Scott Brown election in Massachusetts got you down? (Or elated, as the case may be?) Here’s a light piece I did for GlobalPost about Obama’s continuing popularity in Kisumu, Kenya. Read it here. Check out the additional photos below.
 |
| Obama in Kisumu |
After reading this great little piece over at louder than swahili, I couldn’t resist posting this clip of me in a spontaneous dance-off at a Luhya wedding in Nairobi in December. We were all dancing in a group, then all of a sudden this guy came up to me and the crowd parted, and it was on.
I’ve always thought I could boogie when I needed to — I even got dubbed “Lil’ Turbo” as a four year-old by a band of roving breakdancers who stopped by hippie San Francisco preschool Rocky Mountain in 1985. But this clip definitively proves I am less of a dancer in real life than I am in my head. Continue reading
This was the subject of my just-published report from Kigali, appearing on GlobalPost.
KIGALI, Rwanda — If your last exposure to this East African country was the movie “Hotel Rwanda,” you have some catching up to do.
In the 15 years since the genocide of 1994 brought Rwanda international notoriety, the country has been on a development tear. It is orderly and calm; this year, the World Bank ranked it as the top pro-business reformer in the world.
Now, Rwanda is attempting to position itself on the cutting edge of tech in East Africa. There are plans — none completed so far — to provide a network of fiber optic cables, citywide WiFi in the capital, and one laptop for every child in the country by 2020.
As President Paul Kagame puts it in a statement on the Rwanda Development Board’s website, “In Africa, we have missed both the agricultural and industrial revolutions and in Rwanda we are determined to take full advantage of the digital revolution.”
Some foreigners in the capital scoff at the idea — Rwanda is a very poor country, and it’s still easier to get online in some neighboring countries.
But many other observers, both locally and internationally, think Rwanda may be on to something. Read more…
A sign at the Kigali Memorial Center
Let me first say that Rwanda is much more than its 1994 genocide. It’s been 15 years since that terrible violence tore the country asunder, and everyone agrees that the place has changed a lot. With his pro-business policies and development efforts, President Paul Kagame has gained the accolades of Western donors and diplomats (even though there have been strong criticisms from other quarters). Even if it has come at a price, stability reigns, at least superficially. My first impression stepping off the bus from Kampala in the Kigali bus station as the sun went down was that Rwanda is the tidiest, quietest country I’ve been to on this continent. All the motorcycle taxi (“moto”) drivers wear matching helmets and green safety vests. Things are clean (plastic bags are banned in Rwanda). Loud music does not blare, hawkers do not assault.
However, many people reading this blog entry – and many first time visitors too, including me – will be understandably preoccupied with the country’s bloody history when they hear the name “Rwanda.” Being there, I wanted to gain some insight into what happened. But in the end, I think I learned a lot more from reading books like Philip Gourevitch’s We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families and Mahmood Mamdani’s When Victims Become Killers than I did from actually spending ten days in the country. Continue reading
Between November 10 and December 5, I went on a road trip that took me from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania to Bujumbura, Burundi – via Nairobi, Kisumu, Kampala and Kigali. Hitting all five countries in the East African Community (EAC) in four weeks via bus is an endeavor I can only describe as ridiculous. I estimate that I logged more than 75 hours in buses; if someone could calculate the mileage for me, that would be awesome. (This is not counting at least 45 hours of trains and automobiles I undertook at the end of October, going from Dar es Salaam to Tanga to Mombasa, and then from Mombasa to Nairobi, and then back to Dar – see previous posts.)
For some reason, I’m going to start with Burundi, a country where I only spent three nights and didn’t do any real reporting. Burundi was basically my journey’s terminus, and maybe for that reason I can get a little sentimental about it. But for whatever reason, this beautiful, war-torn little country looms large in my mind. Continue reading
Here’s a different take on the Lunatic Line audio slideshow I did for GlobalPost.com.
 |
| Lunatic Express Black and White |
Apologies for the hiatus in blogging. I am on the road in the EAC (East African Community) with limited access to internet. Also not trying to put all my business on blast just at the moment. More interesting stuff soon, I promise!
Follow the tweets #ugandalug from this great tech conference in Kampala. Among the guests is Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who among other things invented the World Wide Web. He’s sitting about a foot away from me. Thank you, Sir.
This interesting little piece from NPR shows that the lions I wrote about in my Lunatic Line article (see previous post) probably ate only 35 people — not 135, as the guy who shot the lions claimed. That’s still a lot of people. Amazingly, scientists figured this out by analyzing the “carbon and nitrogen in [the lions’] teeth and hair.”
Check out my freshly published audio slideshow and article on the “Lunatic Line” from Mombasa to Nairobi in Kenya.
Eamon Kircher-Allen 