West Africa

Before I joined the Peace Corps, I had heard all the stereotypes. Volunteers were a bunch of privileged white kids, I was told. Guitar-strumming, wide-eyed do-gooders who didn't understand cultural differences and spent their time building latrines they could never persuade anyone to use. The image of an unprepared, inexperienced volunteer armed with nothing but good intentions is no longer accurate, if it ever was — at least not here in Senegal,...

Three years ago, Louisville sophomore center Gorgui Dieng couldn't speak English. Last year, he didn't know how the NCAA tournament worked. When Morehead State eliminated Louisville in the first round, Dieng said he asked his coaches, "Why can't we play anymore?" He wasn't kidding. "I had no idea," he said. "I didn't know Sweet 16 last year. Honest. " Louisville has come a long way to reach its first Final Four since 2005, after finishing seventh in the Big East Conference.

Mending West Africa Re "The crises begin at birth," Nov. 15 Great article on Sierra Leone and its public health system. I only wish there was more context for those who are not well-versed in African history. Sierra Leone and other West African states did not become near-failed states overnight. Slavery, European colonialism, a failed economic development model and military coups have all played a role. States such as Sierra Leone would be better off if they followed a model of development that included massive investment in education.

Before I joined the Peace Corps, I had heard all the stereotypes. Volunteers were a bunch of privileged white kids, I was told. Guitar-strumming, wide-eyed do-gooders who didn't understand cultural differences and spent their time building latrines they could never persuade anyone to use. The image of an unprepared, inexperienced volunteer armed with nothing but good intentions is no longer accurate, if it ever was — at least not here in Senegal,...

Alarmed by the rise in Latin American drug traffic in West Africa, nations including Colombia, Brazil and the United States are establishing or increasing their police presence in that unstable region. Racked by internal strife that has left them poor, crime-ridden and institutionally weak, several West African nations in recent years have become key transit hubs for Colombian, Peruvian and Bolivian cocaine headed to Europe. In an interview last week, Colombian National Police commander Gen.

Pope John Paul II will visit the West African country of Guinea-Bissau in January and tour a leper colony during a two-day stay, the Portuguese news agency Lusa reported Monday.

Less than five years after the first AIDS cases appeared in the Ivory Coast capital of Abidjan in west Africa, the disease has become the leading cause of death in the city's men and the second leading cause of death in its women, according to a study by American and west African researchers. The study, which appears in today's issue of the journal Science, is the first detailed look at how AIDS has affected death rates among adults in a major African city.

Logging in the tropical forests of West Africa may be causing devastating wars among the chimpanzees there, concludes a scientist who has studied the animals for eight years. When Lee White began studying the large mammals of Gabon's Lope Wildlife Reserve in 1989, he was relieved to see that logging wasn't a major problem.

A U.S. Navy amphibious ship will pay good-will visits to seven West African countries from Tuesday through mid-December, the Navy announced Friday. The Harlan County, a landing ship tank vessel based in Little Creek, Va., will stop at Cameroon, Nigeria, Liberia, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Zaire and Sao Tome on a mission "to promote understanding and cooperation" between the United States and those countries, a Navy announcement said.

A freighter with thousands of refugees fleeing war in Liberia was forced back to sea after passengers were fed and given medical care in Ghana, port officials said. Medical workers said they found two bodies from a shooting incident on the freighter, which docked in Ghana after a week at sea with no port willing to admit the refugees. Details of the shooting incident were not clear.

Akata Witch A Novel Nnedi Okorafor Viking: 352 pp., $17.99, ages 12 and older The protagonist at the center of the young-adult novel "Akata Witch" lives in many worlds. She is, in the truest sense, African American: Nigerian by ancestry, American by birth. Born in New York, she moved to West Africa with her parents and brothers when she was 9. But Sunny Nwazue is also albino, with skin the color of "sour milk" and "hazel eyes that look like God ran out of the right color.

