After Africa

Please, come along to my new blog (and I'll take you to Tanzania)

New country, new missions, new blog.

Tomorrow is my last work day of my one-year contract as Communication Consultant for the Project Advice & Training Centre, and next week I am taking 3 months off to visit Africa.

This is - in brief - what my new blog is about. So, move on to www.pernille.typepad.com/duniaduara, and I'll take you to Tanzania.

Or find me on Twitter and Facebook.

'The FP Twitterati 100' - where are the Africans?

The magazine Foreign Policy has put together something they call 'The FP Twitterati 100' - A who's who of the foreign-policy Twitterverse in 2011. Check it out here.

Neat it is, but what puzzled me instantly was the very few Africans on the list.

Paul Kagame is put in the category 'Politicians and Diplomats', and titled 'President of Rwanda and Twitter fanatic' (!)

However, in the 'Africa' category only one out of five, namely Andrew Mwenda from Uganda, is an African.

And the reason can't be that Africans are not tweeting.

However, having followed the Tanzanian twittersphere since it developed I suspect that one reason for not reaching out to a European or American ordience may be that tweeps tend to be very much in love with internal issues (where foreigners either need lots of insight or patience), and that language is Kiswahili mixed with English? 

Time to rewrite travel guides to Africa, sio?!

I have got Lonely Planet Tanzania opened, going through a page or two when sidetracking.

I am wondering of the use of words and the values behind:

Scrappy (Kigoma), spotless (hotels), pleasant-enough, sleepy, semi-colonial, safe, faded charm (Tanga), little-reason-to-come-to (Dodoma).

Time to rewrite travel guides to Africa, sio?!

BarCampDar 77

 
BarCampDar is on. July 7 in Dar es Salaam.

Check out the website here (still needs updates).

Check out my personal experience here from June 2008 where I went to BarCamp Nairobi in Kenya.

This probably wouldn't work in Rwanda...

I was in a shop the other day in Århus where they were selling scarves with motives of sculls (similar to the photo).

I couldn't help noting that this probably wouldn't sell in Rwanda.

The sculls are repeatedly used as a motive in finger- and earrings and for print. All in the name of fashion.

Odd, isn't it?!

What does it say about the Danes?

Call me. You don't love me!

 
I just came across this delicate piece of South African design in a shop in the centre of Copenhagen.

I just love this way of putting an (universal?) emotion straight: Waiting for the man to call.

The fact that he doesn't call me, makes me feel that he doesn't love me.

South Africa or Denmark. Same thing.

Why not put it in print and wear it for the world to see what I find hard to say?

Mobile phones - part of the technological development in Africa.

Passion. Different tastes

Free delivery kits to all pregnant women in Tanzania

'IN a move to reduce reproductive and maternal deaths, the government will effective next financial year, provide all pregnant women with delivery kits. The move was announced in Dar es Salaam on Monday by President Jakaya Kikwete when launching a Campaign on Accelerated Reduction of Maternal and Newborns Mortality.'

So, the Tanzanian Daily News reports in an article on June 6.

In july 2009 I visited Itulahumba Hospital near Njombe in the Southern Highlands in Tanzania (photo). The hospital had the basic buildings in place, but little equipment apart from some outdated and samples of beds that had recently arrived in a container from Denmark. During my brief visit I was told that women would give birth on mats on the cement floor if the few beds were taken.

When I lived in West Nile in northen Uganda from 2005-2007 I knew exactly where the bigger hospitals were situated along my work route: Adjumani, Moyo, Koboko, Yumbe, Maracha, Arua, Kuluwa and eventually Mulago. I also knew where pregnant women would prefer to go if they could afford it.

Being pregnant in a first world country and with all the comfort and security it offers, makes it hard to imagine the conditions many African women must suffer when pregnant. Priviledged myself, having had a car and a health insurance when I worked in Africa, I could only observe the strenght of these women - and give lifts to the nearest hospital.

Reading the article I am therefore also wondering what exactly is a delivery kit? And how a kit can improve a pregnant woman's chances of surviving giving birth? Obviously a hospital bed, clean water and a qualified doctor would be preferable to a kit, isn't it?

However, the positive thing is in fact that President Kikwete is standing up tall, talking on women's behalf:

'President Kikwete pointed out some of the challenges in the government programmes to reduce these deaths as lack of support from the community members, especially husbands of the pregnant women and thus leading to many women delivering at home.'

It strikes me how concise Kikwete is with numbers all the way down to the 421 motorcycle ambulances ordered. (About two weeks ago the development of the fibre optic cable were given specific numbers.) It seems like a free gift to monitors and others with a passion for accountability? Maybe to check The Guardian's article 'Mobile healths offers hope to patients in Africa' for inspiration?

Follow what East Africans have to say about governments handling of national budgets #UGbudget11 #kebudget2011 #budgettz2011

Can't even track my own budget - but find it rather interesting that during these days you can follow national budget debates in East Africa on Twitter via citizens, media and MPs - check:

Uganda: #UGbudget11

Kenya: #kebudget2011

Tanzania: #budgettz2011

Rather curious how the three countries distinct themselves on Twitter, opinions and budgets. Should be an interesting phenomenon for a donor of budget support.

If bored, it does tend to get rather internal and full of abbreviations, do check Alfred Mutua.

MP tweeting from custody in Tanzania. The easy part and the real challenge.

I’ve been communicating quite a bit with different people relating to Tanzania about the use of social media over the past few days.

Then suddenly, Zitto Kabwe, MP for Chadema, tweets from custody in Singida:

'Have just been arrested by police in Singida for ' holding a rally after 6pm'

It is awfully hard not to retweet a tweet like this, as it contains the most elementary ingredients of what news are made of.

The tweets go forth and back quickly, and soon the news from the event in a district town in central Tanzania have spread to the rest of the world in no time. Just check the Facebook comments here.

Lots of pole sana. It has even become the subject of debate between people across continents. Alafu - about an hour later the MP is out on self-bail:

'RCO just got an order from his RPC to let me off and report tomorrow. Self-bail.'

Back to my interest in how social media is applied in Tanzania, and how this is perceived in i.e. Europe, I have to conclude that to me this is no longer about the fascination of the raw facts that a Tanzanian MP tweets and facebooks straight from custody.

That is in fact the surprisingly easy part.

To me the real challenge lies in adressing the issues of why he ended up there, what will happen after and how the instant communication affects politics in a longer term perspective. Another, may be to keep focus on how the government goes about its cyberspace policies in the long term.

If interested in the Tanzanian government's take on the Internet, read along here.