Latif's Studio

Latif is a local fashion designer whose studio in Kawempe (see post below) I was lucky enough to visit the other day. Here are the pictures.

No $100 Laptops

I took a boda to the taxi park, and then a taxi to Kawmpe, some kilometers outside of town beyond the Northern Bypass. I was far from town, far from anywhere I usually visit and the comforts of Kampala. I wandered through some peoples’ compound trying to find my friend’s place. I finally did, and some pictures. I wanted to give him a copy, so I whipped out my computer to take them off my camera’s memory card. I was sitting on the porch because I wanted to smoke a cigarette and all these kids walking down the road stopped in awe, “Laptop, Laptop,” they whispered until it became a louder and louder, almost chant.

I thought about how I had just blogged about the $100 computers on their way. But would these kids ever get computers? I can’t do anything about the fact that they don’t have a computer. I can feel bad, but that isn’t even productive. I’m not going to give away my computer, or stop using it out of guilt, or do much of anything – I can hope those $100 laptops work out.

I wish I could do something, and it makes me feel impotent that I can’t.

Who started tagging?

Does anyone know??? Would LOVE to have the answer....

I've Been Tagged: The Scarlett Lion Off the Record

1. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.

2. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.

3. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.

4. At the end of your blog post, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.

5. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

AND NOW....

1. I don’t like shoes and socks. My feet feel confined. I’ve always like wearing flip flops and sandals. The real reason I moved to Uganda was so that I could go without proper shoes and socks All. Year. Long. Every. Single. Day. I love it. That, and the avocados.

2. I really enjoyed watching 27^th, the ultimate Sinophile, macking on the Chinese girl who showed up for BHH. He was in his element. Plus, it kept us from arguing too much. The most interesting thing was the disconnect the girl felt from a dictator like Chairman Mao who probably starved her grandpa and 27^th saying NI-HAO! They got along well, as she practiced her English and 27 imagined what their children would look like. He promised to look at her blog, even though it’s in Chinese.

3. I’m glad I work for local media to have that experience, but I don’t plan to do that forever. I would like to get one of those fancy jobs one day.

4. Also at BHH, some told me that they thought the Scarlett Lion was a man. What to make of this? I thought the header was pretty girly, but then it occurred to me that it’s such a heavy graphic that maybe it doesn’t even load on some people’s computers. And maybe it isn’t even that girly. Anyway, here it is… (with Davey)

5. Nga obuze, you are lost. Ugandans know it: a common expression that they say even when they haven’t seen you in some few days. But someone once said it to me in a different way. You are lost, not you are lost you’ve been away, or you can’t find the way from one place to another, but you are lost here, in Africa, waiting to break a big news story to help you find your way, waiting for something or someone to anchor you in the process. It was true and not true. It hasn’t been one big story, but a series of small ones, mpola mpola, slowly by slowly. And then when the noise and chaos was so much I thought I was too lost to find my way, there was a punctuated quiet. And now if someone said to be nga obuze, I might say neda, but that would be true and not true. I’m waiting not for a better job, but to be a better writer. To live a more confident and adapted life here. But nga obuze? Neda, I’m finding my way.

6. I don’t just write and take pictures, I make jewelry. I scrapbook. I make collages. I do all sorts of projects. I’m not a sitter. I’m a do-er. I like having something in front of me that I’m engaged in.

7. Sometimes I think my friends at home have forgotten about me, but in some ways, I fear it’s my fault for not writing to them enough. I don’t know why I don’t do it more, I can make excuse after excuse, but I think of them all the time – and if any of you are reading this back in New York, or California, or wherever life has taken you – I miss you, and I think of you, and I mean to write you and I feel horrible for not writing and the more time that passes the worse I feel. I feel out of sight and out of mind. America feels a million miles away and coming home even in December so long from now. But life here feels enveloping and inexplicable to you who doesn’t live here and hasn’t been here, who only knows what can be known when the images in the media are so limited. It’s not that I miss things from home – milkshakes or scotch tape that actually sticks – I miss all of you. I miss being there for the life experiences that are making you who you are because when I get back there will be a part of you I won’t know, just like there will be part of me you won’t know. This one especially goes out to Zhanna, you’re in my thoughts dear, and I know a milkshake won’t erase time passed, but it will make things feel like we’re picking up where we left off. Okay, we probably won’t have a milkshake. We’ll probably have Thai food.

