Gabon Baby Gabon

Libération reports today that Omar Bongo is, in fact, dead. Embarrassed to admit that I had never heard of Omar Bongo until today. It turns out he was President of Gabon for 40+ years and quite a character. He was apparently tight with a string of French presidents from the 60s all the way up to Sarkozy and was one of the few remaining old school politicians still openly supporting strong ties between France and its former African colonies. Libé attributes his staying power to political instincts and “reasonable” use of corruption (he was, of course, rich as hell from oil money).

In case you had forgotten (as I had) or never knew exactly where Gabon is, it’s in west central Africa, right underneath Equatorial Guinea. Africa has always been kind of a mystery to me, and I regret not having seen any of it during my traveling days. At one point, I had friends from Togo, Benin and Burkina Faso, neighboring countries in West Africa, and thought about trying to organize a trip. I’ve unfortunately lost touch with them (as I have with so many wonderful connections from my former life) and a trip to Africa now seems about as far-fetched as a trip to the moon. Anyway, planning a little geography lesson for Hank this week. We’ll talk about Gabon.