The sun rises over Bamyan, Afghanistan

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Shake that

calendar 7 February 2010 new Working for Twaweza in Dar Es Salaam | 30yp.com (blog) - page 1 | 39 views, 3 pictures

Dancing in the rain
I cycled over to Kunduchi beach hotel and resort today as the Lonely Planet claimed that, besides the water park, they also had a video game arcade. So, hoping for DDR, I cycled the 20-25 kilometers up north. Without luck,

The park, with an entrance fee of 5500 shilling, less than 3 euros, isn't bad, though, and quite eclectic. For the peeps on the wet dance floor in the middle of the complex, the DJ was alternating between African pop, Hindi tunes as well as popular Arab tracks.
What was disturbing was that, during one song, several of the throng of young local girls went down on all fours, head on the floor, booty in the air, and started shaking and grinding their backside as... read more

Tagged with: bicycle, Dar Es Salaam, DDR, dancing, swimming, music

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n x m

calendar 2 February 2010 new | Own stuff - page 1 | 136 views, 36 clicks, 7 pictures

Delft x 250
Here's how it works:

+ Take the m most relevant photos from Flickr matching the keyword n.
+ Aggregate all keywords for these m photos and sort them by frequency.
+ Find the most popular photo matching each aggregated keyword with at least 2 occurrences as well as n.

Notice that the Lusaka one contains no less than 13 photos of me, and some more by me. read more

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Settling

calendar 31 January 2010 new Working for Twaweza in Dar Es Salaam | 30yp.com (blog) - page 1 | 198 views, 9 pictures

This big
Four days after my arrival in Dar, my prominent search for a more permanent place to stay payed off: an acquaintance of a colleague of mine was moving out of her shared apartment. I moved in the next day and am now sharing a nice place with David, a Brit, Andrei, a Ukrainian/American and his wife Mattie. It's a bit out of town, but affordable, and close to quite a few restaurants as well as a some supermarkets.
I liked staying in town, being able to walk to several good value restaurants and just embracing the bustle of the city, but I also value being able to sit in a normal chair at a normal desk being able to make tea, breakfast or a sandwich. For those in the know, I'm ... read more

Tagged with: home, prostitution, Afghanistan, Babak, HHH, Dar Es Salaam, Bongoyo, Scotland, Australia

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I have a bream

calendar 27 January 2010 new | Own stuff - page 1 | 151 views, 25 clicks

I have a bream


Bob and fish sourced from Flickr and some website with tons of clipart. Gotta love the creative commons. read more

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Judging FLEFF

calendar 27 January 2010 new Working for Twaweza in Dar Es Salaam | 30yp.com (blog) - page 1 | 301 views

Twaweza office
Ismail, Christina McPhee and I are jurors for the Map Open Space competition for FLEFF 2010 which focuses on artworks deploying digital technologies and new media to mobilize, manipulate, and map open space, where 'open space' is, basically, any unchartered territory you can think of.

A total of 36 submissions where contributed. Here are a few of the more interesting ones.

+ Mapplers by Tara Pattenden, which aims to map a city using hand drawn maps by contributors. Conceptually very interesting, but th... read more

Tagged with: FLEFF, space, mapping, Finger Lakes, competition, art, innovation

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Dar I go

calendar 18 January 2010 new Working for Twaweza in Dar Es Salaam | 30yp.com (blog) - page 1 | 324 views

Jambo inn
If you type in "Dar Es Salaam" in Google and wait for the autocomplete to load suggestions, the first suggested search term is Dar Es Salaam Hash House Harriers, which was my planned second stop on the day of my arrival, the first being my purchasing a bike to get around town in. Unfortunately, the bike needed to be more than configured, causing such a delay that I never made it to the hash. In fact, this new bike was such a load of crap that it already completely broke down on the second day, after which I got a more sturdy second hand bike which actually ended up costing me more than the new one.
Traffic is rather horrendous during rush hour, which indeed points to the fact that Dar sees slightly more... read more

Tagged with: Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, economy, work, 3G, Zain, Lusaka

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Progress on TAZARA

calendar 13 January 2010 new | 30yp.com (blog) - page 1 | 398 views

CIDRZ residence
The Times of Zambia reported yesterday that the Chinese are providing TAZARA with a 39 million USD interest free loan. The Chinese being the Chinese, this more likely is seen by them as an investment, not a loan, in order for the train line which connects Zambia with the port of Dar Es Salaam to supply the African hinterland with Chinese finished goods and China with African raw materials. I would not be surprised if, when the TAZARA line was built, also by the Chinese in the 1970s, this was their plan from the beginning. It would be an explanation for why the passenger service, not being a core activity of the enterprise, does not connect to Lusaka, but to Kapiri Mposhi, some 20... read more

Tagged with: TAZARA, train, Zambia, Tanzania, China

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