Some interesting reading on CAN..https://www.stockhouse.com/columnists/2011/august/24/playing-the-country-game--staking-resource-rich-na SAN FRANCISCO – I play the country game.Until recently, staking resource-rich nations such as Ghana, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Sierra Leone, for starters, has been less of a country game and more of a crying game.Yes, Ghana has come a long way in a short time. Africa's longest-standing democracy has grown annual gold output to more than three million ounces yearly from half that a decade ago.Still, many of the prospectors for gold, diamonds, iron ore, bauxite and other resources in West and East Africa have waited years, even decades for success. Most are still waiting."You have to put in the years, it seems, and then some," says Sam Jonah, who led Ghana's Ashanti Goldfields through several decades of hardscrabble Ashanti Belt mining at Obuasi. Sir Sam Jonah's lifetime commitment to his home-grown employer garnered him the label "Africa's most successful black miner" and led to the multibillion-dollar merger of Ashanti and Anglogold (AU) in 2004.Years … and then some. It took Sam Jonah about five years to reduce Ashanti's debt load to less than $150 million by 2003 from $700 million. Several of those years were low ball gold droughts of $300 and $400 prices.Andy Lee Smith, founder and head of Canaco Resources (TSX: V.CAN, Stock Forum) in Tanzania, uses that familiar line, "It's taken me seven years to become an overnight success." He still gets a laugh with the line. (But then, so does Arthur "Rick" Rule.)Looking back, 55-year-old Mr. Smith, a geologist, acknowledges there was little to laugh about at the time. Especially when Canaco came within days of sinking in the storm of tears that anyone with a cash-starved public company now calls, simply "oh-8." (Photo: Andy Smith and corporate relations director Meghan Brown – Thom Calandra photo)Canaco, thanks to China engineers and executives at Beijing's SinoTech Institute of Mineral Exploration and a wad of Hong Kong cash, steadied the ship, then motor-boated in 2010 with its Magambazi gold (copper and silver) prospect in the Handeni district. That's some five hours' drive northwest of Dar es Salaam. (Photo: Tanzania family washing clothes near the Handeni – Thom Calandra photo)It's true; great success – "we hit on our first hole," says Mr. Smith about Magambazi (which I have seen) – has not shielded Canaco's investors from the slide in metals equities that began April 1 of this year. The Canada-traded CAN shares were worth more than $1 billion in early 2011.Now, even with what looks like a potent Ethiopia spinoff in the trading wings of the Toronto Stock Exchange, Canaco's shares are worth less than half that billion-plus today. Fortunate for Vancouver-based Canaco that Mr. Smith and his board secured equity financing in a "bought" transaction that grossed about $120 million Canadian for the company and $43 million for China shareholder SinoTech.Canaco, and a handful of other Africa companies, have used that fortunate late-winter 2011 timing and the cash it brought to launch brisk exploration programs. In the case of Canaco, the Handeni property in eastern Tanzania and Magambazi's one-kilometre-strike length are scheduled in coming months for one of the continent's largest drill workouts: 200,000 metres through June 2012."That's at least seven rigs, maybe more, and a whole lot of food in the kitchen," says Mr. Smith.As for the crying game, well, I can tell you that as a shareholder in natural resources and in several West Africa and East Africa companies, the months since April 1 have damaged my ducts. A lot of crying. Figuratively.Thus, (prepare for a long sentence folks) even as nations such as Ghana, and Sierra Leone and Mali and Tanzania add to their annual production of resources (including potash and fertilizer materials); and even as mining and interior ministers improve their monitoring of lethal and illegal gold mining practices; and even as those nations' assay labs (especially in Ghana) accelerate their processing speeds; even with all of the positive headlines, nearly every prospector in these regions are seeing their public worth shrivel.The ductless gameThe country game's ductless side, as in no-tears, is probably the fact that most of the companies with excellent drill assays and vast properties in West and East Africa are holding their "summer sale" right now. In the stock market.I own Canaco, and I own looming spinoff Tigray Resources in Ethiopia. I was perhaps blessed to get most of my Canaco shares below the price of $3 in July and August.I also am a long-standing shareholder of Ghana's Xtra-Gold Resources (TSX: T.XTG, Stock Forum and OTC:BB: XTGR) and have visited Apapam and its other Kibi Gold Belt properties four times now. I now own, to be precise, 152,700 shares of Xtra-Gold purchased these past few years for myself and family.I own 35,600 shares of Canaco, at last count. Anyone who thinks I will sell any of these shares of "Africa Ltd." before a boatload more drill assays are published, and a few feasibility reports … and compliant resource statements, well, they can have their tear ducts examined.Now, if I told you how many shares of Bellhaven Copper & Gold (TSX: V.BHV, Stock Forum) I own in my other country game, Colombia, well, some of you would say I need to have my head examined. We'll see. Anyone who is a net seller in this resource equities market, or who says or implies I am a seller, can have their own portfolios examined.-- I will be visiting Colombia starting this weekend to see several properties: Colombia Crest (TSX: V.CLB, Stock Forum) at Venecia and Fredonia and Sunward Resources (TSX: V.SWD, Stock Forum) at Titiribi. I have seen both in one form or another and am refreshing my synapses. Both properties are in the Cauca River Valley that also is prospect central for Bellhaven Copper & Gold, a company whose shares I own (about 1.7 million shares). This is my 13th or 14th visit to Colombia. I also will be attending mining trade show Feria Minera in Medellin. I intend in September to see Golden Fame's (TSX: V.GFA, Stock Forum) newly-purchased property in beloved Guanajuato, Mexico. Guanajuato is a colonial hillside town with a subterranean chamber of tunnels for transportation and for mining. Great Panther Silver (AMEX: GPL and TSX: T.GPR, Stock Forum) and Endeavour Silver (TSX: T.EDR, Stock Forum and NYSE: EXK) both mine there. Finally, I offer this disclosure note, which is a reminder that I have vested interests via ownership of some mining stocks in this report and via my relationship with Torrey Hills Capital in San Diego, California. First off, I own shares of GPL and EXK. I own shares of BHV. I have researched and visited all of the properties linked to these companies. I own shares of Canaco and the looming Tigray Resources of Ethiopia, a Canaco spinoff. I own shares of Xtra-Gold Resources.