tigritude is dead !

Zanzibar

2010-07-25T19:14:00.000+03:00

Zanzibar Sights and Sounds from Louis Majanja on Vimeo.

sights and sounds of Zanzibar

Georgetown, Guyana Pt I & Trinidad Airport

2010-06-20T12:31:00.000+03:00

After a weekend on Ilha do Marajo, it was time to leave Brasil, having been in Brasil for two months and travelled the length and breadth of that huge country. From Belem i booked a flight on a small airline called Voemeta that flies mostly through the Amazon, in Brazil and to Paramaribo,Suriname,French Guyana and Georgetown,Guyana. the flight from Belem to Georgetown took about 2 hours. we made a brief stop in Paramaribo to unload some passengers then it takes about 30 minutes to Georgetown.

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The Airport in Guyana is in a place called Timheri, which is about 25 minutes away from Georgetown.

Immigration and customs was a breeze, i was originally supposed to spend only a night in Georgetown so i got a transit visa - there is a familiarity about former British colonies, the order of the place the uniforms - the language all felt familiar. In a few minutes i was out and looking for a cab.

Outside the arrival gates were the familiar taxi drivers, but also there were other folks i dont if they were waiting for relatives but the kept waving at me, or looking at me like i was supposed to be looking out for them , gold chains,rings and fresh sneakers - seemed obvious they were waiting for details which i did not have.

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My taxi driver Jonesy, dropped me off at the my hotel - turns out Guyana is not quite inexpensive. On the way to the airport got a sneak preview of Guyana. Most houses are elevated as Guyana is prone to flooding. Somehow this has led to some quite elaborate mansions which you see on the way from the airport. I stayed at Sleepin International which is located downtown close to the parliament building - rates were about $50 USD a night which up until then was the most i had spent on accommodation. Once i checked in, put my bags a way took a shower and was out to explore the town.

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Georgetown is a relatively small city, there is a visible dutch influence on the architecture and canals .

but apart from that - the mix of India and Africa is quite visible, the streets, and style of commerce would fit in any East African city minus the dutch influence, down to the minibuses and touts. Mosques,churches and temples are common and people walking around trying to save you

In the evening as students get out of school - more familiarity the school uniforms,students carrying hockey sticks[field hockey]. One of the major landmarks downtown is the Starbroek Market,

the market is built right on the docks and a part of it is actually on the river., its made from wood, some really sturdy timber. There are lots of vendors outside the market selling all kinds of stuff.

cellphones,cellphone cables , fruits ,vegetables, mixtapes and Nigerian movies. Inside the building you have more fish and produce on sell - there is a warren of stalls. The Market also serves as a terminal for the river taxis which can take you across the river to the vreed en hoep terminal. I found a calm place above the streets get some food - roti and curry where i could relax and observer the streets and sip on some banks beer.

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I had an early flight, 5 am - check in time was 2am - so i went to bed early, i had arranged with jonesy the cab driver to drop me off at the airport. Back in the airport the check in process was quite slow which

went through custom search and questioning the was on the plane to Trinidad. I was looking forward to being in Trinidad - over the years i had attended various carnivals in the US - San Francisco and Miami and so it was only fitting that i go to Trinidad for the real thing. i had just been in Brazil and decided to skip the carnival in Brazil for Trinidad instead mostly because i had been in Brazil for 2 months and the pre carnival atmosphere in Brazil is a one month carnival in itself and Carnival in Brazil is quite expensive. Carnival in Trinidad is not cheap either but i had figured out a plan to stay on tobago and take a ferry for one of the Carnival days after which i was supposed to take another ferry to Venezuela.

So when, i walked to the immigration booth, and handed over my passport and gave the officer my elaborate plans he looked at me like i had just landed from the moon. He looked at my passport asked me some question then told me to step aside while he refers to hes boss. at first i didn't panic i figured i had looked at all the rules and everything was good - i figured maybe he just not used to my passport. One minuete became 10,20,30 minutes. Then an hour - lucky for me i had my laptop with skype so i started calling around friends of friends - nothing doing. After about 2 hours one of the immigration officers appeared and basically told me that i didn't meet the "standards" of admission into Trinidad and Tobago.

what to do ?

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Thing got a little complicated, based on some rules which i really don't understand well, if an airline flies you to a country which doesn't admit you its that airlines responsibility to send you back from whence [using the T&T officials word] you came from. But it was complicated since i needed a visa to be in Guyana it would mean that i would end up back in Brazil. Meanwhile i'm in an argument with airport and airline folks who want me to get on the next flight back im trying to explain to them i can't go back to Guyana - so i need time to book another ticket and re plan my trip which i do. I book a ticket from Guyana to Jamaica and then Jamaica from there re route my plans.

The security guard assigned to watch me wavers between being harsh and being nice at the same time, i basically told him im not a prisoner so he cant order me around, so we go back and for the between him trying to be friendly and trying to order me around the biggest issue was that he had a speech impediment - combine that with Trinidad patois and i couldn't understand a word he was saying. By this time it was late at night - dinner was KFC - KFC is huge in the Caribbean. As the crowds thinned out

i was left with another passenger who had not been admitted - A Nigerian national, coincidence maybe - he too did not meet the "standards" of admittance into Trinidad.

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Its late at night, at the airport im sitting at the airport with the Nigerian and 3 security guards, chopping it up. they all were interested in life in Africa and Nigerian movies - turns out Nigerian movies are really huge in Trinidad - we talk about many things, The Nigerian, i don't remember hes name starts telling us about he's adventures in South America, how he lived in Mexico and Venezuela and now lives in Sao Paulo - Turns out there used to be a large Nigerian population in Trinidad but because of some incidents they got deported to Venezuela, which didn't quite work out the way Trinidad intended. So i figured thats why the authorities there are wary of African nationals.

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My new friend at the airport made a living from fraud. Making fake US dollars then goes to the casinos in Suriname and changes the money for legit dollars.

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I slept at the airport, In the morning the airline informed me that they would put me up in a hotel and put me on the last flight back to Guyana. I was the airlines responsibility,they took me to this hotel, a third rate hotel close to airport, not your typical layover airport probably specifically built for my exact situation when i got there i found numerous folks from Guyana who apparently had to be flown back to Guyana.

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Later that night i was on the flight back to Guyana.

Places - Addis Ababa

2010-06-04T10:10:00.000+03:00

Addis Ababa - view from the backseat from Louis Majanja on Vimeo.

I was in Addis Ababa, and it rained almost every single day i was there. So i found myself spending a lot of time in the back seat of one of the lada taxis getting form one part of Addis to the next.

The background music is by Mulatu Astatke - wubi

People in Accra - Wanlov the Kubolor

2010-05-31T14:13:00.000+03:00

Wanlov the kubolor, Accra from Louis Majanja on Vimeo.

In Accra, i met Wanlov, a musician, rapper and actor. We hang out together and talked about he's past projects - the album Green card, Current project - coz ov moni [http://www.cozovmoni.com/]. a pidgin musical and future projects.

People in Accra - Unoma

2010-05-31T10:35:00.000+03:00

Unoma - Accra,Ghana from Louis Majanja on Vimeo.

In Accra, i met and talked to Unoma a photographer from Nigeria. Unoma was part of a project - Invisible borders[http://invisible-borders.blogspot.com/]
where a group of photographers was travelling from Lagos to Dakar and documenting the whole experience.

Marajo - PR,Brazil

2010-05-03T13:56:00.000+03:00

After getting back from Brasilia, i had about a weekend to burn in Belem before flying to Guyana. I decided to go check out Marajo which is an island in the Amazon delta about 3 hours on the river from Belem. I had been to Marajo before but i had only gone for a day trip - this time i decided to spend a weekend over there.

To get to Marajo you have to go down to the docks and book a ticket on one of the Amazon boats. Its a 3 hour boat ride, the boats are pretty big with 2 decks upstairs and downstairs, they have a bar and TV. I took the afternoon boat which was packed mainly with traders and people returning to visit family and a few travelers. Through the boat ride most folks were tuned to the TV as the Brazilian soccer season had just started - Brazil has many leagues each state has its own league then there is alos a national league - so it gets a little confusing to follow. At the back of the boat there was an impromptu party going on with some cerveja and somebody playing the guitar. But mostly people just sitting still and some laying down.

So after 3 hours on the river the boat pulls in to a small port called Camara, from Camara you have to take a minibus or moto taxi to a town called Salvatera. In Salvatera you wait for the ferry then cross over to Soure which is the main town in Marajo.

Ilha do Marajo is the size of Switzerland, this give you an idea of how big the Amazon River is as the island is located entirely on the river - some parts of the Amazon are so huge that you cant see either bank of the river it almost feels like sailing in the ocean. In Marajo you notice a couple of things most

people either ride a bicycle or motorbike and some even ride the buffaloes. everywhere you go you see buffaloes grazing freely - you can order buffalo meet at the restaurant, it tastes like beef but is a somewhat stringy.

By the time i got to Soure it was getting dark, so i got situated at my pousada, showered and got ready to check the nightlife out. The thing is in Brazil outside of Rio and Sao Paulo english is almost useless and then outside of the other cities even the basic Portuguese cant take you far. I had met some friends from Belem who at least spoke some better Portuguese than i, so we set out to to check the nightlife. Soure
had to major venues on opposite sides of town after asking around we figured out that one was the main
event and the other was the after party both places had big signs written "Casa de show"

So we set out for the first venue - when we got the there the packing lot was full and everyone was streaming in with there rides - the packing lot was full of bicycles and motorcycles. it was interesting to see people especially women streaming in on there bicycles all nicely dressed up. Some people rolled up 3 or 4 on a bike.

Before getting to this spot i thought i had seen the biggest sound systems in Colombia. The sound system in this venue was massive. i have been to outdoors events in stadiums and the sounds system in this clubs was stadium sound - huge and loud. they had like some sophisticated dj setup like 3 dj's in 3 different corners of the club so instead of switching dj's sharing the turntables they would just change the stage all of it seamless plus they had all this lighting effects none of which you would expect to find on an island in the middle of the Amazon. after about 1am the whole club decides to switch venues so everybody was leaving the club and going to the other Casa de show - the setup was similar
except they had alive band performing i cant remember the singers name but she had dancers and the crowd was going wild.

The next day got up had breakfast and then went to look for an ATM - turned out none of the ATM machines worked with my card. So i decided to use the little cash i had to buy a ticket back to Belem
rather than stay cashless on the island.

After 2 months in Brazil, i was off to the next country Guyana.

Brasilia

2010-04-23T20:27:00.001+03:00

After a few days in Belem, i decided to fly to Brasilia, the flight was about 3 hours departing shortly after midnight - I arrived in Brasilia very early and even from the design of the airport you can tell that Brasilia is very different city from most cities in Brazil. I found a cab to take me to my hostel and even in the dark i could notice the wide avenues and the long distances between places. I was in Brasilia mainly to handle some paperwork - get visas for certain countries. But in between i found time to check and out and enjoy the city.

Brasilia, is a huge spread out city with numerous satellite cities which are much less planned than the core city which is called the plano piloto - since the core city is shaped like a an aeroplane. walking around the core city, Its almost as though the city is a memorial to 3 individuals Juscelino Kubitschek, the President who ordered its construction, Oscar Niemeyer - the lead architect and Lucio Costa, the urban planner .

The plano piloto also feels like a huge college campus - everything is hyper organized,
everything has its sector, the hotel sector, the diplomatic sector, the government sector, the military sector etc - the hostel where i stayed was in the military sector close to the military headquarters.

Apart from the architecture, people in Brasilia dress very differently [coastal] from the other parts of Brazil - while in Rio, Sao Paulo, and Salvador, everyone seems to wear shorts and is generally less formal, in Brasilia you notice more formal dress - this probably because of the weather which is generally much cooler and less humid than the coastal areas - at least when i was there.

Brasilia, like most of the larger Brazilian cities has a brand new subways system - it feels new and the some of the trains still have the newish smell.

You can take the train to one of the numerous suburbs of Brasilia - Aguas Claras, Ceilandia, Sobrandinho etc which are much less tightly planned and controlled than Brasilia and which are huge construction sites Highrise apartments and condos coming up left right and right. Huge shopping malls, and i mean Huge shopping malls. If you are a shopping addict be careful about going to Brazil.

Culturally i didn't get to see much of the city and nightlife mainly, because of distances - unlike most Brazilian cities where you can just walk down the street and find a bar or wander into an entertainment district Brasilia requires you to know the specific location and sector you need to go - directions there are funny you use numbers preceded with a letter some like W3 sector 5 number XXX , its all probably makes sense there but for a visitor its a strange way to addresse locations.

Despite the hustles of getting around i was not deterred from going out, Together with a group of friends we found some Japanese restaurant that had some really good sushi, and then went out to drink in some neighborhood bar - Brasilia has some really nice, and expensive restaurants, this city is not cheap.

Brasilia was designed so that each neighborhood would be self contained, just to track back almost everyone in the core of Brasilia lives in an apartment or condo - all this apartments are divided into neighborhoods around a small shopping center, a church , and recreational club - all in a utopian way though it doesn't quite work out that way.

I liked and enjoyed Brasilia, some people i met absolutely hated it, After 5 days in Brasilia i flew back to Belem to catch my flight to Georgetown,Guyana

Places - Ilha do Marajo

2010-04-14T08:26:00.000+03:00

Ilha do Marajo from Louis Majanja on Vimeo.

Marajo is an Island located in the Amazon River. Marajo has a large herd of water buffalos. law enforcement on this Island ride water buffalos to get around. I talked to one of the officers to find out why they use water buffalos - Apparently the water buffalos are like SUV's the Island is quite swampy but the water buffaloes can go everywhere and they eat anything that humans eat hence low maintainance costs.

People in Havana, Cuba

2010-04-14T08:22:00.000+03:00

Havana - Afro Cuban Music from Louis Majanja on Vimeo.

