Gold Meeting Transcript

A Typical Gold Meeting Transcript



Buyer’s Representative (Me):



Thank you for coming today, Mr. X. I trust you are well?



Seller: By the grace of Allah, yes. Thank you.



Me: And your family?



Seller: Yes, yes, thanks be to God.



Me: Well I am happy to hear that. I look forward to the
successful conclusion of our contract. A contract that you have
agreed to and signed. And when we do conclude our business I am sure
that you and your family will be even happier.



Seller: Yes, ye, yes. God willing. This is true.



Me: Mr. X. Yesterday the issue of price came up in our
discussions. I do sincerely thank you for showing me your gold dust.
It is very beautiful and I know how hard you and your village have
worked for it. I hope that today we are able to go beyond the issue
of price and focus on the secure shipment of your product considering
that you have already signed a contract and agreed to a price in that
signed contract with the Buyer, Mr. XX, whom I represent.



Seller: My gold dust is the most better in the world. Most better, yes.



Me: Yes, I am sure that it is and it will be even better when it
is properly refined and turned into authentic 99.999% pure gold
bullion ingots.



Seller: Your price is below down the world market.



Me: With all due respect it must be. May I point out, with
respect, that your alluvial ore dust is two-thousand miles from a
certified refinery, with no security, transportation, or insurance to
back it up. It is perfectly logical given these set of circumstances
that the alluvial dust will be somewhat below world market price. But
price is not my authority. You negotiated the price with my boss, the
buyer, and you signed a contract with him. And again with respect
there is no way that your product in its current state and
circumstances will fetch your new asking price of two-times the world
market for perfectly refined bullion ingots.



Seller: My gold is most better than anyone else’s gold. Most better.



Me: I am sure that it is but you need me, or someone like me, to
assist you in the process of bringing this raw product to market and
there are significant costs in that process. As it is I am offering
you a price well above that of the multi-national companies.



Seller: The Saudis are giving me two times above the world market
rate for my gold.



Me: I have a copy of the contract you signed here.



Seller: Words words. What you saying?



Me: Sir, with all respect you are contracted. You are selling a
box of unrefined rocks. It’s got a long way to go and a lot of
expenses are involved before it will reach world market price for a
refined troy ounce. I have offered you a very fair price and you have
agreed to that price in a binding contract.



Seller: You don’t respect the Africa Man You think Africa Man is
fool! Too fool!

Me: I do respect the African people. And I'd like to see you,
specifically, sir, I'd like to see you make a little money. I am
offering you the best price I know of anywhere for you and your
village.

Seller: Stands up from table and briskly walks out, grumbling in Bambara.



Me: To interpreter, “What did he say?”



Int.: I can’t say, sir.



Me: No, please, you must.



Int.: OK sir, this seller he say, “Fuck off you bastard prick.”

The Bamako Brawl

The gold deal clearly was not going down as we had planned. Pressure was rising from

all sides. First, what we expected to be a week to ten-day in and out job had stretched

into more than one-month with no end in sight. Second, my wife and first-born newborn

baby girl were waiting for me back in Yemen - and my wife was threatening to leave me I'd been so long in Africa, if she even answered my phone calls. Third, my seller-associates were jerking me aroundand it was becoming clear that they were not serious businessmen but jokers. Fourth, I was coming down with some unknown disease that would prove to be malaria

I was tired and sweating profusely like a drug addict in withdraw. I was sweating so much into my phone that it had gone into a coma and I had to take it apart and blast it with a hair dryer

in the hopes that it would revive. The local internet provider was 128 slow and Finally, I

had slipped on a wet sidewalk and sliced my big toe open to the bone. I was a wounded,

limping, sweating, ill, tired, lonely, frustrated and angry man. I had never been in a worse mood in my life. I was angrier than a caged grizzly bear. I was a human time bomb ticking

– and I was about to explode.

With all of these pent-up emotions and physical problems I couldn’t sleep one evening.

