By Scott Baldauf

Staff Writer

If you can imagine a musical about a human rights tribunal, complete with details of gruesome torture, where the lines between innocence and guilt remains blurry, then you have a pretty good idea of the play I saw in Johannesburg, South Africa, the other night.

"Truth in Translation" is about the country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a monumental attempt to bring closure to the apartheid era, with all its horrible murders and crimes on both sides, without putting South Africa into a downward spiral of vendettas and violence.

As an American reporter who has just arrived here, I hoped this would be both an excellent entree into the South African arts scene, and a primer on its recent politics. It would have been so if I had known a bit more Zulu. And Xhosa. And Afrikaans. Even the bits of English went by so fast, in that machine-gun South African style, that I'm not even that sure I understood the quarter that I did understand.

Yet, after living in India for five years, I'm used to linguistic vacuums. And there are things that you pick up even without knowing the language.

For one thing, as I watched audience members convulse with laughter as actors mimicked top South African politicians, or shrink with horror as the cast acted out sadistic torture techniques on stage, it became clear to me that South Africa was a place where many of the wounds have just begun to heal.

But it was the easy joking banter among the characters on stage – black and white, English and Afrikaner, Zulu and Xhosa and “Colored” – that somehow reminded me of another post-conflict zone far away in Afghanistan.

In the early days after the Taliban fled, I shared a house with several other reporters in the pricey neighborhood of Wazir Akbar Khan. Our translators would clown around and hang out, having tea in the staff quarters, and to all outward appearances, their easy relations were a sign that Afghanistan was heading inevitably toward peace. There were Pashtuns and Tajiks, city boys and country bumpkins, Sunni and Shiites, and they all clowned around, played badminton in the garden, and acted like bosom buddies.

Until one day, when the cook, a grizzled Tajik everyone called Uncle Qudrat, declared that he didn't trust my driver, a Pashtun, because he had once been a member of a radical Islamic party called Hizb-I Islami. "I'm afraid he might poison the food," said Qudrat darkly. Immediately, Farsi-speakers sided up with the cook, while Pashto-speakers sided with my driver, and the rift hardened. Within weeks, I moved out, unwilling to fire a man who had saved my skin many times. In a conflict zone where the past is not that distant, bloodlines, language, and culture seemed to trump mere friendship everytime.

Likewise, in "Truth in Translation," it's frighteningly clear how quickly chummy relations turn into something much more violent. Push a character a bit too hard, and he'll come back with surprising ferocity. Soothing moments swiftly follow, often accompanied by the lilting jazz of Hugh Masekela, the jazz trumpeter best known outside South Africa for composing the song, "Free Nelson Mandela."  Tempers can flare, but they also fade. Fatigue keeps South Africa from explosion.

It would take a madman, or an American sit-com director, to turn a controversial and plodding human rights tribunal into a musical drama. In the case of "Truth in Translation" it took Michael Lessac, who lists "Taxi," "The Drew Carey Show," "Just Shoot Me," and "Everyone Loves Raymond" as past directorial credits.

The story is driven by the reactions of the translators who bear the burden of translating the tribunal into all the country's major languages, following word for word some of the darkest moments in African history. As intelligence chiefs, ANC rebels, and top politicians admit to heinous crimes, or get off scot-free, it's inevitable for everyone – characters and audience members – to take sides.

Whenever there is a particularly gruesome bit of testimony (translated of course into Zulu, Afrikaans, Xhosa, et al), the cast breaks into song, repeating the testimony word for word. With Masekela composing the tunes, it feels jazzy and upbeat, but it's hard to imagine humming along to vivid lyrics about war-time atrocities while making the evening pasta.

"Truth in Translation" has already made its first run out of South Africa, debuting in the Rwandan capital of Kigali, where audience members broke into spontaneous discussion groups to talk about their own genocide of 1994 when members of the Hutu majority began a killing rampage of the Tutsi minority. The director, Michael Lessac, also talks about creating a documentary about the play, and taking the show to "other countries in conflict transition."