8. Lots of people ask me about the lion. I’ve done enough explaining here, so the lion, well, the lion’s the lion.


AND NOW...

TAGGING: David, Pernille, Kelly, Timothy, Ishta, Rebekah, Dennis,
Hannah.

Brain Drain? Of Course... No Jobs!

This article in the New Vision says there's a brain drain in Uganda, which is unsurprising to me, since there aren't many jobs for educated Ugandans just waiting to be filled.

UGANDA is among African countries most hit by 'brain drain', the emigration of skilled workers to rich countries. In 2000, one in five Ugandans who finished tertiary education, or 21.6%, left for greener pastures, according to the just released report of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

But I wrote this article, When the Ivory Tower Crumbles: Searching for a Job After Makerere, sometime back, that says this:

After you graduate from the Harvard of Africa, what are your options? In Uganda, not many, as 36.6 percent of recent graduates are unemployed - the highest rate of any sector of Ugandan society

Abby Nakkazi has a problem. “When I went to one interview they told me I was overqualified,” she says. “But at the next I didn’t get the required marks, the first marks.” Though she finished with second upper marks in her February 2007 Makerere graduating class, she hasn’t yet been able to find a job.

“I’m not discouraged,” says the bubbly 23-year-old. “I know one time I will get a job. If I get discouraged, it means there is no hope for me.” Hope is there: she has an interview tomorrow at 8:30 am, and plans to arrive at 8, dressed smartly, but not too smartly.

“My parents put a lot in me to earn my degree,” she says. She is bright, determined, enthusiastic and qualified. She is everything, that is, but employed. And she’s not alone. According to a study by the Uganda Bureau of Statistics entitled Labour Market Conditions, graduates of universities have the highest rate of unemployment of any sector of Ugandan society - registering at a huge 36.6 percent.

The New Vision article says there are some perks to the brain drain - namely remittances, which have gone up to about $500 million today, and have drastically strengthened the shilling.

However, this statistic, also from the NV article, is SHOCKING,

"In 2002, there were 175 Ugandan doctors living and practising in the US, compared to 722 in the whole of Uganda."

How many doctors are there in Uganda today? Spent a good amount of time googling and couldn't find any number more up to date than 2002, so we'll have to go with those numbers.

So all the Ugandan doctors leave Uganda to go the States, and then US medical students come here to learn medicine... hmmm... wonder what 27 has to say about that one....

Femi on Bono

From LA Weekly, the son of Fela Kuti, Femi Kuti speaks with the magazine:

What’s your take on Bono and concerts like Live 8 that campaign on behalf of Africa?

Bono doesn’t need to tell us that we are poor. We know we are poor. All these concerts come and go and nothing changes in Africa.

Computer Power!

According to this BBC article, production of $100 will soon go into about 1 million machines.

The XO is built to cope with the harsh and remote conditions found in areas where it may be used, such as the deserts of Libya or the mountains of Peru.

For example, it has a rugged, waterproof case and is as energy efficient as possible.

"The laptop needs an order of magnitude less power than a typical laptop," said Professor Bender. "That means you can power it by solar or human power."

Jumping Jacks????

Governments that sign up for the scheme can purchase solar, foot-pump or pull-string powered chargers for the laptop.

Okay, I knew that wouldn't really be viable, but I'm still excited.

This is my VERY favorite part of the article!

"We keep laptops in the oven at 50 degrees and they keep on running," said Professor Bender.

On a more serious note, Blackademics had this to say:

Some activists question the relevance of introducing laptop technology into countries that have other priorities such as electricity, clean water, health care, genocide and food.