In Havana i spent some time in callejon de hampel, talking to some of musicians there and learning about Cuban music - I was planning to return on Sunday when they have live performances but didnt make so only have an interview but without the matching live music.

Belem, Para

2010-04-08T09:41:00.000+03:00

In most guidebooks Belem, does not get mentioned as a destination, rather its where travelers embark on on boats to Manaus or disembark from up river excursions. By the time i got to Belem i had been in Brazil for almost 2 months - From Belem, i had planned to get on a boat and go up river to Manaus - but that would have taken about 5 days. The way those boats function is that you book a space on the boats then buy a hammock which is where you sleep. The though of beng a drift on the river for 5 days on a hammock with 200 other people did not sound so appealing. So i decided to stay in Belem and figure out how i would get back to Africa from there.

Belem, turned out to be one of my favorite cities in Brazil., full of parks and mango tree everywhere. the weather is tropical - it rains heavily everyday but not for long. The highlights of Belem are the cidade velha - the old city and the The Port and the Vero Peso market.

Belem, which is pronounced Belen - is quite a large city the downtown area has numerous residential
high rises which from the river appear somewhat like mini Manhattan from a distance. One of the most interesting activities to do in Belem , is to get up early and walk down to the docks and watch the unloading of produce brought in by boats fro the Amazon. All kinds of fish,herbs and produce are unloaded - buyers and seller haggling over the price of fish and baskets of acai lined up on the beach for buyers.

The food in Belem is somewhat different from other parts of Brazil. In the southern parts of Brazil acai is
normally eaten either as a desert sprinkled over fruits and granola or as an ice cream flavor. In Belem acai is the meal - eaten with chicken, acai in the bowl and chicken dipped into the acai .All over Belem you can find acai stores that process the acai berries in to the paste. Apart from acai some food i tried out various local foods and fishes which i cant even remember the names - Manicoba,Cupuacu and Guarana

I stayed in Belem for about a week in total with brief detours to Brasilia and Ilha do Marajo. While in Belem i found an airline that flies to Guyana. I decided to take the flight to Guyana and then from Guyana fly to Trinidad for Carnival then from Trinidad to Caracas where i would catch a plan to Spain and catch a connection to Africa - that was the plan. But first i had to go to Brasilia to get some visas.

Places - Olinda,Pernambuco

2010-04-01T13:59:00.000+03:00

Olinda,Pernambuco from Louis M on Vimeo.

Olinda, Pernambuco in Brazil, when i was their the town was preparing for Carnival - some street scenes and photos

Places - Salvador,Bahia

2010-04-01T13:10:00.000+03:00

Salvador,Bahia - Street Scenes from Louis M on Vimeo.
Salvador,Bahia scenes from Pelourinho the historic center of Salvador.

Places - Belem, Brazil

2010-03-28T12:48:00.000+03:00

Belem,Para - Street Scenes from Louis M on Vimeo.
Scenes from Belem, Brazil.

Belém is a city on the banks of the Amazon estuary, in the north of Brazil. It is the capital of the state of Pará. It is the entrance gate to the Amazon with a busy port Belém lies about 100 km upriver from the Atlantic Ocean. The river is the Pará, part of the greater Amazon River system

Road to Belem - Recife,Olinda,Fortaleza

2010-03-26T22:38:00.000+03:00

From Salvador my goal was to travel all the way to Belem, then from Belem take a boat up the Amazon to Manaus. In Salvador i met a few people who were planning to take a similar route, so we decided to try find a van which we could buy and sell it wen we got to our destination - great idea except we couldn't find an affordable Kombi that was close enough. having failed in that endeavor i decided to take the bus and head up north.

The plans was to head up to Recife, spend a day or so in Recife and Olinda the from Recife take a bus a to Fortaleza. Spend a day or two then get on another bus to Sao Luis spend another day or two then get to Belem,where i would either go up the Amazon River to Manaus or end the Brazilian segment of my trip. I had worked out different scenarios - one option was to go up the Amazon then from Manaus tale a bus to Boa Vista onto Venezuela to Caracas then cross to Trinidad for Carnival. The other option was to fly from Belem to Georgetown,Guyana and then to Trinidad then to Caracas to catch a flight to Europe then Africa.

I chose all the different stops for different reasons - some people like travelling to different beach locations others like wildlife, me i prefer experiencing different cultures especially urban culture and music. Recife and Olinda are famous for music - Maracatu and Frevo, Fortaleza is famous for Forro music. and Sao Luis, is the Capital of Brazilian reggae music and is a alos a center of unique afro brazilian culture with its unique variation of Candomble and capoeira. I made to all this cities except Sao Luis - after 16 hour bus rides you get to a point where you don't want to ever ride a bus and by the time i got to Fortaleza i could only stand one more bus ride. so i skipped Sao Luis.

View Brazil - Nordeste travels in a larger map

Recife,Pernambuco:

i took the night bus to Recife - it was one of the most comfortable buses i had been instead of having for seats across it had three unfortunately maybe because of the comfort 2 passengers were snoring in stereo
surround. I almost missed my bus because Salvador traffic can be quite crazy - i waited for a bus, the gave up and took a cab to the Rodoviaria.

Since i took the overnight bus, i did not get to see much of the terrain between Salvador and Recife - it was a 16hout bus ride so by 8 am in the morning we were approaching Recife. the outskirts of Recife are surrounded by Sugarcane plantations and i understand that Recife is the ethanol capital of Brazil. The Outskirts of Recife are quite swampy too - from the distance the skyline is visible. Recife is a huge city.

Recife is a huge city, after Sao Paulo i would say this was the most concrete jungle i had seen. Rio and Salvador are huge but dont come close to the rows upon rows of highrise buildings that you see in Recife. Also Recife is spread out and has numerous canals and islands. The area around Boa Viagem has numerous highrise and luxury apartments and shopping malls - Shopping Recife comes to mind. There is also an old town recife called Recife antigo which has all the old buildings which are undergoing restoration and gentrification.

Boa Viagem is a beautiful beach and there were numerous people along the beach, though not too many people were out deep in the water as the area is know for its sharks, however there were numerous people playing beach volleyball and footvolley. Compared to the beaches in Rio. Boa Viagem is quite
sedate. One of the most interesting things i experienced in Recife were the outdoor mobile restaurants. In the evening because its hot and humid people gather in parks where different vendors have setup shop with chairs where they serve dinner.

I stayed in recife for one night, i did not get to experience much of the culture there and moved on to Olinda which is a 20 minute bus ride away.

Olinda, Pernambuco

Olinda is a festve small town on the outskirts of Recife, somewhat a suburb. Its a small city with the designation of a UNESCO world heritage site. i was planning o stay here for one night but ended up staying for close to a week. When i gotto Olinda i somewhat ran out of money i had underestimated how much cash i had on hand - so i had to make arrangement to transfer money to my account in the meantime i found a Pousada where i would post up while i waited for some money.

When i got to Olinda the whole town was in Carnival mood, every night there would be Carnival practice, different groups, with different styles of music either Maracatu or Frevo.The Olinda Carnival is pretty famous and walking around town i saw many places for rent just for the carnival

What makes Olinda different form most other brazilian cities is the historical dutch influence. This is visible in the design of the churches, the dutch churches have one tower while the Portuguese built churches have two towers.

Olinda has a beach bordering the town - but its not really anything to write about, however at anytime f the day you will find people out there cooling themselves in the water , fishermen fishing in the shallow waters and people playing beach football.

I spent about 5 days in Olinda, and would recommend it to anyone but not for 5 days.when my funds came through, i got on the bus and headed for Fortaleza another 16 hour overnight bus ride away.

Fortaleza, Ceara

I don't particularly remember the drive to Fortaleza, i just remember pulling into the Rodoviaria the next morning and looking around for a taxi. I was tired and went to my hostel booked a room and slept for about an hour. One of the few things about travelling in Brazil, is that outside except for Rio and Sao Paulo - english for the most part is useless as a language and the further north you go the less foreign travelers you meet who could speak english to. So even though i heard picked up a little Portuguese by this time it was still difficult to communicate.

In Fortaleza, i had to decide wether i would go from Fortaleza to Sao Luis or skip Sao Luis and go straight from Fortaleza to Belem. Sao Luis was something like 22 hours away while Belem was more like 32 hours - but from Sao Luis. In the meantime after taking a nap i decided to explore the city.

I walked down to the Dragao do Mar - a cultural center with museums and various cultural activities
then walked down to Beira mar and then along Praia Iracema just to get a feel for the place - Fortaleza
is q huge tourist destination with a lot of tourist flying in directly from Europe. I didn't particularly like. Fortaleza so decided to head to Belem the next day - i think i would have liked it but after 2 months of travelling fatigue was setting in.

Fortaleza to Belem
From Fortaleza to Belem, is a 32 hour bus ride, having decided to skip Sao Luis on my itinerary i went to the Rodoviaria and booked my ticket. The bus was departing at about midday. Most long distance buses in Brazil are pretty comfortable but its important to pick where you seat, you dont want to be next to the toilet on a 32 hour bus ride, because things are bound to get stinky.

The route to Belem, passed through a lot of backcountry , through small towns and medium size cities - through the state of ceara and Maranhao - some parts of Ceara and Maranhao appeared quite dry and savannah like. then as you start approaching Belem it turns green and swampy

Salvador,Bahia

2010-03-26T16:55:00.000+03:00

Salvador:

From Rio de Janeiro to Salvador is a 29 hours bus ride. From Rio the bus ascended up a series of beautiful mountains and forests then the landscape changes and you start seeing coffee plantations - the plantations stretch for hundred's of kilometers coffee plantation and some cattle ranches - alongside small towns and hamlets through the state of Espirito do Santo and onto the state of Bahia.

After 14 hours on a bus all you care about is the destination - the landscape outside stops to matter you just want get to you destination. Even so the state of Bahia seems kind of arid - savannah like vegetation and rocky outcrops along the highway.

I stayed in Pelourinho, which is the old and historic center of Salvador, that is filled with tourist shops, boutiques hotels and restaurants and people trying to sell you all kinds of things from t-shirts to paintings to peanuts. The Pelourinho is filled with numerous antique Portuguese buildings, many restored and some in the process of being restored - A day in Pelourinho can be exhausting as you have to spend lots of energy fending of all kinds of salespeople and filtering out what is real and what is for show.

Every night in Pelourinho, especially Tuesday night the streets are filled with music - Bloco's parade through the streets, the most famous being Olodum and others include Filhos do Ghandy, Ile Aye and others like Kizumba. There are also many theaters that have live performances and on the steps of one the old churches you can catch a performance by Geronimo and he's band, whose style of music is somewhat reminiscent of afro-beat.

Salvador is also famous for the beaches and islands of the coast in the area. Most visitors, i noticed spend a day or two in the Pelourinho and then head out to one of the beaches - the most famous beach/island being Morro de Sao Paulo - i didn't visit Morro de sao paulo, mainly because i thought it was expensive - besides if i went to every famous beach in Brazil it would take me a lifetime. Instead i ended up at Praia do Flamengo for a day and then also went to Arembepe. There are other beaches at Ondina, Itapua, and Barra and many others outside of Salvador.

Outside of Pelourinho, Salvador is major metropolis - huge highways ,tall buildings - nice pedestrian overpasses, crazy traffic an dig shopping malls ,Iguatemi and Shopping Salvador are two huff shopping malls - the latter reputed to be the largest in South America. Just like is typical in most of Brazilian cities - you have the old city, then you have the parts that must have been developed between the 50's and 70's by the architecture and the fact that they are generally appear rundown though probably its the tropical rainfall probably makes building look older than they really are. Then you have the newer sections which are characterized by high-rise apartment buildings - many with glass and marble facades, new and large shopping malls.

Salvador is perhaps most famous as an Afro Brazilian cultural center. You can see the link between Africa and Brazil in many aspects of Salvador - compared to Rio and Sao Paulo. Salvador seems to have a higher black population, the music, the names of certain things and the religious practices.

Candomble, the mix of Catholicism and traditional and traditional Yoruba religion is quite strong and visible in many aspects of Bahian life. Capoeira - the martial art which is popular and famous in Salvador has its origin in Angola. Though the link between West Africa and Salvador has its origin in slavery - the links have extended beyond that era. In time some freed slaves from Salvador, many of them entrepreneurs moved back to West Africa - in some cases they formed the early middle class and some were involved in the independent struggles of the countries they settled - Nigeria,Togo,Benin and Ghana.

Brazilian and South American cities have churches as a primary feature of there landscape, Salvador is no exception. Salvador has numerous churches and cathedrals all with there unique history and designs
i dont remember all of them but one of the most famous is a a relatively small cathedral Igreja de Nossa Senhora do Bonfim [Our Lord of the Good End]. The church is the site of one of the biggest festival in Bahia - Festa do Bonfim. I left Salvador on the day before the festival.

All told i had a fabulous time in Salvador,met many people and made many friends i wish i stayed longer and hope to visit again.

People in Havana,Cuba

2010-03-17T16:16:00.000+03:00

Marcos Mayor - Almacene de San Jose from Louis M on Vimeo.
i met Marcos Mayor, at the Alamacene de San Jose - an artisan market on the docks of Havana. The art at this market is out of this world, been to many p;aces but i havent seen such great art work

People in Georgetown,Guyana

2010-03-17T16:13:00.000+03:00

Guyana - River Taxi from Louis M on Vimeo.

