and matutus (mini-vans) weaving in and out of each other and around the ambling pedestrians, the roads were rougher and more pitted than Accra or Abuja, some of the buildings had seen better days too. There were also more visible signs of poverty with large slums along the main roads out of town. But the city was lively and like Accra, felt safe to be walking around.

One of the other highlights of our trip had to be meeting Issa and his neighbours in the Kampala suburbs. Their children were running after our van from the minute we arrived and some were fighting sleep to stay awake until the moment we left late that night. We presented Tuesday's programme from his house and Issa's family let us into their lives for a day. We'll remember them, their excited children, the local movie theatre, the goats and chickens wandering the streets, and producing the programme in the light of a bonfire.

We're now in Nairobi, the final leg. From the minute you arrive, it feels very different. Nairobi is more developed, more Western and modern.

Finishing our programme late on Thursday night, we came out of the Alliance Francaise to find the streets deserted... barr the armed guards everywhere. Security, we're told, is one of the burning issues here.

From my first impression coming into town from the airport, the roads seemed smoother and wider than Kampala, although I probably have to retract that now having driven around more. Julie, a Kenyan who travelled with us, blamed George's mini-van - but we're not going to knock George. He took us on safari in his van and his hunches found us metres away from lion cubs, giraffes and more. Great job George (and Michael).

We've ended our trip on a high with the safari trip and the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Africa Radio Awards - I was truly impressed so many women won awards - it was really inspiring. Congratulations to you all.

Thanks to Julie, Michael, Jane and Isabel for a fantastic night of African dancing.....we're now heading to the airport feeling a little worse for wear.

Parts of Nairobi look like downtown America. It's true I haven't felt the same African spirit of the other places we've visited. But then one of the lessons of this trip has been just how vast and diverse Africa is.

I think each of us, in a way, is glad to have reached the end - it's been a tiring and packed journey. But I have certainly learnt a lot about Africa and its people along the way. It's been a rich induction to the continent. I've also compared Africa with Latin America numerous times during this trip, and from what I've seen there are so many similarities. The Americas captured my heart in my late teens and it will be hard to ever knock them from that spot, but Africa has certainly whet my apetitite. And I'm sure I'll be back.

JAMES - WHYS TECHNICIAN
Well, after two weeks in africa my eyes have been well and truly opened!

From well over 100 people at the Kofi Annan Centre, to us all sitting around on th sofa's at Issa's house, we've really connected with the people of africa, and also our listeners

I got the World Have Your Say bug way back in New Orleans when i engineered the very first "On The Road" programme, getting past all of the technical problems of the audience speaking to callers. That made my day, and now we do it on every location we go to.

This tour has been special though, others we've been in areaa where telecoms and even mains power has been reliable, but we've gone out on a limb here and had to make our own fixes (Don't ask me about generators, long cables and climbing out onto roofs in the pitch dark!) But it highlights the situation our listeners live in, so why should we be any different.

Africa has been so welcoming to us, I hope we can come back again soon to catch up with everyone who helped us out, got us on air and believed in what we do. James.