It is difficult to ignore the incredible potential of the XO Laptop, but can it really help breach the digital divide? As we discovered in our July Interview with Firoze Manji, less than %2 of the African population has access to the Internet - and the speed of that Internet is still extremely slow. What good is a laptop (even a cheap one) while discrepancies in connection speeds and bandwidth still exist?

Here's my comment on their page:

I just spent two days in Luzira upper prison, in Kampala, Uganda, with prisoners condemned to the death penalty. They all said very different things, but each of them mentioned the fact that the prison had just gotten seven new computers. Forget the fact that they might die any day, or the fact that 1000 people shared the computers, or that they didn’t really know much about what to do with them yet, they knew it was part of the outside world infiltrating their walls.

I’m not saying by any means that prison and schools are the same, but poverty is certainly a kind of prison of exclusion. Kids want computers. They know other people have them, and they know that computers are one of the ways to learn how to fix bad water, treatable diseases, sensitize against genocide, or to one day make computers for everyone that aren’t just bandaids.

More on "Stop Trying to Save Africa"

Pernilla at I've Left Copenhagen for Uganda wrote a post a little, um, angrier than mine about the "Stop Trying to Save Africa" article. I'll just quote a bit here, but you can see the whole thing here.

But come on! - Iweala's argumentation is threadbare and his arrogance makes him speak on behalf of all Africans. Categorising them all in one go, as well as he does with the whole group of ex-pats trying to save Africa. No doubt that a change of the Western way of saving Africa is necesssary. No doubt that a lot of ex-pats, whatever reason they are in Africa for, can be a pain in the ass (I know some). But I also know a few Ugandans who would never put their feet in West Nile and Kampala youth who would never date a 'Northener' because of tradition and the history - and the image! The stereotypes and lack of information thrive within Uganda, Africa and among Africans. It is only Africans who are well off who can afford rejecting support to Africa. They cannot speak for the rest.

Refugees in Kampala

"Mzungu! Mzungu! You bring potio! You bring bread! We from Congo! We bring gold! We bring diamond! Mzungu!"

I was behind the Refugee Law Project, in Old Kampala, where a makeshift refugee camp had formed over the past some months. The Congolese ladies called out to me as if we were in a market making an exchange, casual, these things of equal value. As if I had potio in my pockets and they had gold and diamonds in theirs.

As if we could save each other.

Less than 1% of "Rwanda just like Singapore" is connected to the Internet

Though the NYTimes has run a few pieces saying most hospitals and schools were connected to the net, this piece seems most realistic...

But as of mid-July, only one-third of the 300 schools covered in Terracom’s contract had high-speed Internet service. All 300 were supposed to have been connected by 2006.

Over all, less than 1 percent of the population is connected to the Internet.

The piece goes on to detail how an American company seemed to have gone bad on its deal with the Rwandan government, and also couldn't really handle the unanticipated challenges of working here. But apparently they're back on track and trying to turn Rwanda into an information society. We'll see.

The Stop and Start of Saving Africa

From Stop Trying to Save Africa...

Last fall, shortly after I returned from Nigeria, I was accosted by a perky blond college student whose blue eyes seemed to match the "African" beads around her wrists.

"Save Darfur!" she shouted from behind a table covered with pamphlets urging students to TAKE ACTION NOW! STOP GENOCIDE IN DARFUR!

My aversion to college kids jumping onto fashionable social causes nearly caused me to walk on, but her next shout stopped me.

"Don't you want to help us save Africa?" she yelled.

It seems that these days, wracked by guilt at the humanitarian crisis it has created in the Middle East, the West has turned to Africa for redemption

I remember them. I wasn’t one of them, but sometimes I took the literature they were handing out.

I interact with the ones here now from time to time, the ones who fly in for a month or two and ask me where I’m from and how long I’m staying. Now that I'm here.

How can I answer that question when I can’t say I plan on going home anytime soon? (Mom and dad, I promise I’ll visit in December.)

Now that I'm here when I never thought I would end up here, because I had no intentions of saving anyone. I do what I can, when I can, but I’m never more aware of my limitations than when I’m trying to help.