In Georgetown, next to Starbroek Market you can catch a river taxi that will take you across the demarara river to vreed n hoop. I stoped by and talked to one of the taxi operators

Rio: Part 4 - Copacabana,Ipanema,Barra Tijuca,Santa Theresa,Lapa

2010-03-17T14:08:00.000+03:00

You can't go to Rio without going to Copacabana. I went to Copacabana on the Sunday after Christmas .Copacabana is a long beach there was thousands of people mainly families on the beach, Sunday and Saturday are reserved for he beach in Brasil, everyone goes to the beach,and all the women where bikinis no matter how they look. On Copacabana people form impromptu colonies on the beach mostly based on the football teams - Flamengo, Vasco da Gamma, Botafogo- i think Famengo is the most popular team in Rio, since i saw more Flamengo flags [and jerseys, especially since they had just signed Adriano]

On Copacabana there is beach promenade which you can walk up and down the beach , the promenaded has various stalls and people selling drinks and food, merchandise etc. Also there were groups practicing for carnival making for an interesting mix. Going to Copacabana and swimming in Copacabana are two entirely different things personally i would swim there mostly because having stayed in Rio, in one f the hill i know the sewer system is not perfect and so when it rains - and it does rain heavily i'm sure all the dirt and sewerage flows right into the atlantic. But most people swim without any problems.

Rua Atlantic which is the street that lines the Copacabana, and is lined with all sorts of hotels. there ar e rows upon rows of hotels and condos - most people will tell you to walk with caution around Copacabana, but i personally didnt feel unsafe - i think if you use common sense and dont stand out in an obvious way you should be okay.

Further down form Copacabana past the fort is Ipanema, actually there is a continous stretch of beaches with a few breaks from Praia Vermellha at the foot Sugar loaf all the way to Barra Tijuca, but i didnt have the time to go to all of them. Ipanema appears to be slightly less crowded than Copacabana, or maybe i was there on the wrong day - and the area around Ipanema appears to be slightly more upscale though i didnt spend much time there so can't say much about it.

I had some friends i was supposed to visit in Tijuca which is in the southern part of Rio - Zona sul - its takes a while to get there from Catete, you need something like an hour if you take the combination of Subway and bus - Barra Tijuca is relatively new compared to the rest of Rio - tall apartment buildings mega shopping malls - there is shopping mall with a replica of the statue of liberty - Brazilian shopping malls are on a whole other level - i think the word shopping means mall, so in Barra there is mall called Shopping Barra, in every other city for example Salvador has Shopping Salvador,Shopping Recife, Shopping Belem etc.

On the way to Barra you pass by Rocinha which is supposed to be largest Favela in Rio - i was expecting to see a Favela the size of Kibera. Compared to Kibera Rocina is tiny and if Rocinha was in Nairobi it wouldn't even be called a slum. Rocinha is somewhat like Zimmerman in Nairobi except Rocinha is on the hill so it has a better view

Santa Theresa is supposed to be one of the oldest parts of Rio - to get ether you have to go up a hill - either by Kombi or Moto taxi - there is also an old train and some buses that go up there. I got off on the wrong turn so i ended up walking all the way up - there nice little shops and restaurants and interesting people. Un fortunately i accidentally deleted most of my Rio pictures.

Lapa for me has to be the most interesting part of Rio - in fact if you go to Rio just find a place in Lapa and kick it over there mostly go to Copacabana and Ipanema to see what the fuss is all about.But Lapa is the place to be - First of course you will be shocked when you get there during the day - The place look run down - seriously old buildings, faded facades. But at late in the afternoon into the evening the place starts to come alive. bars , restaurants , live music - some places play boss nova, but most places play samba, you can find hiphop if you want - but why would you come all the way to Rio for that ? Then there is people.

The first time i went to Lapa was a thursday it was raining heavily, it had been raining for almost 2 days in Rio. From Catete - where i was staying to Lapa is actually walking distance. but i decided to take a cab since you have to pass through some shaky areas. It was raining so i posted up at a small restaurant that was playing some slow samba and boss nova - gradually as the night wore on people started appearing defying the raining the streets were crowded - some spots are more established than others - i ended up at -Sacrilegio. The music there was out of this world - live samba, the place was packed lots of vapors. the thing with Samba is that its largely a sing along music and has famous compositions so when a good band is performing like it was at Sacrilegio - the crowd get totally into it, its almost as though the whole place is in a trance.

Thursday was packed, did some bar hopping - made a note to myself to come here on Saturday. If thursday was packed Saturday was a Carnival. The cab had to drop me a way before the arches - the traffic was crazy - human traffic was crazier - people walking up and down some people just sitting in the park next to the arches - stalls everywhere selling food and liquor - basically what most cities call carnivals is what Lapa is every Saturday - then music every little bar has a live band, numerous impromptu performances everywhere.

There is many things to do in Rio - going up to see Christ the Redeemer, going up, Pao de Azucar - all those things you have to be patient because you will be waiting in line for half the day especially if you go in December,January or February. For me the best part of Rio was hanging out in Lapa ,Tavares Bastos.

Rio: Part 3 - Tavares Bastos

2010-03-16T18:15:00.000+03:00

Tavares Bastos:

the Maze, where i stayed at is located in Tavares Bastos. - Tavares Bastos is a small favela located in Catete. Like most Favelas in Rio, Tavares Bastos is up a hill so to get there you need to either take one of the Kombis located at the foot of the hill or a Moto Taxi. the Kombis depart once they are full - so i ended up mostly taking the Moto Taxis since they depart immediately. To ascend the hill is $R2 and to descend is $R1.

I got to the Maze, on Christmas eve , which is a big festive night in Brazil - somebody was playing loud music and it sounded like there was a party going on - so i decided to go out and and find out where the party was - a few blocks outside he Maze, there was a crowd lounging on the outside with music coming from one of the houses. i knocked on the door and they let me up and even though my Portuguese was little to non existent - i was able to communicate and pretty soon i was partying with neighborhood. The dj - hes name was Joaquim also was the chef, running the grill, flipping the meat on the grill while beer was being passed around - the way the do it in a uniquely Brasilian way. The music was a mix of American 70's funk, Samba and Funkay - which is the Rio and Sao Paulo version of HipHop. Regarding the meat - Brasilians also have a unique way of eating roast meat, once the emat is read and cut, you take a piece and dip it in farofa, which a floury food made from manioc or corn meal - infact allmost all Brasilian arre served with a side of farofa. I think farofa is somewhat similar to gari from Nigeria. At around midnight the party somewhat came to a pause

and the sky was lit up with fireworks - the everyone went out going form door to door to hug there neighbors and taste some food

In Brazil, the process of drinking beer has it own ceremony and process. first the beer comes in huge bottles, probably 40 ounces but maybe bigger - beer here is served very cold in small glasses - one bottle is opened and poured and shared out - and so on and so forth until the beer runs out - the person who buys pours for everyone else. Also they have this jackets they put the beer in, to keep the beer cold.

Beer is big business in Brazil, the beer companies distribute branded fridges somewhat like how Pepsi and Coke have there branded fridges. You come across bars everywhere formal and informal. In the evening some people open up there garage pull out tables and start selling beer.

Even though Tavares Bastos is a Favela - it has all ranges of services and the people live average lifes i would venture to say that the quality life of people in this Favela is much better than that of many people who live in Projects in The US. There is electricity,modern plumbing,trash collection - the houses are modest and built close and it seems this houses are never completed - looks like there is a always a room to be added a new level, a verandah to be constructed.you have a warren of footpaths and mazes that lead to different parts of the neighborhood - this walkways are typically two arms lengths. I even saw a skyway linking 2 houses.

i was intrigued by the setup of Tavares Bastos, so inquired about its origins and land tenure, who owns the land how do people buy property and develop it etc. From what i gathered the area was a farm in the early 20th century, when the owner died the workers stayed on, and the population grew as the families expanded. Most houses are built vertically, a level is added as necessary so to build on an existing property you can by the rights to a roof and then build your unit there.

People in Havana,Cuba - Elias Aseff Alfonso

2010-03-15T20:05:00.000+03:00

Elias Aseff Alfonso from Louis M on Vimeo.

Brief elaboration by Elias Aseff Alfonso about Callejon de Hamel - Art and Afro Cuban religions.

Elias is a historian and an assistant to Salvador Gonzalez Escalona. who is responsible for the murals and sculptures on Callejon de hamel - a small street in Havana that is filled with painting and murals.

Elias here talks about the street,the art and its inspiration which mostly lies in afro cuban religion.

People in Kingston,Jamaica - Nadia Stanley

2010-03-15T20:04:00.000+03:00

Nadia Stanley - Stanley & Empress Boutique, Kingston,JA from Louis M on Vimeo.

In Kingston, i randomly met Stanley and her business partner Empress we talked about their fashion business and Kingston

Updates

2010-02-13T04:38:00.000+03:00

Its been a while, since i updated my blog - i actually have some blogs i wrote buy haven't posted because of poor connections, uploading pictures takes forever. Since my last update on Rio, i have been to Salvador,Bahia,Recife and Olinda in Pernambuco, Fortaleza in Ceara, Brasilia and Belem,Para all states in Brazil.
I am currently in Guyana - which was not on my original itinerary but im here from here i am planning to pass through Trinidad, hopefully catch a night of carnival - actually i have been to Trinidad but that's a long story. Then To Jamaica for a few days then to Caracas, venezuela to catch flight to Europe then to Africa.

Rio: Part 2 - The Maze

2010-01-21T21:22:00.000+03:00

The Maze:

In Rio i stayed at a place called the Maze, i was referred to it by a Zimbabwean i met in Sao Paulo. The Maze is private resident/bed and breakfast/performance space/ art gallery. The owner is Bob - a british expatriate who has lived in Brazil since the 70's and was formerly news correspondent.

The maze is truly a maze, you have doorways,spirals of stairways that lead to different parts of the house - the main living room is set next to a stage where every first friday there is a jazz performance - next the living area is a bar in the opposite direction the bar opens up in to a huge balcony that has views of the Sugarloaf mountain - there is large wooden table where breakfast is set every morning - a huge breakfast bread,tea coffee eggs ,fruits and Bob.

Bob has stories for days you van go on and on with conversations about life, about he's experience as a journalist and whatever else you want to talk about.

The maze is located on a hill in Tavares Bastos which is a small favela located in the neighborhood of Catete. in Rio, its been used as the location for numerous movies documentaries including the Incredible hulk , Snoop dog and Pharrell also made a famous music video here.

The Maze has numerous ensuite rooms but i chose to stay in the catacombs - i though i would never use the word. But the maize has a wing which has catacombs series of beds built into the walls from my room you could take some few steps that lead to a balcony that that had a view of the sugarloaf mountain, planes taking off and landing at the airport - ships arriving and departing from the port and activity in the neighborhood.

if you find yourself in Rio, this place i worth checking out.

Rio: Part 1 and 5

2010-01-21T20:55:00.000+03:00

From ilha Grande, the speedboat took about 40 minutes to get to Conceicao From where i picked a minibus to Rio - a 2 hour ride along BR-101.

From the outskirts of Rio, you can tell that Rio is less affluent than Sao Paulo. The outskirt has more worn out buildings. The core of the city has a lot of older building much more visible than you would find in Sao Paulo - Sao Paulo does have have old and historical building too - but its so huge that they get lost in the mix.

In all honesty Rio, on first loooks appears to be old and falling apart, worn out, crumbling ancient buildings, and dusty and fading building from the 50's to the 70's
the old building all seem to be covered in Graffiti - You drive past the Sambadrome you wont believe that is where they hold the annual Carnival extravaganza. Its funny because a lot of Brazilians have asked me if South Africa can hold the world cup successfully - then i met a South African who was wondering how Rio will manage to hold the Olympics. - Rio has a lot of work to do. A lot. Also i think the rain and tropical weather makes it harder to maintain buildings.

Once you get used the visuals after a day everything becomes normal. Sao Paulo knows how to hide it poverty - most of the Favelas in Sao Paulo are on the outskirts of town - out of sight probably out of mind. In Rio the Favelas are right there with all the nice areas. In Rio you also encounter a lot more people sleeping in the streets though i think there are just as many homeless people in San Francisco - people selling stuff on the side walk which i don't know if they have any value - used batteries, old magazines, tv remotes, old shoe - not shoes, just one side.

Of the big cities i have been to thus far, Sao Paulo is more European and Asian in composition, Salvador is markedly African,Rio is more mixed but also in Rio you encounter more class divisions - i found that in Rio speaking in English was more helpful in socializing than the little Portuguese i have learnt - But i'm only talking about some circles. The ordinary person on the streets is more excited to talk to you just because you are different - its normally goes this way somebody says Hi - "Bom dia " you reply "Bom id " shakes your hand and starts a monologue which you half understand pick up a few word here and there - to which you reply "sim" then he continues into the second monologue - to which you surrender and say "Nao falo Portuguese" he looks strangely at you and asks "voce Angolano ?" are you Angolan ? You reply " nao ", no , "Africa do sul ?" , you reply "Nao" - You then say " Queninano" he beams up and does some hand motion - indicating running - you nod your head to indicate yes - he give you and thumbs up and says "legal" - cool. Then goes into the third monologue points to the direction he was headed gives you a thumbs up and gets on he's way.

Brazil is known for class divisions, but i think that assessment is pretty unfair to an extent, yes there is poverty that is very visible but equally there is a large middle class. You also don't see people balling out of control - you don't see people driving luxury cars - maybe the keep them hidden,the only place i saw many luxury cars was in Foz and they all had Paraguayan license plates.

If you are black and you travel to Brazil, make sure you stay away from hotel lobbies unless you want to become angry for nothing, most people,will assume you work there or are the porter or the taxi driver they were waiting for. Then if you stay here long enough you start assuming the same thing.

People in Salvador - Ayanwale Ayo Olayanju

2010-01-15T13:30:00.000+03:00

Ayanwale Ayo Olayanju - Salvador,Bahia from Louis M on Vimeo.

In Salvador, i stopped by Casa da Nigeria - Nigeria House. where i met Ayo. Ayo is the liaison officer at Casa da Nigeria which houses an art gallery, a museum and also Yoruba classes. We sat down and he explained to me the mission of Casa da Nigeria - the relationship between Nigeria and Salvador.