I finally got out of bed with the idea that I’d get something to eat. The Mali-Africana had

no room service and outside of regular meal hours the kitchen was closed, so I limped out

onto the dark road and turned towards the flashing lights and thumping discos of Blah

Blah Street. I crossed the street to ‘Snak Café’ where I ordered a burger. As hungry as I

was I could only stomach a few bites due to my upset stomach, my shot-to-hell nerves or

both so I had the burger wrapped to go and walked back out to Blah Blah Street where I

was immediately accosted by about ten different taxi-men. This didn’t help my mood

because they all knew I lived less than one-hundred yards around the corner. I waved

them off with a glare saying, ‘Helicopter, Helicopter, no taxi!’ and limped on.

‘I am really strung-out,’ I remember thinking. I am mean and I must look like hell.’

I turned the corner onto the dark, dirt road to my hotel and a few limping steps later four

very large men stepped out from the shadows to block my path.

‘Take us to your room,’ the leader demanded in a deep, booming voice. I had been told about this scheme.

Local thugs try to get into your room where they think they can get your money.

‘NO!,’ I responded with force giving each man a hard stare straight into the eyes.

‘You WILL take us to your room,’ the leader insisted.

‘NO.’ I affirmed, looking each man in the eye again, ‘I WILL NOT!’

I walked directly towards them trying not to limp, ducking between the middle two and

intending to continue walking back to my hotel. I felt two arms wrapping across my chest from behind as if to get me in a ‘full Nelson’ lock.

In an instant my mind and instincts became one. I thought of my baby. I thought of my wife. I thought of my boss friend Raja back in Bangkok and how hard we had both worked for this project. I wasn’t about to let these goons come between me and any of that. Not on this night.

‘

You must get out of this hold.

’ I dropped straight down tucking my chin in so as not to give any angle they might hold on to and tossed the burger aside.

‘

What have I got that they don’t have?’… ‘Baseball, you’re an American, you can throw,

odds are -they can’t.’

As a boy I spent three years in the basement throwing baseballs at a small chalk circle drawn onto the brick wall. I can throw with accuracy.

Dropping out of their grasp I scoured the rock strewn road and grabbed two baseball sized chunks of granite and jumped back, taking aim at the closest man four feet away.

Right handed, two fingers on top and thumb on the left side of the stone I cocked my arm

back, took a step forward and threw my hand and elbow full force directly at the man’s

face, launcing the rock at fifty to sixty miles per hour. The missle hit him directly between the mouth and nose. He dropped straight down, instantly, into a motionless heap as if he’d been shot through the head.

I pivoted, moving the other rock into my right hand and feinted a throw. The three remaining men kept coming towards me. I aimed at the next closest man, took a step and launched.

This rock struck somewhere between the collar bone and the adam’s apple. He fell

backwards onto the road clutching his throat, screaming.

Immediately I turned and scanned for the remaining two men. They were both backing

away. One was backing directly towards a concrete wall.

‘Use your speed as leverage against him.’

I am not a big man but I can run the hundred in around eleven seconds and the mile in

nearly four minutes so I rushed at the man backing towards the wall at full speed. In a rush of adreneline I had forgotten about my toe. As I neared him and he backed nearer to the wall I thought of my friend, Micah Heibel, a University of Nebraska Fullback famous for his crushing blocks.

I tucked my shoulder like Micah aiming it at my opponents chin and flicked my shoulder

just as it came into contact with his jaw. His head whipped back hitting the wall with a

sound like a grapefruit dropped onto the pavement. He slid straight down, arms spread

wide.

All of this happened in a matter of seconds. I turned around, bursting with adrenaline,

determined to finish the fight. The last man, the ringleader, was backing away, eyes wide

with fright. For all he knew he had just seen a skinny white devil kill three of his friends.

'Finish this fight. You must finish this fight.'

