Dunia Duara

My first blog visitors: What to look out for?

I invited people to the blog some days ago, and this is what it today looks like in graphics at Google Analytics to get an illustration of where visitors log on from. (Click on images to enhance).

My aim is to increase the amounts of dots in Africa.

And this graph should hopefully turn into more people spending longer time on the blog.

I'll definitely try to work for that this category will keep developing - I like when other bloggers link to my blog, and obviously links from sites with high authority and many readers will increase traffic.

And finally I think it could be interesting observing visitors via mobile devices.

Rough observations. Check out Google Anaytics yourself.

'I don't want a revolution if I can't dance. Change has to be fun'

Quote above from one of the people interviewed in this documentary about Share Conference held in Belgrade, in April 2011. It was the first of its kind and it gathered the leaders in digital activism, artists from the field of new media and recognized musicians.

Couldn't agree more.

Besides, I have a long-lasting love to Belgrade, and this documentary so makes my heart want to go back to Serbia:

Share.mov from SHARE Conference on Vimeo.

ELLE honors nine women who are educating, rebuilding, doctoring, employing, and sustaining the world

Noted in particular:

Amy Lehman, 38, Founder of Lake Tanganyika Floating Health Clinic:

'Genius Marketing Move: She tattooed a map of the region on her back.'

In between skylines: From Copenhagen to Dar es Salaam

 

Leaving Copenhagen (above) tomorrow noon for Dar es Salaam (below).

I just came across the two sunsets which share an odd resemblance in spite there are huge differences between the two places.

On the architectural side a clear difference is that Copenhagen has many old buildings with spiky towers. Dar es Salaam has buildings of concrete so new that they aren't finished.

Sunsets and skylines look the same, but it is what's going on in there and in between which counts.  

Fasta Fasta...

Under the headline 'Lesson no.1: Schools can’t be run like fast-food joints' Elsie Eyakuze from The Mikocheni Report comments in the East African, i.e.:

'when governments in developing countries cut corners in education and in health, the result is that some people get that much closer to mortality, and others get trapped in the hard-to-escape ghetto of low-income jobs. That’s why most campaign promises aren’t worth the paper they are printed on — anyone promising quick solutions to deep problems is lying shamelessly.'

From a garden in Copenhagen

Obviously not the best time to leave Copenhagen.

However, I am almost ready to leave for Tanzania on Wednesday.

Living Apart, an exhibition showing at the Liverpool International Slavery Museum

'Stripped naked, our racist past is ugly' an article in the South African Mail & Guardian about British Magnum photographer Ian Berry’s 50-year odyssey in South Africa, begins.

Strong photos from South Africa in the 1960ties:

'Images range from mannequins, musicians and massacres to fishermen, fascists and family life, Afrikaners, Zulus and the Zion Christian Church, with pass burnings and police beatings along the way. Policemen hit Africans with sjamboks in the early pictures, and the AWB in later ones.'

More at the museum website: 'Living Apart: photographs of apartheid by Ian Berry'.

I note Berry's words: Being an outsider you have “a visual photographic advantage”.  

#Kazinikwako @VodacomTanzania commercial illustrates Tanzanians' use of mobile phones and social media

When I worked as a teacher a million years ago, commercials like this one could easily have been part of my teaching, and students would have been tasked to analyse the storyline, effects and symbolism.

Vodacom Tanzania - and Tigo - have made some of the most impressive commercials over the past few years. Both companies obviously have neat budgets, but most importantly they work with talented and creative people who master to appeal to our emotions. Too much pathos - too much appeal to emotions - some may claim, though, I have to admit that this commercial does speak to my heart.

Both networks have to illustrate that we are in Tanzania (view of Kilimanjaro, and the dhows on the Indian Ocean), though in fact some videos may be shut in i.e. India due to logistics. Both networks must prove that they reach far into the rural areas (where busses get stuck, or you have to walk the last distance), both networks will illustrate the multiplicity of Tanzania (different clothing and the random Maasai).

But you will also notice certain values put forward. Passengers show true spirit and obviously help pushing the bus out of the mud - jointly - and in Tigo's 'Express Yourself' the main character helps an older man of Indian origin over the road. In Vodacom's 'Pamoja Daima' a business man gets out his car and helps an older couple with a flat tyre, while children in Stone town involve an albino child.

The critical teacher would ask 'What happens to the ones who don't have a mobile phone? Is this really Tanzania, or is it the ideal Tanzania of our dreams? How does a commercial company balance between ethichs and values and the customers' demands?'

Most interesting to me, though, is that the mobile phone companies illustrate - in great phootage - that Tanzanian use mobile phones and social media, and that mobile phones are fun - having access to a mobile phone connects you to your family and the greater community.  

The 'Kazi ni kwako' commercial - where people end up dancing jointly on the Kigamboni Beach to the 'Nomakhanjani' hit from the late, South African singer Brenda Fassie - illustrates this. By the way, people were recruited via Twitter and Facebook also, and the campaign has its own life on social media, which is also a main theme in the commercial.

It made me think of what Ory Okolloh, Google's policy manager for Africa and a Kenyan lawyer and activist, said at the Guardian's Activate summit in London: -'Africans don't view technology simply as a tool of development'.

A very important point, which the mobile phone companies certainly don't fail to illustrate.

Do also check out the original version of Nomakhanjani. One of the most popular songs on (East) African dance floors. Everybody knows how to move jointly when the first tones are heard, and it is not fun if you don't know the moves. I can personally assure so.

Bono and God

A South African friend, based in the UK, just stated on his Facebook profile:

'What is the difference between God and Bono?
God won't be wandering around Glastonbury thinking he is Bono'

Old joke, someone commented, but I still can't help rephrasing:

''God won't be wandering around Africa thinking he is Bono'

Århus disappearing in the horizon

 
I have left Århus. Photos from today's ferry trip from the port of Århus towards Zeeland.