Banjul to Dakar by road

April 28, 2011 • Blog

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World » Senegal » Dakar » Chez Nizar

Getting from Banjul to Dakar, overland, is a bit of a hassle, particularly the negotiation surrounding the public transport from the border crossing to Dakar. Though fixed price, the hassle is still such that even locals, traveling from Banjul to Dakar, asked us whether they could team up with us in hiring a shared taxi to minimize the annoyance.
No less than three times did we unpack our luggage from our sept-place, because the agreement on the price was badly communicated back to us, each time the driver's handler trying to squeeze more money from us. This, while what felt like a whole school of children and a horde of grownups were constantly interfering, grabbing at our clothes and bags, shouting what they thought were clarifications and trying to sell mangoes, water and cashew nuts.
In the end, Niamh and I, together with an Italian couple and three Gambians, hired the sept-place at 6000 CFA each, just short of ten euros, plus a bit extra for luggage. in retrospect, perhaps this was offered all along, but the shouting, the use of horrid French, on both sides, and horrid English, on the Senegalese side, and the large crowd constantly intervening, made that what could have been resolved in a minute something that took nearly 45 before we were on the road.

Before driving off to Dakar, we first had to get to the Banjul to Barra ferry, crossing the Gambia river, from where we had to charter a car to the border. At the border, formalities were quite painless, but directly upon crossing, we were besieged by a dozen or so drivers trying to sell us a ride to the nearby bus station. This is a short walk, hence their quick and steep price drop when we started to move in the direction of the gare routiere.

We arrived in Dakar around four in the afternoon, a good eight hours after leaving our hotel in Banjul. A 30 minute walk to our hotel, we had no more local money after using it up for our journey and the first few ATMs failed, was interrupted by a few well deserved roadside beers, after finally finding a working cash machine.
Dakar's hotels are surprisingly expensive, whether you are staying on the fringes of the city or in town. Our very basic, if decent enough, lodgings at Chez Nizar, though en suite, cost about an average three weeks local wages. And it really doesn't get any cheaper. On the upside, nice and fast Internet from the cafe downstairs.

The many sights of Banjul

April 27, 2011 • Blog

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World » Gambia » Banjul » Arch 22

Before coming to Gambia, I grumbled my way into booking a hotel into what effectively is a huge tourist destination on the Gambian coast, as opposed to staying in the nation’s capital.
Now, after really enjoying the touristy area outside Banjul, before heading to Dakar the next day, we decided to stay in Banjul for one night to check out the city and to make our departure slightly less cumbersome. Spending the day in Banjul, it took us not even half a day to take in the sights. But then again, with only some 35000 inhabitants, it’s not surprising this tiny capital hasn’t got too much to offer.

Of crocs, bumsters and beaches

April 25, 2011 • Blog

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World » Gambia » Bakau » Kachikally crocodile pool

Banjul, the capital of Gambia, is a tiny speck of dust, compared to the sprawling suburbs of the kombos, the four administrative areas, kombos, on the Atlantic coast, just outside Banjul. It's here where most of the economic activity takes place and here where all the package tourists are put up, in one of the many rather decent resorts on, or slightly off, the coast.
This means that, coming from Salone, the range and quality of restaurants, for one, is rather breathtaking. And because of both the sizable tourist population as well as the indigenous middle class, prices and value for money are not bad at all.

Surprisingly, tourists pretty much only show up in Gambia from November till April, meaning that now, at the far end of the season, most hotels are already virtually empty. Odd, as we are here for Easter, which I would think would be as perfect a time as any, or better, for Europeans to visit this sliver of land in west Africa.

One flavor of tourists which do come here year round are the, typically, middle aged northern European women who come in search of sex, and easily find it. Many of the suppliers, called bumsters, typically have a handful of recurring clients through which they provide for their extended families.
Indeed, the men head out to south east Asia, the woman to Gambia (and some to the Kenyan coast).

Perhaps in part because of sex tourism being an important factor for Gambian tourism and the long term income that entails for the local beneficiaries, we found Gambians on the street to often be rather aggressive in their trying to get tourists' attention, to the extent where, multiple times, we were branded, loudly, as motherfockers for not going along with the schemes they were trying to lure us in.
I suppose that part of that is their surprise at our lack of gullibility as compared to the hordes of package tourists from Europe, but that's neither an excuse, nor a real explanation.

The contingent of Scandinavians is sizable, and our hotel, the oddly named African Heritage Center, one of the very few hotels in the area, in this price range and which actually has a website, is one of the many run by one, a Danish woman. Prices are reasonable, the rooms are quite lovely, the included breakfast is great and the pool is decent.

The only real tourist attraction here is a pool filled with tame crocodiles. The pool is famous throughout the country with young women struggling to become pregnant. They bath at the site, though I'm not sure they bath with the crocs, and upon success, name their offspring Kachikally, after the name of the pool.

Escape from SL

April 23, 2011 • Blog

World » Sierra Leone » Lungi » Lungi international airport

Perhaps it seemed like a wise decision at the time, but Freetown's airport being on the other side of a huge bay, one of the deepest natural harbors in the world, is primarily horribly inconveniently located.
Whities flying in or out of Lungi international airport typically either take a chopper into town, for which the going rate currently is 120 USD, or one of the water taxis, each of which still charge a painful 40 USD, one way. Alternatively, one could drive around the bay, perhaps an eight hour ride, or take the government-run ferry from the far side of town. Cheap, but known for its prevalence of pickpockets. And, on a regular day, coming from or going to our side of town, from the ferry, typically takes a good 90 minutes, any time of the day.