Ayo is also a musician and later on i met him performing with the the kizumba bloco in the streets of Salvador.

ilha Grande

2010-01-10T00:01:00.000+03:00

About 2 hours north of Paraty is Angos do Reis, a small port town where you pick up a boat or ferry to go to Ilha Grande - The boat ride is approximately 2 hours we left at 1pm and got there a little after 3 - i mostly slept and had random conversations with people i met on the boat - most marveling at how far i had come from Kenya - which i think is closer than Australia but no one ask any Australian how far the had to travel - I also met someone from the Island of Reunion - now that is far - thats a French enclave off the east coast of Africa.

I didn't have any reservation i figured i could just walk around and find a place - which i dd., a small cozy hostel on the main street right in front of the docks. Its a small world, who do i meet here - some guy i met in Sao Paulo. 2 weeks earlier.
Anyway i dropped of my bags got situated and went to explore - i quickly figured out that i wasn't gonna stay here for long.

Ilha Grande is a beautiful island, with beautiful beaches and some history but it felts like more of the same like Paraty. Except being an island things get more expensive. I found some new friends From UK, Vermont and Canada - this Canadians and Australians are everywhere - we had some drinks and found some random party

One thing about Paraty is the cockroaches - those things are huge and they show up in random places like the beach - i swear i seen some cockroaches trying to lift a sandal. Also for the environmentalists i think Ilha Grande is a breeding ground fro some rare turtles - i was swimming on some beach when i saw a head that look like a snake head pop out the water - i headed back to the beach and got out the water - its only later when i was talking to somebody that they told me it must have been a turtle.

i left Ilha Grande first thing in the morning on a speed boat - and then got on a minibus that brought me out to Rio.

Paraty

2010-01-09T16:42:00.000+03:00

Paraty[parachi], how did i end up here ? I put a map on the ground and threw a dart and it landed on Paraty. Actually i was supposed to visit Ubatuba - i have a friend from Ubatuba so i figured i would go there just so can take a picture of the place and send it to them. However i couldn't find a hostel or the one hostel that comes up on Hostelworld has mostly positive review but there was one review that mentioned bed bugs - Yikes.

So i decided to skip Ubatuba - though the bus did pass through Ubatuba - Paraty was only 70km ahead. Paraty is a small town busting with a lot of activity - obviously tourism is a big part of the economy - there seemed to be many french tourists here but a majority of the visitors were Brazilians.

Paraty is historically significant town on Brazil, It was the Port from which most of the gold mined in Brazil was shipped out to Portugal, It was at the head of the Estrella Real which went all the way to Ouro Preto, in Minas Gerais where the mines were located. The Town itself still has most of the historical buildings intact churches, many of the old building have been converted in restaurants and boutiques as is common in most of this type of towns.

In the night there is a buzz of activity in the town, tables laid out in the streets, At the town square i saw a capoeira performance, but its mostly people just chilling and passing time. While on the way to Paraty i saw signs of a Quilombo. I tried to inquire if there are any tours and how to get there - Thats how i met Carlos Bernhard a local historian who maintains a blog about the history of Paraty especially the history of the african population - like many similar towns Paraty has its sordid past.

Outside and around Paraty, which is part of the costa verde - the coastline leading upto Rio - there are numerous islets and islands - rivers with waterfalls and hidden pools. Also some historic distilleries of Cachaca, Cachaca has its origin in Paraty - Cachaca,is the the basic ingredient of Capirinha - Cachaca is Brazilian rum.

I stayed in Paraty for 3 nights i had planned for only one,definitely worth a visit - next stop Ilha Grande

People in Rio de Janeiro - Imperio da Folia,

2010-01-05T21:35:00.000+03:00

A.R.B.C Imperio da Folio from Louis M on Vimeo.

I got to Rio on the 24th of December, I was staying in Tavares Bastos, which is a small favela located in Catete - Rio de janeiro. I ended hanging out with the folks of imperio da folia.

People in Paraty - Capoeira slideshow

2009-12-30T23:09:00.000+03:00

People in Sao Paulo - Thais

2009-12-30T23:07:00.000+03:00

Thais - Groupo Maracatu, Bloco de Pedra - Sao Paulo,BR from Louis M on Vimeo.

Foz do Iguazu,Itaipu,Cuidad del Este

2009-12-30T22:29:00.000+03:00

The original plan was for me to go to Iguazu, see the falls for a day then cross over to Argentina and then go down to Buenos Aires then fly to Rio for Christmas and New Year. However once i got here plans started changing - Brazil is huge and there is alot to see, flights at this time of the year are quite expensive everyone seems to be travelling.

To catch the bus i had to take the Sao Paulo metro to the Barra Funda station. The Terminal Rodoviaria - which is what they call bus terminals here is like a mini airport, bus companies have counters lined up, everything is orderly no pushing and shoving - You pay identify yourself and are given boarding pass complete with boarding platform number similar to airport gates.

The buses are pretty modern luxuriuous and semi luxurious depending on the distance and price one is going and willing to pay - some even have beds. The fare from Sao Paulo was about R$150 which is about US$80 - travel time on paper is 16hrs - Yikes.

I left Sao Paulo at about 10:30pm - here they use the 24hour clock btw: so that was at 22:00 hours so that i could get to Foz at a good hour in the morning - boarding was a breeze foudn my sit got comfortable - wasnt trying to fall asleep coz i still did not feel completely comfortable - coming from Kenya country buses are places you have to maintain attention at all times. But nature took its cause and i fell asleep, the buses put the AC on blast so it cold - the travellers here are experienced so people routinely get on the bus with a pillow and some kind of cover - i was in shorts,t-shirt and sandals freezing my ass to death..

When i woke up our bus was in a town called Londrinha, some passengers were disembarking and others boarding - i got out to take a look around and observe just in case somebody sneaks my bag out the cargo hold - obviously i was still carrying preconceived notions of public transportation in kenya and reading travel guides. The Bus stations here are all clean and elaborate and well maintained all the small towns have a Terminal Rodoviaria where all the long distance buses stop, I think there is also a separate police authority that is responsible for maintaining security for long distance and highway transportation. After londrinha, we passed through a Town called Maringa, the sun was now coming out - In Maringa, i was laughing to myself - i have a friend called Maringa, i bet he doesnt know there is town called Maringa in Brazil.

After Maringa i tried to stay awake so that i could catch a glimpse of the countryside, and the little towns - we were in the state of Parana. I generally have two comparisons of places based on where i have lived - In the US, and Kenya. When i was in Colombia i generally seemed to compare most things to Kenya because i saw a lot of similarities. In Brazil i seem to draw comparisons to the US - at least this part of Brazil - Parana state for some reason reminded me of Iowa and Nebraska - tropical versions that is - instead of acres and acres of corn, its acres and acres of Soya Beans - for miles and miles you see plantations of Soy , interspersed with Corn and the forest land and the occasional cattle ranch. - its not flat though, more like rolling hills.

The small towns here look well organized and tranquil, you don't see unwieldly amounts of trash - fairly maintained roads and people going about there business -unlike small towns in the US this towns seem to have better days ahead - there is a lot of youth, energy and commerce - Agriculture supply stores everywhere, silos etc. and the omni present cellphone stores and Banks, Itau,Bradesco,Banco do Brasil, Banco24horas. The big difference with American small towns is that there doesn't seem to be aggressive over planning - you know no real architectural standards and signage restrictions, color restrictions - things are random. and the occasional fruits stand pop up randomly and also motorcycle taxis.

As we got closer to Iguazu, the countryside starts getting more lush, more forest more green,and you start seeing signs advertising for hotels in Foz everywhere. I start paying attention so that i dont miss my stop - So when when we got Cascavale which is like 200km from Iguazu. I got of the bus coz i saw a big Iguazu sign - so i figured maybe that was my destination - i even said bye to my seat mates and other folks who we had been trying to make conversation with. _ i got of the bus and headed to the taxi rank and asked the first cab to drop me off at Bambu Hostel, he gave me a funny look - so i decide to get back to the terminal building and use the internet cafe to get the address - when i got back to the driver with the address he looked at me had a conference with the other drivers and told me it owuld run me something like R$250 - only then did i realize that i had dropped off early - my bus was already gone.

No need to panic, i inquired and found a small regional bus that was leaving, i got on the bus for R$20
i was back on the road - I got to Foz do Iguazu about 6pm - that is something like 18hrs of travel on a bus . Got to my hostel, got situated and went out to explore the town, get some food
------

Foz do Iguazu is a pretty modern town it appear affluent in some parts - complete with Pizza Hut, Mcdonalds and Subway. The population is pretty diverse too - the Middle eastern influence is pretty noticeable - there re many restaurants selling middle eastern food . It also has a large Chinese population - hence numerous chinese restaurants. Its hot and humid - lucky enough the hostel that i was staying at had a swimming pool.

Originally my plan was to get to Iguazu and see the falls - cataratas as they are called her and the proceed to Buenos Aires - However after 18 hours on a bus from Sao Paulo - there as no ways i was going to sit on another bus for that long in a new country learning new rules and languages - also it takes about 2 days to get a visa at the Argentine consulate in Iguazu.

I got up early, to catch an early bus to the park where the falls are located - the actual falls are located about 15 miles from the city of Foz do Iguazu. Once you get to the park, you pay the entrance fees then get on another bus that takes you to the various viewpoints - the view are gradual the fits stop is actually great - if you turned back at this point you will still feel like you saw a natural wonder - the tourists are many and everyone is taking pictures - me, i enjoy taking pictures of people taking pictures in places like this,and taking pictures for other people - when taking picture sometimes you have to find balance between enjoying the moment and snapping away - but i think i do find the balance.

The second stop on the bus is where the falls really come into view - the falls, are a pretty formidable phenomenon - i certainly felt that the 18 hours trip was worthwhile.

Later in the day, after getting back to the hostel and resting, i decide to take a little trip to Paraguay - Ciudad del Este is across the border from Iguazu - this area is at the confluence of 3 borders Argentina,Paraguay and Paraguay. Im not sure but i also think the the Falls are at the confluence of 2 major rivers the Parana and Itaipu rivers. There is a huge bridge that links Ciudad del Este to Foz do Iguazu. While Foz i somewhat organized and clean - Ciudad del Este even from a distance looks shabby and disorganized.

I picked up the bus infront of the Mcdonalds - the bus goes into Ciudad del este. Ciudad del este is somewhat of a freeport - Electronics are supposed to be dirt cheap - so many Brazilians cross the border to buy there electronics - i though the bus would stop at the border so i could get my passport stamped - but the bus proceeded ahead and i got of on theater side of the border on the man street. There are traders everywhere selling clothing and footwear and most of the shops selling electronic items, cellphones,cameras and stereos. - I was panicking alittle i tought i would get intp trouble when i returned to Brazil. In the meantime i walked around - i needed a microphone for my camera, a microphone or an adapter i bought a microphone but the adapter is the wrong size.

Ciudad del Este is an interesting place - one of the first alongside Foz that i have seen a mosque in South America. But apart from the electronics there is nothing to see here. If i had time and money i would have gone to Asuncion just for the fun of it.

Back to Brazil, i just walked back across the bridge didn't get inspected in Paraguay - so no stamp on my passport. On the other side i go a motorcycle taxi to drop me at my hostel, By now i ve been on numerous motorcycle taxis but this one was crazy fast - i just held my breath till i got there.

---
In Iguazu i also met up with other travelers and we decided to sample the culinary delights of the city - there are many churascarias in Foz, we found one which was highly recommended - Its pert much a buffet except the meat part where waiters with skewers of diffrents cuts and types of meet stop by and offer you whatever cut you want.

After the Churascaria we found another places called capriscaria -Perhaps it means a place where they serve or specialize in Capirinhas - the place seemed to be like the local TGIF - we tried different types of Capirinhas - my favorite is the Capirinha Maracuja - maracuja is passion fruit except the passion fruits in Brazil seem to be larger and yellow compared to the passion fruits i remember in Kenya which are purple when ripe. there was local band playing and everyone was was participating. i was alittle nervous because the place is a family restaurant but the security was tight you get searched like you going into a club - maybe shit is liable to jump off sometimes here but i couldn't tell from the crowd.

Next day was my bus back to Sao Paulo, i booked an early afternoon bus so i could get to Sao Paulo early since i was meant to meetup with some friends and head out to Ilha Grande. I had some time to spare so went off to see Itaipu.

Itaipu is currently the largest damn and power project - at least until the 3 gorges dam in China is complete. The Dam itself and power project is a massive engineering undertaking , i think it would excite any builder or engineer, but probably give an environmentalist a heart attack just comprehending the scale of environmental damage.

Sao Paulo

2009-12-14T04:38:00.000+03:00

Its been raining the whole day here its Sunday everything is shut so what better time to catch up on the blogging. It rains everyday in Sao Paulo for at least 10 minutes though today its has rained all day.

The flight from Bogota to Sao Paulo took about 5 hours - up and until then i thought highly of Avianca. Nothing was wrong with the flight except the plane was rather old it felts as though they dusted this old plan and pressed it into service - the plane was half empty so there choice of seats but because the plane was old you could not combine to seats so as to stretch your feet across.

Landing in Sao Paulo - the airport feels quite different from most airports i have been through in the US - the aesthetics are quite apart. The immigration procedure and check out process was a breeze, changed the few Colombian pesos i had left into real - actually got ripped off and then soon enough i was out in the street in Brazil.

The weather was nice, i expected it t be hotter but it was pleasant - surveying my surrounding i started noticing the different things about the country - different brands of cars, the buses are mostly European type of design - The aesthetics is different - yet many things are similar to the US. The drive from the airport took forever maybe like 2 hours i tried to look around to get a feel of the city, but i fell asleep and when i work up we were still in traffic - the horizon is filled with High rise building as far as the eye can see. New York is big - but Sao Paulo core is vast.