AFRICA Presentation Adventurer James Michael Dorsey will present "The Voodoo Trail," about his travels through West Africa to document voodoo practices. When, where: 7:30 p.m. Monday at Distant Lands, 56 S. Raymond Ave., Pasadena. Admission, info: Free. RSVP to (626) 449-3220. SOUTH AMERICA Movie In "180° South," adventurer Jeff Johnson retraces Yvon Chouinard and Doug Tompkins' 1968 journey to Patagonia. When, where: 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Adventure 16 store in Los Angeles, 11161 W. Pico Blvd.

In recent months, not only soccer-obsessed eyes have turned toward Africa, but musically curious ears too. Most prominent has been the Broadway success of the "Fela!" musical, which chronicled both the Nigerian legend Fela Anikulapo Kuti's extraordinary personal and political life as well as his majestic Afrobeat rhythms, whose tendrils run as much toward James Brown's funk as they do Ghana's highlife. But the revived interest in Kuti is merely the tip of a massive iceberg of recently released African-related music projects.

World Cup aside, Africa is attracting attention from global brewers seeking to slake the continent's steadily growing thirst for beer. Breweries and brands are sprouting from Johannesburg, South Africa, to Juba, Sudan, as multinational giants such as SABMiller, Diageo and Heineken seek to build out long-standing local presences into larger regional ones using products old and new alike. And with good reason: Although hundreds of millions of Africans are still trapped in dire poverty, economic development and political stability have pulled increasing numbers of the rest into higher levels of prosperity and given them the discretionary income that comes with it. As of the end of 2008, the latest figures available, Africa accounted for about 5% of world beer production, up from 4.4% five years earlier, according to Beverage Marketing Corp.

Though the timing takes a cue from Mexico's Día del Niño holiday, this Children's Day celebration will be an international affair, with kids performing songs and dances from Cambodia, West Africa, Hawaii and elsewhere. Other festivities include arts, crafts and a first-ever children's parade. Aquarium of the Pacific, 100 Aquarium Way, Long Beach. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Free with museum admission (general admission $23.95, children 3-11 $11.95, seniors 62 and older $20.95)

AFRICA Presentation Adventure photographer TJ Korst will present a video, "Don't Forget the Sunsets," about West Africa, including visits to a Benin village and Timbuktu and a boat trip on the Niger. When, where: 7:30 p.m. Monday at Distant Lands, 56 S. Raymond Ave., Pasadena Admission, info: Free. RSVP to (626) 449-3220 or distantlands@earthlink.net SRI LANKA Slide show Mort Loveman will present "Sri Lanka: The Resplendent Island."

The relentless rhythms, stooped-back movements, and quirky isolations of West African dance are almost an endangered species in San Diego. Only one group, the relatively unknown Teye Sa Thiosanne West African Dance Company, keeps the flame alive. The name Teye Sa Thiosanne translates to "keepers of the tradition," and this year-old, San Diego-based troupe, headed by drummer Bernard Thomas, is determined to live up to its name.

My mother was first. We had just left a dark room to sit on a row of stools in the center of a town called Akutukope in the village of Adutor, which is in the south-eastern part of Ghana. We had received wisdom from elders, been wrapped in fine handwoven cloth and adorned in strands of beads culled from the earth. And now, amid the noise of celebration, the head of the village, a woman, was guiding my mother before a man with a short black sword.

Mending West Africa Re "The crises begin at birth," Nov. 15 Great article on Sierra Leone and its public health system. I only wish there was more context for those who are not well-versed in African history. Sierra Leone and other West African states did not become near-failed states overnight. Slavery, European colonialism, a failed economic development model and military coups have all played a role. States such as Sierra Leone would be better off if they followed a model of development that included massive investment in education.

When the power went out that night, Dr. Ibrahim Thorlie was operating on his fifth patient of the day in a maternity hospital with a shortage of antibiotics and running water. His colleague was doing an emergency caesarean in the next room. In the corridor, a bucket on the floor held a stillborn baby. Thorlie turned wordlessly in the darkened room and lifted his gloved hands. Sweat beaded up on his forehead like dewdrops. A nurse reached into the surgeon's pocket and pulled out his penlight, a pas de deux they had clearly performed many times before.