By Claire Soares, Correspondent

ST. LOUIS, Senegal – If it weren't for the men in boubous, you might think you were in New Orleans. The same snatches of jazz waft among the wrought-iron railings and wooden balconies, but this is the jazz capital of Africa, not America.

Here, the dress code is not black turtlenecks but colorful long robes (boubous); the tipple is a Coca-Cola rather than a martini. Banished are the conventional jazz connoisseurs studiously stroking their beards; at tonight's gig, the fans are more likely to be drumming along on their plastic chairs.

Now in its fourteenth year, the St. Louis festival has attracted some of jazz's biggest names, from Herbie Hancock to Roy Haynes. Inheriting the 'star attraction' mantle this year is American saxophonist Jessie Davis. "It's my first time in Africa," he bellows to the crowd, sat under a starry sky in the town's main square.

It is a motivation that crops up in Senegal's St. Louis year after year. While European artists tend to relish escaping the stuffiness that characterizes the jazz scene back home, for many of the American musicians, it is an opportunity to discover their roots.

"It does my heart good to come to a place and see people that look like me, like my cousins and like Leroy down the street," Davis tells me backstage, sweat dripping off his face after a mammoth two-hour set.

"I'm from New Orleans originally and it's very similar to the vibe there," says the saxophonist, who has played with Milt Jackson and Wynton Marsalis. "It's been a wonderful revelation. I have anticipated this trip my whole life."

It is just not an ethnic retracing of steps, but a musical one too. The clash of African rhythms and European instruments on the clean slate that was the United States is often said to have given birth to jazz.

Africa's musical traditions are as strong as ever. Wander around the center of St. Louis on any given day and you'll see young girls dancing to a tune in their heads, mothers singing to their babies, and guys on street corners banging out a rhythm on their drums – a big djembe wedged between their legs or a small tama tucked under an arm.

Each night during the jazz festival, local musicians pack into backstreet bars and play alongside visiting musicians. These unscripted jam sessions, a rarity in the rest of the world, often trump anything on the official program. With untrained raw talent mixing with schooled professionals, anything goes and it usually goes until the sun comes up.

Organizers say the jazz festival draws up to 60,000 people from around Africa, Europe, and the United States, and it certainly provides the annual moment in the spotlight for the town, France's first settlement in Africa.

Newcomers – whether musicians or music lovers – revel in the photogenic faded pastels of the colonial buildings that line the island city centre and marvel at the bridge linking it to the mainland that was built by Gustav Eiffel, of the tower in Paris fame.

But the picture postcard world of the jazz festival – its root-seeking musicians and pleasure-seeking tourists – is shattered just a few hundred meters from the main stage.

Walk across another less famous bridge on the other side of the island, and you set foot on a thin peninsula, the last land barrier before the Atlantic Ocean. The bridge, built by an anonymous designer and now a mass of twisted rusting metal, splintered planks, and gaping holes, feels more like an obstacle course (although clearly not to the Senegalese egg vendor who sped across effortlessly in front of me).

On the peninsula's white sand beach, a woman washes her vegetables in the waves while a dead dolphin decomposes in the sun. Occasionally casting their eyes gloomily at the trawler silhouettes that dot the horizon, local fisherman complain about depleting fish stocks as they lug their brightly-colored pirogue boats up the sand and offload a disappointing day's catch.

By night, the traditional pirogue vessels play another, more sinister, role. They leave on a clandestine sea voyage, packed with young men, hoping to break into Fortress Europe, hoping for the chance to earn a decent wage even if it means doing menial jobs and living in squalid conditions. Thousands have perished en route, either getting lost, running out of food, or drowning when their boats capsize.

Musicians like Jessie Davis, whose forbears were shipped off the continent as slaves, may get a buzz from coming back to their ancestral land, but such sentiments are largely irrelevant to the current day inhabitants. For many St. Louis youngsters, the idea of tough labor overseas is a lifeline to which they aspire. And jazz? Jazz is just a once-a-year interlude.