Im staying in a neighborhood called Ana Rosa, its seems to be a middle class or upper middle class neighborhood reminds me of Parklands in Nairobi or some parts of SF except there are obviously more highrises, Youths on skateboards up and down the streets sometimes i'm expecting someone to yell out - Hey dude. Most days i go to the corner store that sells food and order musarella and bottle of Brahma which they put in some kind of cooling vest - musarella is slice of pizza - that what they call it.Anyway i just chill at the corner store and watch the traffic and patterns of life here.

Im picking up a few Brazillian Portuguese words, enough to get by like hi,bye thanks how much does it cost etc. i think its gonna be awhile beore i start singing it. For me it sounds as though people sing rather than talk Been walking around and exploring the city - on foot and on teh subway. The Parque Ibirapuera is not to far from where i'm staying so i walked out there - its sort of equivalent to the central park in New York and houses the afro brasilian museum, a japanese garden an observatory. I stopped by the museum - problem for me is i like the idea of museums but get bored quick, though i liked the exhibition of pictures on the outside

Been to quite a number of places so far and checked out the nightlife, i heard about villa Madalena - which is one of the perfectures of Sao Paulo, i had met 2 south Africans and a Kenyan who are at the hostel - we took the subway. The thing is that the subway shuts down at 12 and reopens at 4am which means when you go out you have to stay out until the subway reopens. Villa Madalena is supposed to be some kind of Bohemian neighborhood wit live bands and bars - there was a lot of traffic auto and foot so it looked promising. One thing about brazilian clubs is the bureaucracy - its just too much of a hustle to get in first you get searched the they take you id and and give you a card with you name so that all drinks will be charged to that card. so when you go to the bar they charge drinks to that card - Sometimes you don't even know how much the drinks cost. on the way out you line up to pay your bill.

Anyway on Saturday we end up , at this club coz it was raining and we did not want to stand out in the rain, we get in and the band and the crowd seem to me as though they rehearsing for there American visa - hell the band sounded as though they were playing at some venue in Orange county, they even played some ska - orange county ska, mohawks and tight pants.

Previously in the day i was at a Mall, i had gone there with some South Africans i met who wanted to checkout a few things, Some huge mall that is attached to the one of the subway station - the foot traffic was crazy and the food court was huge just like the typical American Mall - McDonalds, actually they have a mini mcdonalds here that just sells ice cream and shakes - Sao Paulo is a very expensive

One of the best parts of travel is just sitting and watching the day go by in a new city talking to people and just taking in the sights - i'm doing plenty of that and nursing some minor melancholy.

So far Brazil to me seems to be a tropical version of the US - not similar but somewhat parallel to the US. But this city and country is huge and im going to be here for at least a month and a half.

Playa Blanca, Isla Baru - Colombia

2009-12-12T16:18:00.000+03:00

2009-12-10T17:05:00.000+03:00

Here is a short video and interview i did, In Cartagena. Its part of a series i have been making - People,In places and spaces

Ailin Calderon - Groupo La Revuelta from Louis M on Vimeo.

Bogota 12/08/09

2009-12-09T06:44:00.000+03:00

From Cartagena, Bogota feels like a whole other country - Bogota is cool, verging on chilly its high in the mountains at about 8600feet above sea level. So arriving from Cartagena you need to acclimatize yourself. As you approach Bogota from the air you notice the beautiful surrounding countryside - green with small with ploughed and unploughed farms and row and upon row of greenhouses - Similar perhaps to what you would see in Naivasha,Kenya.

I quickly found a taxi that took me to my hostel which is located in the historic center of Bogota - La Candelaria. The day i arrived in Bogota was the eve of a holiday - the feast of the immaculate conception though i am not sure if that is the correct name. I registered at my hostel stored my bags and stepped out to check out the town - since i only had 3 days in Bogota i had to make the most of it - After a few blocks i discovered i couldn't hack it, You probably need a whole day to acclimatize so i just went to the Plaza de bolivar and started taking picture and enjoying the sun, you know how it can be chilly and sunny at he same time and the sun feels just perfect - that's how it felt.

Around the Plaza de Bolivar - In Colombia there are statues of Bolivar everywhere, i suppose its because he is like the George Washington of Latin America, Always on a horse, with he's thin face. Anyway Around Plaza de bolivar are many Museums which are free so as i walked back to my hostel - which is up the hill, i wondered into a couple of the museums. Museo de Oro - Museum of Gold, Museo de Moneda - Museum of Money and Museo de Botero - Fernando Botero is one of the most famous painters and sculptors from Colombia - he is famous for hes sculptors and paintings of fat figurines.

Tuesday is holiday so everything was pretty much shutdown - Bogota is dead,or i have not met the right People, My hostel has no hot water - what ? in this cold weather. So i plot to move to another hostel - A Shower, in the morning, a hot shower in cold weather,is a necessity without it, i don't feel calibrated for the day so i started searching for a new place - found it. But first i had to take a little trip.

Cerro de Monseratte, is a church built above the mountains of Bogota, You have to take a cable car to go up the mountain. Tourists and Pilgrims are whom you meets when you get up there - Panoramic views of Bogota. The visit up there if worthwhile but in my mind i was thinking some of this Catholics were sadists and masochists to want to build a church that high up the mountain - religious faith and fervor is one phenomenon i have never quite understood or felt.

more later.

More Cartagena

2009-12-06T20:46:00.000+03:00

This town comes alive on Friday, the music gets louder more establishments are open there is a carnival atmosphere in the air. I have been spending a few days at my friends house in a neighborhood called Paraguay. The houses are modest with shops on every corner.

There is no bus system in Cartagena, but there are numerous taxis and ubiquitous motorbike taxis - typically it seems the motorbike taxis dominate transportation within the the neighborhoods so to go to work you may have to pickup a motorbike taxi to the main road and then take a regular cab or just take the bike all the way. I have seen donkeys and horses and even some pedicabs.

In the evening everybody is on the streets in the neighborhood - people pull out chairs into the streets and just chill, Kids playing soccer there are numerous neighborhood hangouts - general stores have chairs and umbrellas set out and people enjoying dinner.

The outdoor foord vendors are there in plenty from outdoor pizza - made right outside
and stuffed Arepas plus the ubiquitous bollo and yucca vendors. Oh and i forgot to mention loud music - everyone is trying to outdo everyone else - clearly Colombia is no Country for uptight folk.

On Saturday - we were sitting out in the evening when my friend decided that we need to go out shopping for some whisky - i thought we would just go down the street - but apparently there is secret whisky supply chain - there is a part of town where some women just sit with empty whisky bottles you stop there and negotiate on price - then they disappear into some alleys and come back with the selection. Anyway so here i was in a dodgy part of town riding on the back of a motorcycle carrying a bottle of whisky - in one hand my camera [i have a camera everywhere] on the other hand i have a bottle of whisky - but we had one more stop. We stopped at a grocery store and got some food - so i was on the back of the motorcycle, carrying whisky ,food and a camera - in Cartagena traffic - i think public transit sometimes is an act of faith you have to believe that everyone wants to get to the destination alive so noone will pull an irrational move.

Also i almost forgot to mention that Cartagena has this neighborhood called the bocagrande - Bocagrande is as if you transplanted Miami to Colombia [not excatly] but its full of highrise condos - American chains stores except for the narrow streets you could be in any American city.

On Sunday we headed to this place call La Bokilla [pronounced Bokiya] its a beach area with a hundreds of bar along the beach. Music loud but the loudest spot is where we were headed to to go check El Rey de Rocha - Sundays seems to be the climax of party weekend here. Typically, at least from what i have observed with my friends. People first go to one of the early evening parties this are typically sound system dj's who with there own unique way of playing music - then aftre that they head out to a regular club. Here i must mention something about South America and AC - some of this establishment have AC that will give you pneumonia - you step outside and its 95 degrees AC is like 40 degrees - not 75. I noticed that in Miami too.

It isn't all rough and ready in Cartagena, i went to some pretty nice establishments that had live music too. On Friday i attended a show that featured music from the Pacific coast of Colombia - Colombia is a very diverse Country - you really should visit if you can and look beyond the news.

I'm now in Bogota and it feels like a whole other country, let me discover

Cartagena 12/04/09

2009-11-25T23:21:00.000+03:00

The flight from Miami was uneventful, Actually i was one day late due to some misunderstanding with my travel agent. So i ended up spending an extra day in Miami. Cartagena is about 2 hours from Miami - i think they share a time zone if i'm not wrong. When you approach Cartagena the view is almost similar to what you see when you depart from Miami - tall high rise condos.

The only way i can describe the airport at Cartagena, is that is like the Long Beach airport but much simpler. The walk through the immigration and out to the street is a breeze. Now on the flight i made friends with one guy from Cartagena, he has a clothing store and flies to Miami to buy supplies - in my mind i was a little skeptical you know businessman,Miami,Colombia - but anyway we hit it off and he offered to drop me off at my hostel. I was happy because i didn't need to fend off any cab drivers.

When i stepped out the Terminal building i though for one second i had landed in Africa, everything looked familiar - skinny cops at the airport some skinny stray dogs walking around
the the neighborhood around the airport and the road downtown was filled with all kinds of traffic,human, taxis, donkeys,horses motorbike taxis all jostling for space on the road - this place even has Nairobi style matatus - complete with loud music,audacious designs and touts hanging from the door. Not to mention so many black folk - so when we stopped at centro which is the main market i felt like i had landed somewhere in Mombasa - with all the fruit sellers, stalls, human traffic and humidity.

---

The thing about Colombia is that security is a big deal - there are cops everywhere some heavily armed, most ride motorcycles - some ride two on a motorbike which never ceases to crack me up - reminds me of some skit that use to run on SNL or Mad TV years ago.

The neighborhood i'm staying at is appears dodgy - So this where all the low cost tourists stay people don't even bother to hustle you that much coz if you stay in this neighborhood you must be a low cost tourist. Somehow i have managed to strike a rapport with people in this neighborhood - when i step out the hostel there is always somebody shouting AFRICA! in an affectionate way. My spanish is not that great but it never ceases to amaze me that i somehow manage to carry on conversation in broken Spanish and broken English - its much easier to communicate in broken English than proper English.

---

Everyone one i met on the streets and knew i was from Africa kept telling me about Palenque - So i decided i would pay a visit. I looked around for a tour but couldn't find one. I went ahead and negotiated with a taxi driver about taking me there and bringing me back - so we set off to the country side driving through hills and swamps to Palenque. Palenque is a small pueblo - we pulled in to the town square and inquired about getting a tour - Now the thing about south America is that every town no matter how small has a square and a church in the square - Anyway we found somebody who was willing to give us a tour - he spoke Spanish which i dont really understand to well so i was recording it and hope to translate it when i get a chance. - In short San basillio de Palenque was a town founded by esacped slaves from Cartagena - Cartagena was a major slave trading port. The population of Palenque managed to preserve and have preserved there African heritage to this day and even teach the language in the local school.

But i'm not one who likes formalities somehow in the middle of the tour i convinced the guide that it was hot and we were better of having a drink at the local bar - so we set off for the bar and - and believe me they were playing Mbilia bel .

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Colombians love there music loud, at least in Cartagena and the surroundings - nobody skimps on sound every tiny bars have huge speakers - there is different types of music but ordinary folks live for Champeta - Champeta is basically 80's style Soukous and Mbaqanqa in Spanish with some addition of local sounds - if you walk around Cartagena you cant miss African music playing from random stereos in random stores - I came across a CD of some guy Peter Owino - who is Peter Owino. ? Benga sounds all over the place. Pepe kalle, Lokassa ya Mbongo, Mbilia Bel, Miriam Makeba. Diblo Dibala are big names in Cartagena.

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This place is not really a culinary paradise and i'm not a foody - i hear other parts of Colombia like Medellin are famous for the food, but the food is quite interesting my favorite is bollo and yucca with either fish or chicken. Bollo is basically cornmeal - ugali thats wrapped in banana leaves or corn husks to preserve it - you eat i just like you would it corn meal anywhere in Africa.
Bollo is interchangeable with Yucca which i cassava or Potatoes. I've eaten Bollo and Sierra (a type of fish) at the beach - somebody was hawking it in basket. I also ate it it on the side of the road on the way to Palenque.

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On Monday i fly out to Bogota, that is if i don't change my flight for the 3rd time. From Bogota i fly to Brazil, Landing in Sao Paulo. For all those that love postcards there is a link at the top of my blog send in your detail and i will try to send at least 10 postcards out. I have not seen any Cartagena postcards but i will look for them.

The Itinerary

2009-11-23T22:26:00.000+03:00

my original itinerary was as follows:

Miami,USA to Cartagena,Colombia
Bogota,Colombia to Lima,Peru
Lima,Peru to Santiago,Chile
Santiago,Chile to Buenos Aires,Argentina [overland ]
Buenos Aires, Argentina to Rio,Brazil
Salvador,Brazil to Lisbon,Portugal
Lisbon,Portugal to Casablanca,Morocco [via Spain and ferry to Maroc]
Casablanca,Morocco to Dakar,Senegal
Dakar,Senegal to Accra,Ghana
Accra,Ghana to Addis Ababa,Ethiopia
Addis Ababa,Ethiopia to Nairobi,Kenya
Nairobi,Kenya to Johannesburg,South Africa [world cup]
Johannesburg,South Africa to Nairobi,kenya

That was the original itinerary which is changing and will change to adapt to circumstances.

Right now the Peru,Chile and Argentina segments are uncertain,I am flying from Bogota to Sao Paulo,Brazil. I plan to be in and around Brazil for a month and a half
i may go to Argentina and Peru, if it makes sense - Brazil is a huge country so i plan to spend the first 3 weeks in the south east [Rio, Sao Paolo etc] and the last 3 weeks in the north east [Salvador] and maybe make brief detours to Brasilia to collect visas for the next leg.

Tickets - i bought my tickets in advance through Airtreks - a San Francisco travel agency that specializes in round the world air fares - tickets are cheaper than you would you imagine especially if you choose to travel to Asia and Europe.