I launched myself full speed in his direction. Halfway there I realized I really didn't have a plan

if I caught him. He turned and ran. I knew then that I had won the fight. This big goon

was never going to outrun me. I jogged behind laughing and almost feeling sorry for

him. I pursued him leisurely, easily keeping pace while stopping to pick up handfulls of

smaller gravel stones which I threw at the ground three feet behind him ‘cricket style’ so

the stones would bounce up in his face and keep him dancing. A block or two later he

looked back in panic and realized that he couldn’t outrun me. He looked left then right and scrambled up into a tree, climbing high into the upper branches. I stood at the foot of the tree picking up stones and pelting him with each one. There were no street lights and I could see only

the whites of his eyes high up in the tree, big and scared like an owl. With each hurled

stone I heard a ‘thud’ as the rock struck paydirt and his eyes would momentarily

disappear, wincing in pain.

'I'll kill you! He growled.

'Come on down and try, pretty boy!'

I hurled an insult with each stone. ‘Wanna come to my room now? You better give up

your life of crime because you don’t have what it takes!’

Finally, out of insults and beginning to pity the poor guy I left him in the tree and began

to walk back, limping with purpose this time so as to shame him further. I was thinking

about the first man I had drilled in the face with the concrete fastball at close range. The

way he dropped lifeless and limp made me worry that I’d killed him. When I got back to

the scene of the brawl the three were gone. This gave me momentary relief. But then I

thought, ‘maybe he was dead and the other two carried him away. Or maybe he is dying

somewhere right now.’

I had the hotel desk call the police and report my concern over the incident. The police

said, ‘Don’t worry, no problem. If he's dead, he deserved it. Whatever you did, you did the right thing.’

I spent a sleepless night endlessly reveiwing the fight in my mind as I tossed and turned in bed. In the morning there was a knock on my door. I had a phone call at reception, from the police.

'That's it,' I thought. 'I killed him.'

The call was from the Chief of Police. I picked up the phone, ready to surrender.

'I want to congratulate you. Last night you did Bamako a great favor. The four men you fought were Ivory Coast Mafia. They have lost face in Bamako now and are leaving in disgrace. Everyone is laughing. '

I had a meeting that morning. When I walked out onto the

street I noticed a new group of young men with friendlier faces than the thugs that had been lying about before.

Someone let out a yell, ‘Mali Boyz!’ They all started to clap and cheer.

I looked around in confusion. One young man came up to me and said, ‘Boss, we want to thank you for giving us our street back. '

I laughed and shook his hand.

What should we do now, Boss?’

‘Thanks, I said, but I am not your boss. Just promise me you’ll all behave like gentleme. Don’t hurt anyone. And don’t pick on me!’

They all laughed. What else could I say to this group of poor young men faced

with such limited opportunities? I wished them well and got into my waiting taxi. From

that day on they all called me, ‘Boss.’ And I never had a problem on the street

again…until the last day. But more about that later.

The thought that I might have killed my attacker haunts me. At the very least he was

knocked out cold and left in need of major reconstructive dental surgery. I didn’t want to

hurt anyone. I am normally not a fighter. In fact I am a peaceful kind of guy and that

suits me just fine. I acted instinctively that night, when cornered. Normally, I would

have run and they would have had no chance to catch me.

Land pirates like the ones that attacked me know the rules of their business when they

enter it. I was lucky. But they picked on the wrong guy at the wrong time and that is a

risk they will always face in their line of work. I sincerely hope that my attacker is alive

and well, gumming jello and pudding somewhere in the Ivory Coast and saving money

for dental surgery. I hope he is thinking about how to make an honest living. But I’ll be

forever haunted by the possibility that I killed a man in Bamako.

Mukella, Yemen. May 2009

Yemen: Isolated and Misunderstood

Yemen: Isolated and Misunderstood

I am writing to you from a long, white sands beach under swaying palm trees on the south coast of Arabia, in Yemen. The sun is setting over the Arabian Sea in a blaze of orange and gold. These days my sun also rises in Yemen. In fact, Yemen has been the place I call home for

most of the last ten years. I met Mikael here last year and we became immediate friends; sharing a love of adventure and expanding our horizons through travel. It might surprise you to think of some of the world's most pristine and beautiful beaches in Yemen. It might

also surprise you to know that the country is not a giant sand pit but a mountainous country, incredibly green in the rainy season, with incredible gorges and vistas throughout.