By Stephanie Hanes

I spent four years covering courts in the United States. Federal and local, rural and urban, murder cases and white collar crimes. And not once did spectators at a trial ever break into song.

But now I am in South Africa, my first time in a courtroom for 18 months, notebook open and waiting for the verdict in the rape trial of Jacob Zuma, the country’s former deputy president. The crowds outside are growing into the thousands, although we can’t hear them in courtroom 4E. We are waiting for the judge and the lawyers – something you do a lot when you cover courts. It felt familiar.

Then the singing started. First, it was a woman in the back row, her voice piercing and sweet, those first notes of an African tune you know will make you want to get up and sway. I tensed up. You do that when you think there might be a crazy person in the room.

But then more voices joined in. And more. Soon the whole courtroom was singing in perfect harmony – bass, baritone, alto, soprano, all somehow knowing their parts, weaving in and out of each other. A woman ululated. Then a man stood up, and a woman, and another, and all of a sudden the courtroom was dancing. It was totally impromptu, as if out of some musical, “The Trial of Jacob Zuma; Score by Andrew Lloyd Webber.” Except Webber never made music like this, music that breaths struggle and joy and sadness at once.

What are they singing? I whispered to a South African journalist.

They are singing for Zuma, she said. It is a church song – “Jesus’ heart is pleasant.” But they’ve changed the word “Jesus” to “Zuma.”

Outside, there was more singing. Car stereos blasted anti-apartheid struggle songs, and men and women clapped and danced the toyi-toyi – a stomping-type protest dance that brings peoples’ bodies and voices together in one defiant, beautiful movement. In a corner, behind a police line, a collection of a few dozen women’s rights activists supporting the alleged victim – men and women – sang their own protest, as if trying to bolster themselves against the throngs of Zuma loyalists across the street.

For a moment I stopped wondering about Zuma, a politician who has been tainted by corruption scandals, a man who testified that he knew a family friend wanted sex because she wore a skirt to his house. I let my mind go, allowing myself to be simply amazed by this country of sound and struggle.

Momentarily, the lawyers walked into the courtroom. The spectators quieted, and sat. Then the judge came in and began reading his verdict – a process that would take about six hours, with multiple statute citations and explorations of legal terms such as “relevancy.” This, I thought, was more like it.

Blake Lambert – Correspondent

A percussive chant filled my ears as I edged toward the swarm of Ugandans on Kampala Road, the unavoidable path of all political demonstrations in Uganda's capital, Kampala.

"Besigye, candidate," they jubilantly shouted and danced.

A few ecstatic souls even laid a poster of Kizza Besigye, presidential candidate for the opposition Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), on the not-so-clean street and kissed it.

Dozens of police, including some in riot gear, and red-capped military police eyed the crowd suspiciously.

After weeks of legal wrangling between civilian and military courts since his Nov. 14 arrest for treason, Mr. Besigye, who presents the most credible challenge to President Yoweri Museveni in the Feb. 23 presidential election, had gained his freedom on bail.

Thousands of Ugandans wanted to show Besigye their support.

"If we didn't love Besigye, we wouldn't even be here," John Bosco Omara, a self-employed printer.

He complained about too much corruption, sectarianism, poverty, and Museveni's failure to stop the Lord's Resistance Army, a brutal rebel group in northern Uganda.

The riot squad stood maybe 15 feet from where we talked.

A few minutes earlier, I watched one of its members threaten someone who was handing out water to demonstrators who had been tear-gassed so they could wash their eyes.

"You give them more water. You will see what will happen," the policeman snapped.

That blue-tinged tear gas, fired from a mobile cannon, carries a fierce sting, far worse than any variety I'd encountered before in Kampala.

I too needed water to clear my eyes.

Oddly, getting hosed down by the water cannon, as also happened to demonstrators and observers, seemed, to me, to be more benign.