2009-10-08T21:11:00.000+03:00

2009-09-12T02:53:00.000+03:00

Knaan freestyle for GetMziki from Louis Majanja on Vimeo.

In New York , with Knaan doing a drop GetMziki - Hmmm seemed to have a problem with G's and Z's

2009-09-12T02:48:00.000+03:00

Capleton Live - Reggae Rising 8/09 from Louis Majanja on Vimeo.

Reggae rising August 09 - the original fireman himself.

2009-09-10T04:10:00.000+03:00

Waikiki - next stop Miami, Jamaica, Colombia, Cuba ? who knows

2009-09-10T03:58:00.000+03:00

Maui, Road to Hana

2009-09-10T03:54:00.000+03:00

2009-09-10T03:27:00.000+03:00

Statue of King Kamehameha I.

Hawaiian Culture is strong in Hawaii - despite the massive tourist industry and corporate presence.

2009-09-10T03:18:00.000+03:00

More feral chickens, this time in Maui,

2009-09-06T11:34:00.000+03:00

wild chicken in Hawaii - on the beach

2009-08-08T18:55:00.000+03:00

2009-08-08T18:46:00.000+03:00

2009-08-08T18:35:00.000+03:00

Innovation paradox

2009-08-07T19:27:00.001+03:00

One thing about Africa, is that children in Africa are very innovative. They create toys from anything and everything from waster paper, waste plastic, old tires etc. But something happens when they become adults innovation seems to fizzle out. As kids we used to organize car races, football leagues, and tournaments without adult supervision or intervention and everything just worked. [maybe i'm romanticizing childhood].

In contrast, American kids buy all their toys from the stores, have all there games and sports organized and supervised by adults. But when they grow up Americans become innovative and organized - people are always building new toys adults form computer hobbyists, gearheadsnot to mention marketing and advertising proffesionals.

Why this divergence ?

2009-08-07T19:11:00.000+03:00

2009-08-05T23:29:00.000+03:00

Customer Service and Corruption

2009-08-04T23:28:00.000+03:00

Just reflecting on corruption - there are many studies about corruption,but i think one of the biggest drivers of corruption is the convenience factor. Some processes are just too inconvenient and nonsensical that you feel stupid following the proper procedures. I'm waiting for some paper work from Kenya and i feel like a fool having gone the legitimate route because everyone seems to know someone who can expedite the process for me - why cant the government let me bribe them for better speed and convenience rather than bribe someone else to do it for me. Maybe looking at corruption from a customer service point of view is one of the keys to reducing corruption in governement services.

2009-07-28T17:54:00.000+03:00

Economic progress, in capitalist society, means turmoil.
- Joseph A. Schumpeter

2009-07-20T04:51:00.000+03:00

2009-07-17T10:53:00.000+03:00

2009-07-17T10:48:00.000+03:00

Whats is wrong with this picture ?

2009-06-25T07:09:00.001+03:00

Tiered Internet pricing

2009-05-27T08:19:00.000+03:00

Tiered pricing for internet pricing for internet access is quite common in Kenya, i can make an argument for that type of pricing but let me choose to make a counter argument.

Tiered pricing at least for the consumer market, over the short term and medium term is retrogressive. The general argument is that those who use more of a resource should pay the most for it that makes some sense except the internet is more about people than bandwidth, the more people that are connected the more valuable it is.

As with most resources you will find that 20% of the users end up using 80% of the resources. But you will also find that out of that its also the 20% that creates most the content that creates the user experience, that creates the content that keeps the other 80% coming back. This kind of dynamics are common in life whether its music, whether its business - its just is the nature of human beings and technology does not change human nature.

Now, what tiered pricing does is it potentially shuts out many of the 20% and makes the internet a non viable creative avenue what this also does is create a differentiated user experience.
Using roads as an example - we don't have tiered roads. If the roads are bad,they are bad for everyone hence everyone will have an interest in there improvement or if there is a solution its will be a solution that the 80% will benefit from and the 20% who use the road more frequently will participate in.

Now one can argue about the same things vis a vis other utility services we pay for electricity based on usage, Fair enough but if you go back in time you will find that in the early days of electricity as a utility there was generally a flat fee its only overtime that the pay per use was introduced as people started using electricity for industrial purposes. The internet is still in its infancy so that what is needed is more users to reach critical mass only after that does tiered usage become a sensible option. And in any case the electricity model is not exactly a paragon that anyone should aspire to -under that model has taken almost 100 yrs to connect 1 million users

I think you could make the same argument for electricity and piped water there is a case for gaining critical mass first and then introducing tiered pricing after all utilities are not really normal businesses. They are special monopolies [even the ISPs in kenya] so its arguable that as part of the conditions of there license they should be mandated to serve as much of the population as possible.

Music and other things

2009-05-25T21:03:00.000+03:00

Over the years i have always found myself involved in the music business one way or another
for a while i used to do event promotion - But first and foremost i have always loved music regardless of genres

Many years ago i used to have a huge collection of CD's, until someone stole the whole collection, all 700+ of them and i mourned about it for like 5yrs, then rebuilt my collection when i was @ about 300. my apt was broken into and the collection gone. On the other hand i think it was all karma. You see, back in the day everyone had a Columbia house and BMG account basically when you signed up you got like 15 free CD's but you had to buy something like 8 CD's in a year. You also got something like 10 free CD's for everyone you signed up - long story short after signing up all my friends and running out friends to sign up i signed up a whole bunch of fake people and got a bunch of free CD's - Karma is a bitch.

There is nothing i hated more than CD-R's you know the funny thing sometimes it was easy to download and burn a CD but there is a part me that just liked waking up and looking at the original CD and artwork and liner notes. :) and showing of your CD collection. You know its not like you can brag about having 1000 CDR's of music.

But before CD-R's cassettes were big[and expensive] in Kenya i remember there was brand called TDK which was okay but you were the man if you had chrome tapes i think the brand was BASF or something. Anyway sometimes you would lend somebody a tape and because tape copies depreciate in quality people would make a copy and the open up the cassette and exchange the tape so that when you got back your tape you got back the copy not the original - Pure evil.

And the worst thing was when the stereo chewed your tape. So me, i never played my tapes on no dusty tape decks. But those day in which my tape got chewed thats was probably karma - for all my dads tapes that i recycled :)

Oh and i had this old school Datsun 280ZX back in the day - my tape got stuck in the player and i could not remove it , for like 1 year i had that one tape playing almost daily - but i loved it so now i know the words to this Album almost word for word - Too Short

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Summer is around the corner and i am trying to figure out which music festivals to attend
Sierra Nevada World Music Festival is coming up in June the lineup is ok and they have Femi Kuti so i am wavering whether i should check it out and skip reggae on the river or just see Femi Kuti when he comes to San Francisco and still go to Reggae on the river.

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Back to Music. I used to own many CD's and also some records too 45's and 12 inch Vinyl, matter of fact i had few dubplates, and a set of technic turntables - The whole digital phenomenon changed the game slightly i got rid of all my CD's and most of my 45's since they just take up space. But the Classic LP's i framed and now they are wall art. - i think its a good investment . you know if you know original bob marley albums in pristine condition sell for up to $200

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Speaking of the music business, i think the music business should emulate the church business. You know this famous evangelists like TD Jakes and Creflo dollar and all the rest are just spiritual artists with there fan base. so the biggest product is themselves. TD Jakes can't charge a fee for people to attend hes summons but because of hes charisma people give collections willfully and by products and attend events - A musician is just like a preacher he has to grow hes congregation - now let me kill this vibe coz i maybe hit by a rod of correction.
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in the mean time you can download and listen to some mixes here - still work in progress [sorry IE and Safari users] http://getmziki.com/mixtape/

Frivolous idea for the month - Instant maize meal

2009-05-21T21:52:00.000+03:00

Indulge me for a minute. Half the population in Africa probably eats some form of ugali, or corn meal as the staple food. I was wondering, how come someone has never or not yet figured out how to make something like cheap Instant Ugali - You know like Ramen. I think if somebody can figure that out not only will they be rich - but that would be revolutionary imagine for a second all the environmental effects [less tree cutting for firewood] and time saved fetching firewood, the back problems fetching firewood and health issue of indoor smoke.

You know long time ago, before i was even born, people used to physically grind maize, then they someone came up with the Posho mills, Later or concurrently came packaged maize meal. So i think Instant maize meal is the the final frontier.

Happy Frivolous day :)

Random Thoughts/Questions

2009-05-07T09:03:00.000+03:00

Can someone tell me whats up with USSD in Kenya ? Are there restrictions are is there anyone running private gateways . Why has it not caught on as platform to develop mobile applications as opposed to SMS .
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Is m-pesa a technology or a business process - I see it more as business process. I don't see what m-pesa does any different from what MoneyGram does except they have a mobile app. So basically all it takes for banks to start competing with m-pesa. is to install a USSD gateway add a few business processes and establish some partnerships and they are in business since USSD works with 99% of all GSM phones, even the old one and no special software or SIM configuration is required. I'm i missing something ?
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I am intrigued by how the mobile phone has revolutionized business in Africa, And how it has not revolutionized business - I think the voice aspect of the telephones capability has not yet been fully utilized - for example the fact that customers can make inquiries to businesses has that in anyway improved customer service ? or has there been growth in IVR systems to handle call volume and requests?
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- a while ago, before the world wide web was common, most retailers in the U.S. had catalogs and you were able to order stuff and have it billed to your telephone account.
- Anyone remember Telegrams which used to charge by the number of words like sms [snail txt]

Leapfrogging Technology - The Relational Database

2009-05-06T07:32:00.000+03:00

One of the exciting prospects of working with technology in Africa is the possibility and opportunity to leapfrog technologies. What comes to mind immediately is mobile phone technology which has allowed Africa to leapfrog copper land line technology.

A prime candidate for 'leapfrogging' in Africa especially is the relational database - That might sound strange considering the endurance of relational databases and their centrality to most application that power the web. The relational database has endured the onslaught of object oriented databases, XML databases but as with everything else a good idea yields to a better idea.

The beauty [or the ugly part depending on your pre disposition] of Africa is that in the big scheme of things there is not much legacy data to deal with, Most of the data out there is yet to be digitized and stored. So on a given a project you can mix and match technologies and persistence options to suit the need and not forcing everything to work with a relational database - and in many cases simple mobile applications are prime candidates for key value stores, and document databases.

A new set of persistent engines - name, value key stores, document databases and also content repositories are now viable replacements for relational databases.

Some of the options out there include:

- CouchDB
- MemcacheDB
- MongoDB

75% tax rate

2009-05-04T08:30:00.000+03:00

Recently i was looking around for a hoopty that i can ship to Kenya when i move. Seems like
you can get used cars from Japan for pretty cheap- that was until i saw the taxes customs and duties which add up to about 75% - And even though returning resident are allowed to import a car free of duties and taxes that generally does not include North American residents since left hand drive cars are not permitted.

Taxing anything @ 75% is just not justifiable at any level, its extortion really
even if the point is to support the local auto industry which does not exist - i mean GM Kenya is the size of a large dealership in the US. Looks to me like the government over taxes the ordinary person who buys this small cars so they can buy big cars for ministers. this is how the math adds up for me - if the average Japanese import is $5k the government collects $3750. So in order to provide an assistant minister for example an entry level the Government needs to rob/extort(choose your word) 10 ordinary car buyers

Maybe i am missing something here but 75% tax - can somebody explain or rationalize this for me,please.

I'm not yet discouraged

RESTful API's and SMS

2009-05-03T00:37:00.000+03:00

Here is something i'm toying with. i have bunch of applications that im working on right now most of those application are designed for the average interenet user in the US with unlimited bandwidth. However i need to modifying this applications to work in Africa. Most of the application are designed with RESTful architecture.

What i'm trying to do is to leverage the RESTful architecture to make my applications instantly SMS enabled.

Normally with REST applications you have patterns below:

http://example.com/locations/
http://example.com/locations/{location}

most REST application are designed to allow output of different so in mots cases i would be able to do something like this

http://example.com/locations.xml
http://example.com/locations/locationId.xml

for xml output

http://example.com/locations.json
http://example.com/locations/locationId.json

for json output

http://example.com/locations.html
http://example.com/locations/locationId.html

for html:

in some case some applications will take arguments so you will have this pattern

http://example.com/locations?type=rss/json/atom
http://example.com/locations/locationId?type=rss/json/atom

What i'm working is adding an interface that allows me to something similar with sms

http://example.com/locations.sms
http://example.com/locations/locationId.sms

or

http://example.com/locations?type=sms
http://example.com/locations/locationId?type=sms

For me that means that i have to make very few changes to my applications to make them SMS enabled . Of course SMS has its limitations especially the 164 character limitation, which you can work around. [Obviously you need an SMS gateway to intermediate requests between the cellphone and your application]

Chinatown Africa

2009-04-28T01:58:00.000+03:00

The web is dead, the future is the internet,In Africa

2009-04-16T00:37:00.000+03:00

Lately i seem to spend a lot of time thinking about the internet, the worldwide web, technology and Africa. I have a thought that crossed my mind hence the provocative title

Though the two words are often used interchangeably, the world wide web and the internet are two two different things. The web is a large set of interlinked hypertext documents that are accessed via the internet. The internet is a global network of interconnected computers.

Why would i say that web is dead in Africa - simply because there are not enough interlinked documents or resources on the African continent and hardly anyone is using those that are in Africa. So looking at the web from Africa the web probably looks more like a rope ladder that connects too the rest of the worldwide web.

The Internet on the other hand is thriving, where the cellphone goes the internet goes and the cellphone is everywhere. With that comes new ways to communicate, new ways to share and and new cultural norms and new ways to accumulate cultural capital and the economic capital that flows from it.

Ok , i lost my train of thought.