They fly in for internships and fact-finding missions or to pick out children to adopt in much the same way my friends and I in New York take the subway to the pound to adopt stray dogs.

Some come here with the casual breeziness that you might lighten your step as you get on the subway, as I did, but I don't think many leave that way. And if they do, it's their fault. Their loss.

The article leaps from the microcosm of idealistic college kids without the means or understanding to save anything to the problems of how the media portrays Africa:

News reports constantly focus on the continent's corrupt leaders, warlords, "tribal" conflicts, child laborers, and women disfigured by abuse and genital mutilation. These descriptions run under headlines like "Can Bono Save Africa?" or "Will Brangelina Save Africa?" The relationship between the West and Africa is no longer based on openly racist beliefs, but such articles are reminiscent of reports from the heyday of European colonialism, when missionaries were sent to Africa to introduce us to education, Jesus Christ and "civilization."

It's true that these articles ring sour, but these articles aren't as much the problem as these:

How to Save Africa, in the New York Sun, a pretty respectable rag.

Saving Africa has rightly become a popular concern, uniting Bono and Bill Gates, Angelina Jolie and Pope Benedict XVI. Despairing of academic skepticism, the intellectual force of this movement, Jeffrey Sachs, appeals directly to the people promising $110 per head to end destitution and disease in Africa. Who could resist such a humanitarian bargain?

When did saving people become a bargain?

But don't worry, it gets worse.

Industrializing Africa is the only way to solve its poverty.

Really? Because I thought one solution couldn't really work for an entire continent.

Before the Industrial Revolution all societies were caught in the same Malthusian Trap that imprisons Africa today.

I thought we were done comparing pre-Industrial Europe and Africa....

The African environment has always created high disease mortality. This was a blessing for Africa's living standards.

No comment.

But much of Africa is still trapped in its Malthusian past.

That's right. It's like there's a crazy time machine the rest of the world doesn't have access to that took us back to the 1800s. But somehow, it's also like the writer of this article got on a time machine that took him to academia 60 years back.

And the next bit, about Uganda, is particularly good:

If Mr. Sachs' Millennium Project succeeds where most of its effort is concentrated, in reducing mortality, then it will further erode living standards. In Uganda, for example, at incomes that are the equivalent of $3 a person a day, the population is still growing at 3.5% per year. Given the heavy dependence of Uganda on agriculture and natural resources, population pressure has ensured that even with improved crop yields, incomes have stagnated over the past 40 years.

Fourteen percent of children born in Uganda die before the age of five. If the Millennium Project reduces such deaths to American levels, that alone will increase the population growth to 4.2% a year. Without sustained economic growth, this is just a recipe for more miserable living conditions.

To achieve sustained growth economies, Uganda would have to switch employment to manufactures and services. Despite the astonishing low wage of these economies — apparel workers in East Africa still cost about $0.40 an hour compared to $10-$20 in America and Europe — industrialization has escaped Africa.

These are the people who are trying to "Save Africa" in a way far more insidious than the doe-eyed college girls with a megaphone. These people have posts in front of podiums and access to newspaper columns, they are the ones to be afraid of.

The first essay, "Stop Trying To Save Africa," doesn't mention anyone like Sachs particularly, but does discuss aid more generally,

There is no African, myself included, who does not appreciate the help of the wider world, but we do question whether aid is genuine or given in the spirit of affirming one's cultural superiority. My mood is dampened every time I attend a benefit whose host runs through a litany of African disasters before presenting a (usually) wealthy, white person, who often proceeds to list the things he or she has done for the poor, starving Africans. Every time a well-meaning college student speaks of villagers dancing because they were so grateful for her help, I cringe. Every time a Hollywood director shoots a film about Africa that features a Western protagonist, I shake my head -- because Africans, real people though we may be, are used as props in the West's fantasy of itself. And not only do such depictions tend to ignore the West's prominent role in creating many of the unfortunate situations on the continent, they also ignore the incredible work Africans have done and continue to do to fix those problems.