As I walked along the street with Ugandan colleagues, I saw a military policeman use a wooden baton to beat a demonstrator.

It all seemed a bit harsh given that the celebratory crowd didn't appear to pose a threat to anyone either.

At one point, I swiveled my head and watched endless waves of people moving along Kampala Road.

Even when Besigye finally emerged from the High Court sitting atop a car and flashing his two-fingered victory salute, supporters wanted to follow their man back to FDC headquarters.

From 1986 to 1996, one of them told me, crowds of this size would meet Museveni wherever he went and whomever he was with.

A decade later, a growing number of Ugandans wonder why their president doesn't seem ready to emulate his colleagues in East Africa and leave power peacefully, as Benjamin Mkapa of Tanzania has done.

No amount of tear gas or water can erase the doubts about Museveni, but using them often seems to increase public anger.

"Museveni says he has democracy," Julius Otema, an electrician, remarked. "What kind of democracy is this?"

Many Ugandans and Western countries, which have lavished aid on Museveni's government, seem to be asking themselves the same question.

And, if Britain's decision last month to cut $26.5 million in aid to Uganda due to concerns over Besigye's arrest is any indication, some donor countries may have decided the answer.

Stephanie Hanes - Correspondent

The crowd was grooving at the Bassline Club. Swaying, nodding, they whistled as the sax danced across octaves, cheered as the singer scatted faster and faster.

It was closing night of an annual international jazz festival that books dozens of musicians from across the world and brings thousands of concert-goers into Johannesburg's downtown.

My husband and I had splurged to see the Bassline's acts that night: multiple Grammy winner Dianne Reeves, American guitar virtuoso Stanley Jordan, Israeli saxophone master Albert Berger. Tickets were 300 rand, or about $50, each – a huge price for a Jo'burg concert.

But the place was packed. Women with Gucci bags and leather jackets screamed and lifted their cell phones to take pictures of the performers. Men in well-cut khakis and Polo shirts nodded appreciatively at musical improvisations.

Most of our fellow concert-goers were black – something you notice in race-conscious South Africa. And when Mr. Berger gave a shout-out to "the children of Soweto," it felt a little awkward.

Soweto, the townships southwest of Johannesburg, was the heart of the anti-apartheid struggle. A sprawling collection of government housing, informal shacks, and some newer, posh homes, the area is still home to more than a million, mostly poor blacks.

I like Soweto. I like the people walking in the streets, the music wafting from backyard parties, the history. Nelson Mandela's former home, the corner where the 1976 anti-apartheid student riots began, local restaurants serving traditional food – they are all excitingly different, and emotional.

But the black concert-goers were almost definitely not from Soweto – at least not any more. With their trendy clothing and BMWs filling parking lots outside, they seemed as distant from the impoverished townships as I was. They were the New South Africa, probably living in the expensive northern suburbs, the target audience for Standard Bank, the sponsor of the jazz festival.

(The festival is "a networking opportunity for jazz aficionados irrespective of race or color," the bank's website explained. "Patrons who attend the concerts vary from senior company executives, cabinet ministers to students.")

Later in the concert, Reeves, an American, also mentioned Soweto. She talked about spending time there, and told the well-heeled audience that she enjoyed the traditional food. We cook like that too, she said, grinning. There was some applause.

A well-off black associate once told me that Americans and journalists could afford to be nostalgic about Soweto.

"Me," he said, "I'm not going to drive to some restaurant in Soweto and risk getting shot."

He would rather go to any of the dozens of swank, high quality restaurants throughout Johannesburg's more upscale neighborhoods, closer to where he lives.

It is not as if people here ignore the history of Soweto. The anti-apartheid struggle still looms large – leaders in politics and business almost have to have "struggle credentials," proof that they worked to overturn the racially repressive system. Eleven years after the beginning of democracy, the country is still grappling with how to fix the staggering inequality left by apartheid, and how to help the huge numbers of impoverished, black South Africans.