The Internet within , and the lost opportunity

2009-04-09T08:20:00.000+03:00

There is a lot of optimism about the internet in Kenya. Every conversation with anyone in technology seems to end with the refrain about the fiber optic cable landing in Kenya finally. I'm somewhat conflicted as an entrepreneur relocating to Kenya next year i would be more than happy to have cheap internet bandwidth.

On the contrary i see the latest development as a lost opportunity for Kenya, and Kenyan entrepreneurs. How? Why ? The internet is a medium, just like any medium,the internet has a culture so just as much as any language and culture using the internet and developing applications for the internet requires that one accept certain cultural norms and practices. popular online application such as Facebook and Twitter are built based on certain cultural assumptions.

I think we have to look at bandwidth like any commodity,yes increased bandwidths opens up opportunities but it also opens up local businesses to global competition for example i have a business idea that i hope to launch next year for that i need servers but because bandwidth i will not be an issue the servers will be based in the US because there are better and cheaper hosting facilities and since bandwidth will not be an issue local hosting will not be an option. That just one lost opportunity for a local entrepreneur.

But the biggest loss is a cultural opportunity, Embracing the internet requires you to also embrace the culture, now there are efforts all over to localize and adapt
but for the most part this efforts don't go far, the internet cultural capital is North America a slow internet connection over time would have created a local internet sub culture and created local innovation, but now we are stuck with keeping up, with keeping up and adapting - We don't have to go far, India which is hailed as an example that Kenya would like to emulate, for all the skills and a capacity in that country when was the last time you used an application from India? Okay maybe the applications in the backend at your bank are built in India. but even the rules and the patterns of how those application are used and built are probably built in America

Another way to frame this issue, is what is this bandwidth for ? is it to import content or export content ? On the balance, are the gains in BPO better than the loses from importing content, what incentive is there for local producers to produce shows if most of the people have access too free content from Youtube ? Why invest in developing local software when i can have a hosted solution from the US ?. I don't have the answers for all this questions, but i only hear about BPO here, Bandwidth there etc etc.

Finally i would like to note one thing, One of the difference between American and African attitude towards technology is that the American culture embraces technology completely, like American use the internet like it will never disappear. African on the other hand are very skeptical of technology, technology is like a jacket you put on and take off. Reminds me of going to school in Kenya the syllabus in Kenya is very contradictory its like the system teaches to live in modern world but simultaneously teaches you to live in Stone Age - how do you explain having to go to a modern physics labs equipped with Geiger counters and other advanced devices. on the very same day going to class teaching you to cultivate maize and tomatoes - its like subtly preparing the class for Armageddon like all this advances will disappear.

So how do you innovate, when you are skeptical about the thing your trying to innovate on?

Democracy,Elections,Media - Africa

2009-04-03T09:38:00.000+03:00

let me throws some wood.

Being an African i seem to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to understand why elections have not had produced accountable good governments in Africa.And i'm not the only one - a waste of resources. Think of all the good things and better problems that all the people who think about good government could be dealing with.So i have tried to think about it from different angles.

Elections:
Elections exist for the purpose of choosing legislators whose primary responsibility is to make laws that govern the use of public funds i.e taxes. In Africa though, a large part of the population does not pay taxes or a large percentage of the taxes are paid by a small percentage of the population or sector of the economy - So from the very start there is a disconnect or rather an imbalance between the interests of the taxpayers and the interest of the voters.

Now just to give this issue perspective suffrage in most mature democracies was a gradual process. Until late in the 19th century suffrage was tied to property or weighted against taxes. Even relatively recently local government elections were tied to property and local tax issues. (And i'm not suggesting that we should go to such a system). The American revolution was partly about taxation without representation. So from its very foundation the American Republic was about taxation and representation.

In Africa by contrast we went straight from no suffrage to universal suffrage. From no taxation and no representation for the majority to representation with taxation for the majority. Because of the dissonance between the purpose of elections and the reasons for which we elect, elections in Africa are little more than beauty pageants.

Media:
In Africa local media is non existent. There is national media, though there is a growth in regional media but for the most part, there is no local media reporting daily on local issues, holding elected officials accountable regularly, there are no outlets for people to express themselves locally.

To put this in perspective imagine if in the US, the only source of news was the NY Times and CNN. Imagine if there was no Oakland Tribune, East Bay Express or KTVU to report on local issues. And if the only local news we got was through conversation and rumor.

Yet that is exactly the situation that exists in most African countries where at least there is a media and its free, let alone where there is no media. So yes we can have media freedom and other lofty goals, but first we have to have local media and by that i don't national local media i mean local local media.How is democracy meant to function when people are uninformed ?

Africa / Street Addresses / Geo Location Technology

2009-03-17T02:42:00.001+03:00

One of the great constraint of doing business or physical communications in Africa is the lack of Physical addresses. The lack of physical addresses for the great majority of the population excludes them from participation in e-commerce, complicates the issuance of credit and complicates law enforcement.

Of course there are advantages to this state of affairs especially if you intend to live like a hermit or an outlaw. But for the vast majority of the population the lack of a physical address system is a major constraint most streets and roads in Africa lack names and the naming conventions are equally haphazard

Enter Geo location technology, with GPS's systems increasingly affordable, together with triangulation technologies such as Skyhook, and browser location awareness. its becoming feasible to create a 21st century physical address system based on latitudes
and longitude that leapfrogs the traditional bureaucratic address system, Business and Individuals can voluntarily add themselves to the database and create some type of directory obviously some privacy safeguards and verification should be put in place. Also the system need to be open and not controlled by a narrow business entity.

As an example the coordinates for Nation House in Nairobi are (-1° 16' 59.48", +36° 49' 21.09") which is actually better information than is available on the companies website now obviously "-1° 16' 59.48", +36° 49' 21.09" is not easy to remember so i would suggest having a short hand way to represent that number somewhat like phone numbers or a combination numbers and letters. With the proliferation of Smart phones and Geo Location support in browsers and devices such as surface(imagine public digital map terminals) all one would need to find and verify an address would be type in the code and cross check across other database to verify a business or an individuals location.

Now this would be a task for the Information Utility that i described previously

The Internet is highly leveraged!

2009-03-11T06:28:00.000+03:00

Increasingly the internet seems to me to be resembling the financial system. In the financial system risks were moved from one part of the system to a shadowy financial system that few people understood. Also magnified was the leverage, for example the ability of someone to buy a million dollar home with little or no money down - How does that relate to the internet ?

Applications are more interconnected but rely on a few key providers for key information and services, Google and its API's, Amazon and its services, Ebay and Microsoft. Whole business models are being developed on the basis of services and API's provided by a few key players.

The result of this is that increasingly companies such as Google and Amazon will become to big to fail like AIG and Citigroup. Or if they fail the results could be as devastating as the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

just a quick thought.

The Information Utility

2009-02-24T07:23:00.000+03:00

A few months ago i attended a presentation by the ICT board of Kenya in San Jose, CA . First i thought it was commendable effort by the board to market Kenya as a destination (though i don't entirely get there strategy) but something is better than nothing. The whole encounter had me thinking about the relationship between information and technology and how the two relate in Africa - and all this in relation to the ICT board's objectives.

I see the relationship between information and technology as some kind of of pyramid somewhat like Maslow's hierarchy of needs. This how i look at it . At the bottom of the pyramid we have face to face communication which does not require any technology. Further up the ladder we have one to many communications which requires some technology for example TV and radio its simple but not interactive. further up we have person to person over distances where. this requires technology in the simplest forms we have letters and the postal system but more importantly now we have telephones and cellphones. At the top of the of the information pyramid are people communicating with machines to access information to make decisions. An example of this is using the internet and whatever devices to access information to make decisions or to satisfy a need, learning, entertainment etc.

So this brings me to the ICT board - first it seems to me that there is an emphasis on technology
and the infrastructure - which is good i might add, but the technology and infrastructure are means and tools to communicate and access information. So it seems to me that at the end of the day we might have the technology but not the information to use the technology.

Living in America there is so much information available that one does not think twice about how that information and the process of applying technology is seamless. In Africa on the other hand there is a lot of dead information technology wise - land records, birth records, public records,addresses, scientific records, locational information. As an example in the US if somebody calls me or gives me their phone number or address. without even knowing who i am talking to i can deduce so much information about the person the Zip code tells me where they live, from census data i can figure out there income group and an relate to other public information and figure out there consumption habits and if i was a businessman (or crook) tailor a product or service for them.

To organize and make all this information in Kenya for instance is a herculean task, it requires not just technology but a whole cultural shift which i doubt the government has the ability,political will and resources to undertake -- hence my suggestion for a an information utility.

An information utility will be a business who for a limited monopoly for a limited period of time
will be charged with collecting,managing and distributing public information in digital formats, in the form of websites, but mostly API's and web services. that would allow individuals, and businesses access this information to make informed decisions. examples of this data could be census data, law reports, meteorological data, economic data, physical planning data(maps etc), birth record(genealogical apps?), property records (real estate applications). the list is endless.
This utility would work under a regulatory framework that would be in charge of regulating privacy issues, public complaints etc.

Amazon is slowly becoming an information utility. Which makes me wonder if this is google's strategy in Africa ?

Democracy and the Individual

2009-02-07T04:28:00.000+03:00

A lot has been written about democracy in Kenya especially, as to why the democratic process
has not seemed to work, and why we have the political class that we have.

In my opinion the problem comes from the fact that our democracy revolves around the group and not the individual , power is gained not by convincing the individual about what "i can do for you as an individual" but what i can do for "us". This line of thought extends to all spheres of Kenyan life. In fact Kenyan or for that matter African culture is fiercely anti individual. So power in Kenya at all levels. In government or civil society flows to the person best able to manipulate group dynamics the result of this is that most government policies and solutions and investments are designed to please the group but do nothing for the individual.

I submit that in order to have a better democracy and a better economy we need to focus on the individual, put the individual front and center.

me, now not us tomorrow.

Served or Robbed ?

2008-10-17T08:35:00.000+03:00

The sign and menu said:

The receipt:

$4.25 for an omelet, $4.75 for a cup of tea. now that is straight up jacking

South Beach, Miami Beach

2008-10-17T08:22:00.000+03:00

API's ,URL's and Search Engines

2008-07-30T07:11:00.000+03:00

URL's make the world world wide web what it is - they allow documents to link to each other and people to find documents. Search engines like Google index the web and rank documents partly based on how many times they link to and are linked to by other documents.

With the growth of web applications and the spread of API's, enabling applications to share data. I would imagine that with applications linking to each other someone would come up with an API search a logarithm that would for example rank which are the most important applications. So for example the engine would compare how many applications use the Twitter API or Facebooks API's and what the nature of those applications are . Which applications use, have, or hold the most important or trusted data etc.

Software developers modern day sharecroppers

2008-07-22T20:46:00.000+03:00

Tim Bray talks about developing Iphone applications and its similarities with sharecropping .
Thinking about the whole software devloping world all the large companies are trying to make us into sharecroppers - google with its API's. Facebook with it's API's and every other new company has a scheme to turn developers into sharecroppers. - Software sharecropper.

Music: BLKJKS

2008-06-28T20:41:00.000+03:00

I'm feeling this guys right now i think they will be huge the reminds me of the early Black Uhuru.

- checkout there blog
-More on the BLK JKS here

The Age of Speculation.

2008-06-06T21:02:00.000+03:00

Allan Greenspan wrote a book - The Age of Turbulence. I have not read the book though i plan to.
Personally i would call the period from 99' hence forth the age of speculation. Everything seems to to have a speculative value and everything seems driven by speculation. The Internet boom - that ideas on paper would transform into multi million dollar enterprises and upend existing business models and be worth a fortune. The real estate boom - the idea that land was running out in California, that values will keep appreciating @ 10,15.20% annually.

Now we have the commodities boom,Oil especially. The idea that oil is running out, China and India are growing faster. the worlds population is growing prosperous and eating more ice cream and beef. It all seems familiar. We maybe running out of oil, but are we running out of hydrocarbons ?

Is the price that we are paying for gas the real value of gas or is it the 'speculative' value. I don't know maybe someone can shed more light on this. Personally i will invest in water because we seem to be running out (even though the earths surface consists of something like 98% water).

interesting reading

Community

2008-05-06T00:38:00.000+03:00

This past weekend i attended a fund raising for an organization called CTC international -That is involved in improving communities in Africa by providing various services. The whole activity made me ponder the meaning of community from American perspective and from an African/Kenyan perspective.

My Observation is that in America the idea of community is closely linked to people who share space and resources. And when you talk of improving a community its generally talking about improving the public spaces and social services and providing jobs for people who live in that space. So in that sense community is static one can move from one community and to another and so there is common reference to the Oakland community, Berkeley community or Fruitvale community. So this may explain why people dont care to know who there neighbor is just as long as they are not blighting the neighborhood,playing loud music or being a nuisance.

On the other hand in Africa or Kenya the idea of community is closely linked to Kinship. When people talk about improving their community more often than not they are talking about improving the social standing and economic standing of there clan, tribe of kinship based community. So it rare to hear about The Nairobi community, the Eldoret community. people live in Nairobi,Mombasa or Eldoret but don't feel they necessarily belong to that community
. To me it explains why you may find neighborhoods that have mansions but poor roads and
or sewers or public parks or People living in modern high rises but still throwing the trash out the window.

Of course there are grey areas in between but thats just my observation. What are yours ?

On Power sharing - Lessons from Ancient Rome

2008-04-03T02:27:00.000+03:00

Joseph Wilson one of the drafters of the US constitution had this to say about power sharing

“To control the executive, you must unite it. One man will be more responsible than three. Three will contend among themselves till one becomes the master of his colleagues. In the triumvirates of Rome, first Caesar, then Augustus, are witnesses of this truth. The kings of Sparta and the consuls of Rome prove also the factious consequences of dividing the executive magistracy.”

