Hey geograpeeps!
Happy Labor Day for those of you in the US and I think some other countries.
I guess that means alot of you guys and subscribers have to go back to school!
You have to learn things!
And all that. I hated school as a kid.
Well, no, I didn't hate school. I hated homework.
Which is why I think Finland actually has probably one of the best
schooling/education programs, because they kinda ban homework.
But, I'm just saying.
But yeah, so as you guys know, we just finished the El Salvador video
and Flag Friday, so that means now, everytime after we finish 4 episodes,
we gotta take a little time off to research and work on the next 4 episodes.
But usually when I do that, I kinda leave the channel a little empty
and I don't really upload anything for a couple of weeks and then you guys get all nervous,
like, "ah what's going on?"
So, in the spirit of going back to school,
I figured, why don't I just kinda take you guys behind the scenes and show you how I do my reseach
and how I kinda of go about the process of making these videos - it takes alot of work.
So the first country we're doing is Equatorial Guinea.
Now, I don't really know alot about this country.
I know that it's the only Spanish-speaking country in Africa.
I know that the capital is on an island.
I think it's called "Bioco" or something.
I know that there's like something with oil in the country.
And that's about it. I don't really know anything else.
So come along, friends! And let's research together!
Or, you guys can just watch me do research.
Strap in tight guys, this is gonna be a fascinating journey.
So the very first thing I usually do is I read my emails that you guys, the geograpeeps,
send to me if you are from the countries that are coming up in the video series.
So as you can see, my email, there's a side bar
with a bunch of folders labelled with countries.
These are all folders of people that have contacted us from those countries
who watch the show, you guys, the geograpeeps
and typically when I need help, I click on one of the folders and I read whatever you guys send me
and I sometimes use that information in the videos.
For example, see here, this one is Denmark.
These people are all from Denmark, or they're Danish, or - I don't know, they're experts of Denmark.
By the way, shout out to Denmark for being the #1 video with the #1 views!
Yaahh!
As you can see, though, as I scroll down,
I only have one person that contacted me from Equatorial Guinea.
His name is Jordi. (rambles a bit about how he doesn't know how to pronounce Spanish names)
So when he emailed me, I like "YES! You are the first person from Equatorial Guinea and this is a huge honor, nice to meet you hahahaha."
And then I sent him a ton of questions.
And then he was like:
"Okay. I'll get back to you in the next 48 hours."
So, can't really do much with that. I gotta wait for him to send me some information.
So in the meantime -
So, one thing I do when I don't ahve anybody from the country I'm researching
to contact, is sometimes I usually just call up the embassy in Washington DC and ask them if they can help me.
It's typically the easiest way to get someone from that country.
So let's see if we can do that right now!
Alright... Washington D.C..... Embassy... Ah!
There we go. And here's the number.
Alright. Gonna call the embassy in Washington D.C.!
Alright, I'll put it on speaker.
"Hello and thanks for calling the embassy of Equatorial Guinea."
"If you know your party's extension, you may dial it now."
I don't know anybody.
"Remain on the line for operator assistance."
Okay, I'll wait. "Thank you for calling."
Alright, I'll wait on the line.
"You have reached the general company mailbox of the embassy of Equatorial Guinea."
"There's no one here to take your call right now."
"Please leave your name, number, and a brief message and somebody will return your call as soon as possible."
So it turns out I didn't realize the embassy is closed right now!
And it's frustrating because I live on the west coast and they're all the way on the east coast,
so there's a 3 hour time difference, so it's hard to coordinate. I forgot, it's not 5 PM over there,
it's - ah! - confusing.
So I guess now we're gonna have to do some
- personal research.
One source is really like to use is CIA World Factbook.
This is a pretty good one, because they kinda do a general overview on every facet of the country.
They do the background, the geography, the people, culture, and the economy, government, everything, so -
CIA World Factbook, let's go.
Alright, so here we are.
Equatorial Guinea. Yoo-hoo, yaa-haa.
Woo-hoo. Maps, flag, alright.
Ooh, I gotta write that down.
Background
"190 years of Spanish rule."
That's going in the script!
"Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo"
He made them do what?
That's another thing I learned. The first president of this country was pretty freaking crazy, like
I know a lot of dictators are crazy, but this guy was like sociopathic on another level.
