Bangui

Rainy conditions still linger on in London.

And then the African continent is going to be bright and sunny for many from Miami through Bangui going all the way down towards Johannesburg.

That wraps up this program.

We'll be back with more.

There are no traffic signals.

not a single mile of railroad track, and almost no electric lights outside the capital city of Bangui.

The nation is so poor that the government cannot pay its own employees any wages, and uniformed soldiers routinely beg money from passersby.

Butterflies alight on the dirt roads and broad jungle leaves, and some locals try to make money by ripping the colorful wings off of the butterflies and gluing them to paper to make artwork.

And there is really only one legitimate way in or out.

That's a once-weekly Air France flight from Paris, which is inevitably crowded with a slice of the nation's tiny ruling class, the only ones who can afford the fare.

the Sunday morning arrival of Air France is a free-for-all in the northern part of the city of Bangui.

Hundreds of taxi hustlers and freelance luggage porters cram close to the perimeter fence as they watch the passengers step from one world into another.

He invested his entire fortune in the Farquaad Lighthouse Project.

But that idiot set it up in Bangui, which was 600 miles from any ocean coastline.

Lost the entire thing.

Shortly after that, he died in the bathroom of drowning.

He purchased a 50-room mansion in Paris and vacation homes in Nice and Toulouse.

He decided to build a sprawling ancestral home for himself 50 miles outside the capital of Bangui, and then he ordered the state to construct a modern paved motorway leading directly to its front gates just so his motorcade wouldn't have to drive on dirt roads.

And to protect this massive accumulation of wealth, he had to ensure that no other political figure could ever build enough influence to challenge him.

The mechanism he used to do this was perpetual destabilization.

He would suddenly become obsessed with an idea, pour millions of dollars into it, and then totally abandon it a month later when his attention shifted.

A perfect example is the airline.

One day, Bokassa got frustrated by the poor commercial airline connections flying into Bangui, so he simply decreed the creation of a national airline, Air Centrafrique.

Just like that.

It's just statistically that happens all the time.

So there has to be some sort of reality, whether it is France and you're getting pickpocketed on the Metro, or you're in Bangui, Central African Republic, and you might get, uh, robbed there as well.

And y- you know, I, I can tell you all the things like, you know, I have locks on my bag.

I have secret pockets sewed into my shorts.

The house or the location we found that the house was, it was very old house.

The easiest way was just to demolish the house and start from zero, and luckily I had some experience from Bangui about construction.

So I was on the ground the whole time, checking with the engineer, with the architect.

I used to go to suppliers, you know, to buy some materials for construction.

So actually I dropped out from university, and my plan was how can I start or from where can I start?

Yeah.

So, uh, my first trip was to Republic Central, uh, Central African Republic, uh, Bangui.

Yeah.

Forty-five-year-old OS.

I spoke to BBC Mundo from Bangui, the capital of a nation about which he had no reference until now and to which he was deported under the US agreements.

Todas las noticias que necesitas estén en BBC World Service Desk.

Fin de anuncio.

LPES, nicaragüense de 45 aos.

Habl con BBC Mundo desde Bangui, la capital de una nación sobre la que hasta ahora no tenía ninguna referencia y a la que fue deportado en virtud de los acuerdos de EE.UU. Para que otros países reciban migrantes expulsados.

So that other countries receive expelled migrants.

Para que otros países reciban migrantes expulsados.

We don't have documents, and we're suffering and missing our families in a continent we don't know.

He told us from Bangui, the country's capital.

Before arriving there, have you ever heard of the Central African Republic? Never.

The Central African Republic is one of the poorest countries in the world.

Armed conflict, political instability, and Russian mercenaries have also made it one of the most dangerous.

Eritrea native Zeina Gebrezahir is also stranded in Bangui.

I'm missing my family.

His American citizen wife and their five-year-old son live in Maryland.