The power sharing deal in Kenya creates a Principate, though with the proposed bloated cabinet of 44 or 34 we have a tribune. (derived originally from the representatives of the tribes (tribus) into which the Roman people were divided for military and voting purposes.) If you consider the structure of President, Vice President,Prime Minister and 2 deputies - Pentarchy. An example of which was witnessed in Cuba. But if you consider that the VP is essentially powerless. Then we have a Tetrachy - leadership of 4 people.

Is Ethos Daimon ?

2008-03-26T00:44:00.000+03:00

Is Character Destiny ? I just finished reading Heraclitus an essay by Salman Rushdie on the the ancient Greek Philosophers conclusions. the essay
is mainly about literary characters. But uses real life situations to disagree with Heraclitus using real life situations to quote the writer - ' poverty is destiny,war is destiny,ancient ethnic tribal and religious hatreds are destiny, a bomb on a bus or in a market square are destiny........and character just has to take its place on the list.'

But if character is indeed destiny. How does the character of rulers shape the destiny of nations? How has George W. Bush's character shaped Americas
destiny. How will Barack Obama,Hillary Clinton or John McCain's character shape Americas destiny.

Newspapers,internet, and technology

2007-08-16T01:57:00.000+03:00

Searching for an apartment before the internet was an interesting experience.
First you bought the Sunday paper - then based on the neighborhood you desired. You circled a bunch of classified listings, wrote down the numbers and noted what streets. next your drove around and took a look at the neighborhood. then you narrowed down your list and headed back home (no cell phone) called the landlord and set an appointment then went to check it out. This whole process sometimes would take a couple of weeks - sometimes you had to take days of work to look for an apartment so sometimes it was worthwhile to just pay an apartment finder service to find you an apartment (do this still exist ?).

On reflection, newspapers were the websites or internet portals of years back - you could get a temporary website on this portal (newspapers) by posting advertisements, letters to the editor , obituaries or sell goods and services through the classifieds. In the US the newspaper business and associated media businesses that thrived on this and similar models are slowly dying and reinventing themselves.

Despite all this its somewhat bewildering that the media business, the business of newspapers,television and radio are experiencing somewhat of a renaissance in Africa. A friend narrated to me how in downtown in Nairobi there is a literary a long line of people waiting to place classified ads - its costs about $.50 to place an ad. - Are this the last kicks of a dying horse ?

Google just opened an office in Kenya

One Cell Phone Per Household

2007-06-12T20:32:00.000+03:00

As a somewhat techie i have been intrigued by the OLPC initiative. I think however One cell phone per household initiative would be more powerful. Not just for education but governance democracy and economic integration. the cellphone is portable and is a potential computer platform - i can picture having a docking station with keyboard mouse and monitor that turns a cellphone into a PC.

Hostage Businesses

2007-06-08T21:26:00.001+03:00

Its seems to me that large number of service based businesses profit from customer unhappiness _ seems to defy logic but that seems to be the predominant business model lately.

lets take for instance Bank of America - bank of america makes the largest amount of profit from fee income. fee income is largely what the bank charges you for making mistakes - like bouncing checks,overdrafts and other small customer missteps. Arguably i think banks nowadays design there systems to increase the likelihood of this happening. Still further this missteps bounced checks,overdrafts are most likely to happen if you live on the margins form check to check so arguably the banking system at least the consumer banking part of that business is designed to make as much money from the most vulnerable members of society. Then consider the fact that we have almost universal direct deposit.my conclusion is that banking is the new hostage business. Are you a hostage?

Cellphone business is another hostage business - another business that makes most of it money by penalizing customers for overages and hidden fees and charges and makes it expensive and impossible to switch carries. I can honestly say that i don't understand my cellphone bill and every time that i call or go to a store to have it adjusted my contract keeps getting extended and i still don't understand my bill. I'm sure the situation is the same with other cellphone companies
- why do they have to complicate a simple thing i just need to make and receive calls and maybe send text messages for a reasonable fee. but my cellphone has internet,TV, music which i did not even ask for. - The cellphone business (in America) is another hostage business. Are you a hostage?

Other hostage businesses are Comcast,24hourfitness,blockbuster video. this are all business that seem to profit from making you unhappy or from customer ignorance. The last honest service business is the utility business - i think at least PG&E sends me a simple bill and doesn't offer me 10 electricity using plans same with the water bill. i use water i pay for water, i use gas i pay for gas period.

Global Energy re-think

2007-06-07T03:04:00.000+03:00

The UN needs to organize a global energy conference perhaps to setup a united nations energy organization. Its becoming apparent at least to me that most countries especially industrialized countries mostly in the west, newly developed countries mostly in Asia and petroleum exporting countries mainly in the middle east and Africa are all pulling in different directions with grave consequences economic, environmental and political.

The west i.e US and Western Europe's energy policy is driven by maintaining current supplies(read middle east oil) and developing alternative ,efficient and eco friendly energy systems. This may involve switching to Biofuels as alternatives - with possible dangerous consequences to global food supplies and maintaining crony relationships with suspect governments.

In the East i.e you have China, India,Korea and Malaysia, which are trying to secure new sources of energy at all costs as a consequence we have potential ecological disasters as a result resulting from the building of huge dams, expansion of coal fired power plants and the undermining of democracy through unconditional support of dictatorial client states resulting in conflict.

On the other hand we have the energy surplus countries such as Angola, Nigeria, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Russia. This are states whose government i could argue have as there central interest the maintainance of high energy prices. As a consequence global political stability may not be in their best interest(at least in the short term) since instability results in higher prices and more income.

On the other extreme we have countries that are in neither of this categories but are forced to deal with the costs of high energy and political and ecological instability resulting from the quest to control energy supplies. As consequence of there energy insecurity this countries are forced to prospect for oil in ecologically fragile regions or pursue energy projects that are suspect.

Generally speaking its clear to me that development based on energy security or energy export is not a viable model.One countries energy advantage can only be gained at the expense of another. Thus far global energy policy is driven by selfish national interests.

My main concern is for Africa - there is a need to develop alternative energy infrastructures for example the use of inexpensive solar systems and possibly the development of fuel cells to power households. ultimately though countries need to sit down and together formulate win win energy policies that benefit all countries equally. For example instead of Kenya and Uganda developing dubious dams on the Nile and Tana respectively they could for instance invest in developing the Grand Inga instead of Kenya drilling for oil off its ecologically sensitive coast. Kenya can collaborate with southern Sudan to build linkages between the 2 countries. Instead of the US developing and subsidizing bio fuel development in the US - researching,developing and investing in alternative energy for India and Africa would perhaps yield a better return both economic and ecological through limiting future demand for oil

Africa: the missing supply chain

2007-06-07T00:52:00.000+03:00

All over Africa, in every market or town you will find artisans who make common household items such as metal boxes, furniture, shoes,pottery, clothes even toys. What is apparent is that the relationship of this artisans to there customers is a one to one relationship. For example, i need a new bed, i will pay a visit to the local carpenter who makes a bed customized for me, few days later the bed is delivered - i remember there was a street in Nairobi where you could get shoes customized to your tastes or you could actually bring a design from a magazine and the cobbler would replicate it. It was just not one person it was a whole street that had nothing but cobblers. Also next to that street there used to be a street that had nothing but tailors who could fit you with a custom suit,shirt,dress ,draperies etc.

What is intriguing is that no-one has seen it fit to integrate this various artisans into some kind of supply chain, i would think by now someone would have figured out how to first develop local brands around this common products (shoes, furniture, metal cases, charcoal cookers, clothes) apart from branding by now there should have been common standards such that if i bought a pair of shoes from market A i could buy a similar shoe with same dimensions in market B, further to this i should be able to find product A made by artisan in a local supermarket - unfortunately as it is local artisans are not yet linked well enough to even have their products in local supermarkets. for example if i go to a supermarket in Nairobi i could easily buy furniture from China, yet most likely the wood used to make that piece of furniture came from Africa.,yet i cannot buy locally made furniture at that very store. to buy local furniture requires a one on one relationship between buyer and seller.

The missing supply chain presents an opportunity for entrepreneurs and a challenge for policy makers by integrating artisans into the supply chain you move them from being mere jua kali artisans into contract manufacturers. from a public policy perspective you move this artisans from the informal sector into the formal sector . The risk is that without this integration there is a risk of loosing this talent all together - 20 years ago in Africa there were tailors in every market but with the advent of second hand clothes(and cheaper ready made clothes form china) and the supply chain to get them to remotest of villages - the skill and practice of tailoring is almost disappearing.

To consider the effect of supply chain integration. consider the case of China. The growth of China as an export giant has as much to do with the integration of small time artisans and manufacturers into the global market place as with any other factors.

Internationalization and Localization

2007-05-23T10:06:00.001+03:00

The past week i have been dealing with a couple of interesting bugs @ work relating to internationalizations and localization.

Specifically i was dealing with issue of handling commas in an application that consists of a suite of applications developed by developers all over the world. There is a difference in the the way commas and periods are used in numbers. in English(US)a dot is used for a decimal notation while in Spanish(spain) they use a comma. In English(US) 10.000 is represented as 10,000 in Spanish(Spain) .

This made me think about the situation of africa and kenya specifically, for example there is no standard kenyan english and im not sure if there is a standard for such things as numeric notations and dates. what about the issue of rounding off - do we round down or round up - This must cause a lot of dilemmas for software developers
and perhaps in future there maybe lawsuits around this issues. Whats the difference between 3/1/07and 1/3/07 are there codified rules on this? and how is a program meant to interpret such a figure in Kenya.

Anyway i went ahead and downloaded Microsoft's local language pack for Kiswahili and made screenshots, though i think they should have localized east african english first. Its still a step in the right direction.

MPESA - where is the API ?

2007-03-16T00:02:00.000+03:00

Safaricom kenyas leading wireless phone provider recently launched mpesa a money transfer service that allows you to send money to another subscriber using the your cellphone as long as their cellphone is mpesa enabled.

With approximately 6m subscribers Safaricom has a large enough subscriber base
that could potentially benefit from this service. However Safaricom should have released a public API that would allow developers to develop services and integrate this payment system into their ecommerce applications.

An MPESA API would allow for developers to build MPESA getaways to various other payment methods including credit cards and electronic transfers. This would allow Safaricom to benefit from the network effect

Other mobile payment solutions:
-textpayme
-paypal
-wizzit
-Obopay
-Celpay
-Smart Padala

Atlanta take II

2006-12-11T21:07:00.000+03:00

My Open Source Applications

2006-12-07T19:30:00.000+03:00

I just uploaded 3 applications to code.google.com . code.google.com is an open source code repository that is based on subversion. I'm not sure if Google code is meant to compete with SourceForge a similar and free code repository - but nevertheless Google made it very easy for me to upload and share my code.

i uploaded 3 applications, all are in different stages and need more work but my time is limited.

1.izikimusic:

this is an application i developed about 4 yrs ago. This application designed to support a custom music and download service. The application is designed to have
an online interface where user search,find and add songs to a compilation - which is added to a process which automates the creation of CD's which would be presumably be sent to the person who ordered the CD. - the application is/was supposed to be an alternative to downloads since not everyone has a computer and also since people need a place to store music outside of their computers or digital devices.

Actually this application was part of a business that did not really take off but maybe revisited.

2. Bluephobos :

This is was an image and video licensing application that i originally developed for a photographer friend of mine. This application was developed along the lines of Corbis
and Gettyimages though i aimed to integrate it so that it would work with file system so that
the administrator or photographer would not have to use a web interface to manage and add images.

The interesting thing about developing this application was understanding how images are licensed and managed

3. videofeed

This is an application i am currently working on. It still in the infant stage - this application is
meant to to create a video RSS server. Users will upload a video file for which they can designated a channel which will consist of an rss stream. This will allow you to stream your favorite channel into your rss reader. - now this video rss reader could be a TV set top box or a cellphone rss reader so with the right file formats this could be a web based distribution
channel.

Education,Software and Freedom.

2006-12-06T21:06:00.000+03:00

We have Eben Moglen (r)and Mathew Smalls(l) going at it on the stage here at the conference.
Mathew Smalls is the counsel for Blackboard and is trying to explain Blackboards position to the community. All i can say is that if i was in legal quandary the person i would wish to represent me is Eben Moglen (the chairman of the software freedom law center) - this guy obviously knows and understands the Law on intellectual property.

So what is the point, what is the need for collaborative education software. The roles of software in education is primarily to support teaching and learning. Individual face time with a teacher remains the best form of teaching but software exists to support this so that learning can begin before and after the actual teaching begins. This the same role a tool or machine fulfills it merely extends the reach of the human hand.

Back to Eben Moglen, Eben is professor of Law and Legal History at Columbia University. he clerked at the Supreme Court for Thurgood Marshall. that in itself is an impressive resume but beyond that he worked at IBM as a programmer analyst in the language research center - devekoping languages such as VSAPL, APL2, and Pascal. Quite a fellow this Mr Moglen.

Atlanta is cold !

2006-12-06T18:13:00.000+03:00

I am attending a conference in Atlanta, the Sakai Conference. Sakai is an online Collaboration and Learning Environment. Many users of Sakai deploy it to support teaching and learning, ad hoc group collaboration, support for portfolios and research collaboration.

Todays keynote speaker was Eben Moglen. The choice of speaker was purposeful since Sakai as a community is faced by the challenge of patents. Blackboard a commercial competitor recently received a patent for online learning and collaboration software. The Sakai community through the Software Freedom Law Center. is challenging this and has applied for a review of the patent application

Eben gave a profound presentation on the history of monopolies,intellectual property and patents. He touched on higher education and the role of patents mostly the negative role of patents on information technology and pharma.

Aside from this i had an opportunity to meet with developers from University of Cape Town and there is a meeting scheduled to talk about promoting Sakai in Africa. Also noteworthy is that the largest single sakai intsallation is at UNISA supporting more than 80,000 students.I have not really got a chance to walk around in Atlanta, what became of hotlanta because this place is really cold.

Before i forget to mention my role in the Sakai project has been as a developer on the Sakai Gradebook