I agree completely. Unfortunately, the media houses usually fly someone in and out for a week or two to do stories who is too dizzy and jet lagged and disoriented by the difference to get past his own experience of it and write about something besides his liminal perspective. And the college students don't stay long enough to realize people dance a lot.

And cultural superiority? I wish I could say it wasn't affirmed through aid. But until bags of rice don't say USAID on their side, and benefits aren't planned just because a donation is made, it will.

I hope people will realize Africa doesn't want to be saved. Africa wants the world to acknowledge that through fair partners

with other members of the global community, we ourselves are capable of unprecedented growth.

I hope that chance comes. But how long will the wait be?

Uganda to become more militarized

This article and this article both cite a movement by the NRM to make military service obligatory for all Ugandans. Though the proposal still has to be passed into law, and there isn't really a discussion of either how likely or unlikely this will be, it seems like soon more Ugandans will be donning fatigues.

The Monitor article says this:

The national service resolution, Mr Mbabazi said, will call on Sections 8A and 17 of the Constitution which require Ugandan citizens to participate in the common good as well as undergo military training in order to defend the country. He did not state whether there were threats to the country or why the provisions of the Constitution were being operationalised at this time.

It also quotes some opposition to the movement as saying this:

"Compulsory military training is not relevant for Uganda today. Nationalism cannot be measured by military training," said CP President Ken Lukyamuzi.

The changes that would take place in society if there were a nationalized draft would be substantial. Anyone who has visited Israel knows that the military is one of the cornerstones of the society - does Uganda want to be that kind of society?

There are so many details that aren't mentioned - like who would be excluded, and who would be able to get pardons, and would people go before university? and if so, would that prevent more people from going to university when there are already so many challenges to going?

This policy clearly needs not just some serious thought but more detailed planning if it is going to be put into effect.

Poverty = Less Sex Partners = Less Aids in Zimbabwe

This great article in the Washington Post "In Zimbabwe, Fewer Affairs and Less HIV," details how the rising inflation has lead to such overwhelming poverty that men can't keep up with multiple girlfriends or wives anymore, the kind of many-pronged sexual relations that often lead to the quick spread of AIDS.

The country has made strides against HIV during eight years of steep recession. Wealthier neighbors such as South Africa and Botswana, meanwhile, have struggled to curb new infections despite much higher levels of development and massive spending on the disease.
...
Its currency tumbled so fast that the money used to buy a new car in 2000 would be worth less than a U.S. penny now.

Many AIDS experts feared this turmoil would worsen an epidemic that already was among the most severe in the world.

Yet in 2005, the U.N. AIDS agency reported that the country had experienced southern Africa's first major decline in HIV. The drop was clearest among pregnant women who attended prenatal clinics, but studies of other groups showed similar trends.

The most recent nationwide survey, conducted in 2005 and 2006, put Zimbabwe's HIV rate for adults at 18.1 percent, still higher than in all but five other countries in the world. Researchers believe it peaked a few years earlier at about 25 percent.

This shift came despite Zimbabwe's pariah status at a time when growing international funding has allowed other African countries to dramatically expand their efforts to combat the epidemic. When President Bush created his $15 billion anti-AIDS program, all of Zimbabwe's neighbors -- South Africa, Botswana, Mozambique and Zambia -- were cited as "focus countries" worthy of extra support.

I pulled the "clinical" information here, but you should read the whole article because the stories the journalist follows of people living in Zimbabwe and cutting down their number of partners because they just can't afford to take all those girls to dinner is really interesting.

I've always wondered about polygamous relationships in the village - how those men supported all those women and children, or I think most of the time, it's the women and children digging and fetching water to support the men. But I guess it's different when there's polygamy in urban areas where the wives and girlfriends are demanding lots of things. Would be hard to manage if your car's price a few years ago is now only worth a dolllar.

Speaking of Corruption...

BBC ran this story on Mobutu's money, entitled "Swiss to return Mobutu millions," but then it was linked to by Meshedlinks with the headline "Switzerland to Return only 6% of Mobutu's Stolen Wealth".

Now who is corrupt?

Having trouble commenting on my blog??