So, when Mikael asked if I might write something about Yemen I grabbed paper and pen and headed straight for the beach. It is here, where the blue waters of the Arabian Sea meet the white beaches and rocky headlands of Arabia that the story of Yemen and its people begin.

Yemen has often been described by scholars as an 'island' surrounded by the Arabian /Indian Ocean to the south, the Red Sea to the west and the vast sands of the Rub al-Khali - the Great Arabian Desert - to the north. This geographical isolation has kept Yemen apart and

misunderstood by the rest of the world since ancient times. And it has also spurred the people of Yemen to look across seas and sands in search of trade and resources. The ancient Greeks called this place, 'Arabia Felix,' in the mistaken belief that Yemen, and not India and the far east, was the source of spices. In fact, Yemen was the center of the spice route from the far east and its geographical position allowed for the Kingdom of Saba (reported home of the Queen of Sheba) to benefit from the spice trade through taxes collected on the spice caravans travelling through her

land. Yemen was relatively little known to the outside world until the 1960s, when the secretive and feudal 'Imam' or king was overthrown for a republican government. Yemen has remained little known and misunderstood since the revolution. The recent barrage of international media attention Yemen has received is testament to the world's lack of understanding regarding this country. The international media is currently in the habit of calling Yemen a 'hotbed of terrorism,' 'the ancestral homeland of Osama Bin Laden,' (So what??? He wasn't born here and did not grow up here.) and a place of 'widespread anti-American sentiment.' Regarding the Bin Laden issue I pose this to readers. I am a citizen of the United States and I was born there. Ireland is my ancestral homeland. If I committed crimes against humanity would the media report anything other than that I was a citizen of the United States?

Yemen is, in fact, a place of moderate, tolerant Muslims, both Shia and Sunni, and a place

where the great majority of the population strive for a better life for themselves and their families and a better future for Yemen. Yes, there is a small (and I would call it very small) percentage of the population here for whom the words 'anti-American,' 'extremist,' or even 'terrorist' apply. It would be naive to deny this. However, I am sure that the world could use a dose of reality right now concerning the real situation of Yemen and her people.

Yemen is a developing nation with many problems, a government struggling to cope with meager and dwindling oil resources and a booming population (up to 3.5% by international estimates), a severe water crises for which there is no easy solution, a severe lack of food security causing 50% or more of the country's children to suffer from malnutrition and stunted growth and a struggling economy which relys heavily on imported trade and not enough on domestic production. The literacy rate in the country hovers around 60% for men and women.

Yemen's isolation has, since ancient times, caused her people to look abroad in search for resources and trade riches. The arches over the windows and the doors of buildings in Mukella, the city behind me,

bear the unmistakable stamp of the orient, brought back to Yemen by traders who ventured from India to Malaysia over the Indian Ocean. The people of this country also bear the diverse characteristics of

populations from the coast of East Africa, the interior of Arabia and all the way to the far east. This diverse mix has made Yemen a place of a very unique and distinct culture. And this diverse mix of

people, culture and their history may also help to explain why the majority of Yemenis are surprisingly tolerant with a love of music, art and dance all their own as well as a tolerance for and interest in

foreigners.

So what does Yemen need now? The country is facing political instability with a rebellion stirring in the north and an independence movement awakening in the south. Political support and a degree of military support are welcome and probably necessary at this time. However, the real need Yemen is facing is in development support and aid to help the nation through this period of economic change and population growth. What's

needed is real development aid funding government, international and local non-governmental development organizations focusing on education, food security and income generating projects and training - especially for rural areas where 70% of the population live. A sincere effort at supporting development in this country is the only way the international community can hope to bring about the stability the nation needs through increased educational standards and outputs, increased access to health care, rising levels

of nutritional intake and increased economic production leading to increased income levels for the poor and middle classes. No amount of military assistance can bring about the long term development and change that

the people of this nation seek and deserve.