But sometimes, the old anti-apartheid rallying cries do not quite seem appropriate. There is a younger generation of well-educated, successful blacks who were never the "comrades" of that fight. They own big bank accounts and small businesses, work in courtrooms and hospitals, eat international cuisine, and listen to fine jazz.

They still face challenges in their country – challenges that in some ways are more complex than those encountered by their parents.

But it is a tribute to how far South Africa has come that "black" no longer equals "Soweto."

Stephanie Hanes - Correspondent

It seemed too easy to find a parking spot.

Johannesburg's all-day Live 8 concert had started hours ago, and from a distance my husband, a couple of friends, and I had spotted the sparkling stage and massive satellite screen broadcasting the other anti-poverty concerts going on that day.

But a block away, the parking attendants looked bored.

Still, we heard a beat – that lilting, African sound that dares you not to dance, or at least sway. So we hurried by the vendors selling chicken pieces and Cokes and, after a quick pat down, walked into the Mary Fitzgerald Square, Johannesburg's Live 8 concert site.

The place was half empty, and the emcee was struggling to keep the crowd's attention. People wandered in, more wandered out. Although most concert-goers bounced to the music, it seemed clear that to the Johannesburg crowd, the local artists on stage were only so interesting.

We journalists had gotten press releases about this concert – the one Live 8 event actually taking place in Africa – only a week earlier. 

"Be part of the global event of the year!" one urged. 

"The purpose of the concerts is to mobilize political consciousness around the issues of poverty and inequality in South Africa, Africa and the World," another explained.

It was hard not to think of inequality. Although the concerts were promoted as a way to support Africa – a needed message in a world that can too easily ignore this continent – it  was clear that the Africa concert was an afterthought.

Every now and then, the emcee would try to raise the excitement level. Now introducing, she would yell, Will Smith! The crowd would scream, until it realized that Mr. Smith was on the satellite feed from Philadelphia, not in Johannesburg.

We watched the top acts in Berlin, Rome, London. Wide camera shots showed masses of mostly white people; tens of thousands wearing white bracelets (the anti-poverty answer to Lance Armstrong's yellow "Livestrong" bands), screaming for performers such as Alicia Keys, Madonna and U2. 

We watched them snapping in unison every three seconds – the time it takes, the celebrities said, for another African to die from poverty. It was a kind message. But here, the gushing sentiments of millionaire performers in Europe seemed paternalistic.

While we were at the concert, Johannesburg never went on the live feed. We couldn't help wondering if some concert organizer in London was worried that we'd ruin what felt like a pity party.

The biggest cheer that night came not for a musician, but for Nelson Mandela. The crowd broke out into song as he slowly walked to the podium, aided by a cane.

Here was a powerful African – a man who had struggled but who was not a victim. We joined the crowd, clapping and cheering with relief.

Mike Crawley - Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

It must be the only film festival in the world where a pair of hyenas and a pair of crocodiles live at one of the movie theatres.

Cinema Neerwaya is one of the main venues for feature films in competition here at the Pan-African Film Festival (FESPACO) in Ouagadougou. The cinema’s owner, Frank Aleng, loves hunting even more than film and captured these animals in rural Burkina Faso, their caretaker Suleiman explained while tossing a sheep’s head into the cage.

That’s just one of many things that makes FESPACO both weird and wonderful.

I want to emphasize the wonderful. The audiences form probably the best examples of racial mixing I’ve seen on this still somewhat divided continent. I’ve seen Europeans wearing African clothes sharing tables with African directors dressed in suits, talking in a mixture of French and English. I’ve met designers from Slovenia, volunteers from Japan, a Venezuelan researcher living in Paris, and a plethora of talented folks
from places all over this continent.

The films on offer are particularly special because they open windows on a variety of experiences that don’t get shown at your local multiplex. The atmosphere around the cinemas is party-like, with meat roasting on barbecues, popcorn for sale in plastic bags and all sorts of African music styles pumping from huge speakers.