Some people have told me they've had trouble commenting on my blog. I just fiddled with the settings, so maybe it's fixed, and maybe it isn't. Give it a try, or email me at glennagordon at gmail dot com.

All those 5k notes to the police add up to $1 trillion per year globaly

According to this article from the good old World Bank, corruption worldwide adds up - a lot - to about $1 trillion paid in bribes annually.

How does Uganda fair?? Well, the World Bank doesn't have a list of individual countries ranked according to corruption, but a quick google found this page and also this page, which both rank Uganda pretty close to the bottom of the barrel.

Page number one puts Uganda at 105, grouped with Bolivia, Malawi and others - less corrupt than Laos or Yemen but more corrupt than Tanzania or Malawi.

Page number two says Uganda is 124, smack between Libya (less corrupt) and the Philippines (more corrupt).

I wonder what Muhwezi would have to say about this.

Kibyuli Sunrise

Two pictures from this weekend and the name for a potential drink...

Article in the New Vision: Mzungu Outwits Hawker Over Beans

Reproduced in full here, and online here.

Robert Wabomba
Kampala

An elderly white man recently amused onlookers in Nakasero Market when he argued with a hawker over the quantity of beans he had bought. The hawker had convinced the white man that two mugfuls (tumpeco) of beans were equal to one kilogramme.

After paying sh1,000, the white man saw a weighing scale and decided to weigh the beans. To his dismay, the beans weighed only 950 grammes. He went after the hawker and told him to add him 50 grammes.

When the hawker refused, the man demanded for his money back. In broken English, the hawker tried to convince the man to take the beans in vain.

The white man insisted on getting his money back and succeeded. He warned the hawker to stop playing tricks on customers.

Interesting Article: Prostitutes Covered Head to Toe in Mombasa

The twilight ladies, as the city's residents refer to the sex workers, have traded their revealing outfits for the more austere buibui - a loose, floor-length gown and head covering favoured by Muslim women.

The article posted here says. It goes on to say how prostitutes have been forced underground by the police and are trying to hide their identity by wearing the buibui, or to at least avoid arrest and some of the public flogging that's happened in the past.

The story ends by quoting someone from the Council of Imams, saying,

"For God's sake, if one has decided to join this profession, the uniform of prostitutes is well known."

"They should stick to their disgraceful attire."

I can't really imagine prostitutes in Kampala covering head to toe, but it's an interesting idea. I wonder how it would change their image or their clientel.

Until they do, Kampala residents will still see women flashing their panties at cars driving by. I'm not sure a buibui is better, but who knows what is better when a problem is as systematically entrenched as this one?

Reuters Clip Number Two: What Northern Ugandans Really Want

Ellen Rose Lalam can't remember the exact year her when her husband was hacked to death with a panga blade in a raid on her village.

"2001," the group of villagers surrounding her murmurs when she can't come up with the date.

"Eeeehhhhh," Ellen says, tilting her chin towards the gray sky. She wears a strand of yellow, white and burnt orange beads. But, like most things in northern Uganda, there's never enough to go around, leaving the threadbare string exposed where the beads are finished.

Read the rest here.

Rwanda an ICT Hub: Really?

Much ink has been spilled of late on Rwanda as an ICT hub. This article has gotten picked up all over the place, and I just wanted to point out a few things.

The article is mainly about the growing ICT industry in Rwanda, but also mentions this:

A related "village phone" endeavour undertaken by Nokia and the Grameen Foundation USA in 2006 sought to bring affordable mobile communications access to rural villages in Rwanda, as well as the creation of over 3,000 related small businesses throughout the country in the next three years.

"The number of village phones (as of July) deployed amount to 167. The target is to reach 1,000 by the end of 2007," Nokia's Middle East and Africa Director of Communications, Yolanda Pineda, told IPS.

Well, I'm glad that 167 people who didn't have phones before have them now, but a) that isn't that many, and b) do they have money for airtime?

The article also says:

The government continues to supply and invest in technology at both the primary and university school levels, as over 1,200 primary schools are equipped with computers and at least 10 percent of Rwanda's secondary schools have wireless Internet.