He basically stole the entire treasury and put it in his house... he drove out a third of his entire country...
Murdering thousands of people. And then there was that incident were he went into the Mailbo Stadium and told his soldiers to dress -
That's a little too much!
I'm gonna save that for the episode.
You'll just have to wait and see what happens.
Okay, apparentally they are
one of the richest countries in Africa.
I wonder why...
Gotta love that oil money!
Making us rich until it dries out!
(chuckles) There's a tribe called the "Bubi."
Well, apparently they have this thing called the 2020 plan in which they're trying to diversify their economy
so that they're not completely dependent on oil.
All the Gulf countries are trying to do that too, but...
We'll see how that pans out.
What else can we find out?
Okay, so apparently this place is like a haven for primates - there's monkeys, there's mandrils
There's (?), (?), there's apes, there's gorillas.
Yet the national animal is the giraffe.
Tryin' to learn about the country!
Of Equatorial Guinea!
I have no rythmn or melody.
There's also the international pop star Anfibio who toured across Europe.
Who's also a cardiologist.
He's a pop star and he's a cardiologist.
Why not?
When they dance, they put white powder on th- what?
I gotta find an image of that.
Okay, you know what? Why don't we just watch some YouTube videos on Equatorial Guinea, shall we?
Okay, so let's see.
"Equatorial guinea..."
What's this video?
Okay, "Portrait of a Nation: Equatorial Guinea Part 1".
By maeci19087
Okay, that looks like it could probably be a little bit informative. Why not?
Okay. Oh yeah, there's a beach.
It's so lovely, and og, people carrying things on their heads.
We're working hard!
Everybody's laughing!!
Laughing, it's such a fun, happy time.
Jolly, jolly. Let's all tell jokes and be happy together.
And run and jog on the beach and play music.
Football, football, football.
¡Vamos a jugar fútbol! (Let’s play football!)
Sorry, my neighbors have dogs, it happens every day, I'm so annoyed by it sometimes.
Okay, so that was cool. Let's move on to another one.
Okay, here's one. It's called "Malabo-Equatorial guinea" By Arejo Kun.
Apparently also - I'm looking at the bottom corner,
it says timepro.tv. So I guess they're also affiliated with this somehow, but
it's on Arejo Kun's channel. So.. I'm just reviewing it.
Let's see what this is all about.
Looks pretty cool.
Ooh, okay, music.
Ooh, wow. I'm guessing that's Malabo, the capital, since the video's called Malabo.
I'm diggin' this music.
Driving, driving on the right side of the road.
I guess that's another fact I learned.
They drive on the right side.
Okay, I like this music, but is anybody gonna talk now, or?
Okay. Cool. Alright, I guess this whole video is just music and stock footage aerial view shots.
Nothing wrong with that! I'm just saying, you know -
Sometimes I prefer people talking and learning what's going on IN these shots, but you know..
Whatever. Okay, what's this video? "Equatorial Guinea - the Gateway to Africa" in English.
Oh, okay, so atleast I know someone's gonna be speaking in this video.
It's by GLTV/Global Television.
Ugh! This video's like 23 minutes long, uh.
I mean, I'll watch it. But I'm not gonna put you guys through the torture of watching me watch it.
[23 minutes later]
Okay, so I just finished watching it
and that was actually a pretty good documentary.
It's all about oil, oil, oil, oil, OIL!
So I guess the biggest things I'm taking away from all this research is that
it's a country that speaks Spanish, they're heavy on oil,
and it has a crazy past.
But they're still trying to make things better.
But there's still some controversey.
And people are very artistic.
And I don't know, I'll figure out the rest.
Well that was fun, hope you guys enjoyed watching me
...research.
Cause that's totally a thing that's
...that people love doing.
Watching people research.
No but seriously, I gotta a lot of good stuff.
I wrote it in the script.
Now I just gotta piece everything together.
And it should be ready to go and when we film
maybe this week, so Equatorial Guinea, I think I'll do the country proud.
And then when that guy e-mails me he's gonna tell me everything the complete opposite of everything I just researched.
But I think I did pretty well for myself in my own research, so -
We'll see. Equatorial Guinea, get ready.
Alright, next is gonna be Eritrea.
Stay tuned.