FESPACO transforms Ouagadougou just as cities around the world are transformed when tourists come to town: the streets get cleaned up, taxi drivers boost their fares, and souvenir sellers form a gauntlet outside every venue.

But perhaps more remarkable is how little life changes for most people in Ouagadougou. Sure, the festival organizers put on free nighttime concerts, and one non-profit group is taking a mobile cinema around to outlying villages. But most people are so busy trying to make ends meet in this desperately poor country that they can’t afford to stop working. Men keep repairing shoes and selling spare car parts, women hawk fruit and take care of children.

Speaking of everyday life in the capital, one of the films I’m particularly looking forward to seeing is "Ouaga Saga" – the story of a gang of Ouagadougou street kids who steal a motorbike and argue about what to do with the cash they make from selling it. There are more motorbikes in Ouagadougou than any of the 18 African capitals I’ve seen. Outside every cinema are awning-covered sidewalk parking lots where guards mind the motorbikes; for a fee of course.

And the fee goes up during FESPACO.

Mike Crawley - Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

The allure of a film festival usually comes from how many big-name stars turn up and the cachet of its location. I'm at a festival in one of the poorest countries on earth and where the only Hollywood actor in attendance is Danny Glover.

The Pan-African Film and Television Festival – known by its French acronym FESPACO – is the biggest and most prestigious film festival on the continent. To get to Ouagadougou, the lyrically named capital of Burkina Faso, I drove 600 miles over two days from my home in Ghana, leaving behind coastal rain forest for semi-arid savannah and temperatures approaching 100 degrees.

Burkina Faso rarely makes the news, but FESPACO puts this country in the headlines in the nicest of ways – in the entertainment section. The festival is this nation's pride and joy. It pumps tourist dollars into its subsistence-level economy and provides a badly needed showcase for African cultural expression.

The biennial FESPACO has been running since 1972, but it is not well-known in the US. (I'm a Canadian and consider myself a bit of a film buff, but I'd never heard of it until I moved to Africa in 2000.) Some of the American filmmakers I've spoken to say it's because the festival is considered to be a French event. It is indeed dominated by films from French-speaking African countries. Only once in FESPACO's history has a film from anglophone Africa won the top prize, known as the Gold Stallion of Yennenga.

This year, English-speaking Africa accounts for only five of the 20 feature films in competition – and four of those are from South Africa.

Like any festival, FESPACO offers so many films (181 in the official catalogue) that it's a challenge to figure out what to see. In addition to the main competition for feature films from Africa, there are shorts, TV series, documentaries, films from the African diaspora, and films from the rest of the world on African subjects.

The festival closes on March 5, and so far, I've been to three movies. The film featured in the opening gala, "Les Amants de Mogador" (The Lovers of Mogador), is a somewhat melodramatic epic about the romance between a French woman and an Arab man during the upheavals of colonial-era Morocco.

"One Love" is a story also about love across boundaries: the divide in Jamaica between Rastafarians and evangelical Christians. It was a feel-good story with a reggae soundtrack, starring Bob Marley's son Ky-Mani.

The best of the three was the vibrant and compelling South African film "Drum", based on the true story from the 1950s of how a breezy lifestyle magazine for blacks became a venue for investigative reporting about the evils of apartheid.

The festival has what my friend Ulrike Koltermann of the German News Agency is calling a certain "chaotic charm." Throngs of street sellers hawking crafts outside venues, organizers running out of printed programs before the festival begins, films not arriving at Ouagadougou airport, events starting two hours late. However, the screenings so far seem to keep promptly to schedule.

The opening ceremony took place in a packed soccer stadium and the atmosphere was electric, particularly during the performance by a last-minute addition to the program: Malian singer Salif Keita. As his voice soared into the night sky and thousands of ordinary Burkinabe citizens danced wildly and burned paper torches in the stands, I felt wide-eyed and privileged to be in such a far-flung place for this one-of-a-kind event. I don't need to spot Nicole Kidman to get a thrill.