But do they have power to turn them on? Do they have something to do with these computers? Do the teachers know how to use them?

Finally, it ends with an official quoted as saying this:

"I can also see Kigali developing into a real regional hub-the Singapore of East Africa."

Yeah, Kigali looks just like Singapore.

A few articles of mine in the Monitor

So nothing that's too blockbuster, but here are a few of my articles of late:

Fast Rise in Population Alarming
There are more than 1 billion people living in slums worldwide. Ninety per cent of them live in the developing world. The rate of urbanisation is growing so staggeringly quickly that for the first time in 2008, more than half the world's population will live in urban areas, says the new United Nations Population Fund report, State of the World Population 2007.

Cleaning up the Entebbe-Kampala Road, Sort Of
THE campaign to beautify Kampala and the surrounding environs aims to "create the image of a major international city." The works have begun, and all along the road between Kampala and Entebbe, visitors' entry way to the city, progress is evident. The question remains, however, will Kampala look like a major international city anytime soon? The road can be repaved, flowers can be planted, Clock Tower roundabout can be bulldozed and rebuilt, but will western diplomats see something that reminds them of home?
(Okay, the online version has different names in the headline, but my name in the slug. The article's by me. Really. I promise. And I hope I actually get paid for it.)

Journey to a Conflict Zone: Vacation in Israel
At every mall and café, every place you go, security stands outside and checks your bag, frisks you with a hand-held metal detector. I personally don't think these things will keep you safe, but they remind you of the immanence of the conflict. They remind you that the person standing next to you might be the one with a bomb.

There's little Israel can do in terms of security to make people safe. It's like this: if you have a handful of sand, and you grip it tightly in a fist, some of it will still slip through your fingers. The same is true for security: Israel is building a wall along a much contested border with the Palestinian territories in the West Bank, but a wall will not stop a person with determination.

AND, in Saturday Monitor, I had two articles on voting and voting participation, but I can't find them online. If I do find them later, I'll post them. Anyone who finds them for me gets a gold star by their name!

Cigarettes are better than women?

So I was standing outside UNHCR today with a cigarette and no lighter and no matches, so asked the group of five or so Ugandan police officers sitting around, not doing much, if any of them had a match. One did, and promptly lit my cigarette, and I gave him one also.

Then another officer goes, "They say cigarettes are better than women."

All of the officers chuckled. "It's true," he continued. "Because you can share a cigarette and you can't share a woman."

I'm wondering which cigarettes they're smoking....

M7 Cries out against aid, and an example of why it (sometimes) doesn't work: Nigerian school gets one laptop per student, no power to turn them on

In Africabeat, a blogger posts M7's comments from a recent meeting with Indian business men:

"The Europeans waste a lot of our time coming here talking about aid," he said. "We told them: if you talk about aid, I go to sleep. What we need is market access -- open your markets to our products."

Obviously, M7 has an agenda when it comes to these things - he's trying to decrease aid dependency through increasing investment and exports, a theoretically good plan. But, I'm waiting to see the demand for matooke on the European market.

(Speaking of matooke, according to Bananalink, Ugandans are the single largest consumers of bananas ANYWHERE, and most of it is for local consumption rather than export. NOTE: not from Banana Link, but from a recent interview I did with International Institute for Tropical Agriculture, though some small 2 percent of bananas are exported, its mainly for regional trade within East Africa.)

Much ink has been spilled, and much blog space filled, with discussions on the efficacy of aid. I won't spill too much more because I'm certainly no expert, so I'll just provide you with this example of a recent aid project:

Nigerian school without power receives 300 laptops

LAGOS (AFP) - A Nigerian school has received a gift of 300 laptops -- one per pupil -- but has no electricity to power them up, the official News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reported Friday.

Ndidi Nnoli-Edozien, coordinator of the One-Laptop-Per-Child programme (OLPC) that donated the computer, said the two-block Galadima Primary School in the centre of the federal capital Abuja had no electricity.

Do I even need to comment???? Waiting for your comments... Perhaps a more in-depth aid post to follow.