Going out of our way, the day before our flight to Gambia, we wanted to buy tickets for one of the water taxis, only to find that, on a Saturday, none of them service our Asky flight departing at seven in the evening. Then, the last few months, Saturday mornings have been used to clean up downtown Freetown, in preparation for next week's independence celebrations. During cleanups, it's said that cars spotted downtown on a Saturday morning are stopped by police, their boots filled with sludge being collected from the city's gutters.
Pedestrians, found downtown and not part of the cleanup team, are beaten by police into submission. Or, at least, that's the story.

So, not wanting to risk catching a late, potentially delayed, ferry, we had to get to the far side of town by taking the long way around, crossing the Freetown peninsula, then heading back into town. To catch our seven o'clock flight, we decided to leave at nine thirty in the morning, to get to the airport, perhaps some 25 kilometers away as the crow flies.

Arriving at the ferry, the departure area was actually surprisingly pleasant. Complete with several rather nice cafes, serving both decent coffee and excellent sandwiches. And perhaps because either most people were afraid of the city's cleaning crews or because this was a Saturday morning, the ferry itself was also enjoyably quiet. The crossing was good, the taxi ride to the airport on the other side a breeze, while we saved ourselves some 70 USD in the process.
Clearly, when flying in or out of Lungi and having to cross town on a weekend or holiday, taking the government run ferry is more than good enough.

Blixen’s pad

April 09, 2011 • Blog

World » Kenya » Nairobi » The Stow residence

Having dinner with an old friend in the affluent Karen suburb of Nairobi, named after the Danish woman Karen Blixen who wrote the much acclaimed Out of Africa, at some point the discussion turned to politics.
At the moment, six Kenyans are being investigated by the International Criminal Court in the Hague, in relation to the post election, racial, violence of 2007. They are mostly parliamentarians, including the son of the founder of Kenya.
There is a lot of aversion to the dealings of the ICC, not just in Kenya, but also in Sudan, where Omar al-Bashir has also been called in, and in Uganda, where the former leader of the Lord's Resistance Army is also wanted by the ICC. Interestingly, though Kenya has had plenty opportunities to formally fight the proceedings in the Hague, their aversion has only been talk, with the result that some 50 Kenyan parliamentarians are now in the Hague providing moral support to the six who might go on trial. An odd show of support, because they are effectively trying to pervert the course of justice: either Kenya should have not given jurisdiction to the ICC, or Kenya has to accept the outcome.

Related to this, my dinner dates were convinced that if formal endictment follows, the shit will hit the fan once again in Kenya. And while with the recent election, factions were fighting each other with bow and arrow, they have since armed themselves with more serious weapons.
So, serious talk reverted to escape plans and routes for protecting staff and leaving the country through which corridor. Odd, given we were sitting in perhaps the most prominent and respected restaurant in Nairobi where, if the upcoming insurgence will happen, the live band and affluently dressed patrons created an atmosphere of the night before the revolution, the rich upper class not knowing they would all be dead the next day, or perhaps next month.

Then, on the way home, a little boy was half hidden in the undergrowth along one of the roads. First impulse was to stop, but this being Nairobi, the potential of this being a ploy, a setup, is significant. We didn't stop.
My guest bedroom had a prominently available panic button, which, if pressed, would have called an armed response unit.

Down, on the beach

April 06, 2011 • Blog

World » Kenya » Diani » Diani beach campsite and cottages

In Nairobi, an American bloke recommended me staying at a hostel on Diani beach, where the cottages stand on stilts. His day job was running a backpackers in Mombasa until, just the week prior, he was kicked out by the powers that be.
In a rematch, he was now teaming up with the owner of the backpackers in Nairobi to, at least, have a local businesswoman on his side, when re-establishing his business on the coast.

The stilts were fully booked, but a nearby venue still had some lovely cottages available at not unreasonable rates.
Most of the resorts in Diani are off the beach, meaning that the peddlers jump on you like flies once you head out to the shore. And, for some reason, plenty of people have euro coins or one dollar bills they want to change for shillings.

The beach, here, is very similar to the ones around Dar, with the same bathtub-warm water. But the general feel is more like a Mediterranean tourist trap on some distant coast, complete with almost western style supermarkets and blond Europeans strolling the beach, hand in hand with their local conquests.

Comparing Mombasa to Dar

April 05, 2011 • Blog

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World » Kenya » Mombasa » Beracha guest house

In Mombasa, the train terminus feels even more inconsequential than in Nairobi, while the town, though rather active, seems to primarily consist of used car parts dealers. Bedding is cheap, though. I settled for a guest house one step up from the few rock bottom options. A single self contained and clean room for a mere 7 euros. Smack in the center of town, the Beracha guest house ain't half bed. Haha.

I was expecting Mombasa to resemble Dar, and, though not disappointed in that, feel Dar probably has more to offer. True, Dar doesn't have an old town, but the one in Mombasa feels like the distant cousin of what you can find in Zanzibar or, I'm told, Lamu, also on the Kenyan coast.
Meanwhile, the city feels more sterile, having less character, than Dar, with the waterfront close to the old town almost completely sealed off.

Also, it isn't hard to find places to eat or drink in Dar, walking around town, and, perhaps I'm just unlucky, Mombasa seems to have very limited options in the inner city. I did end up getting coffee and a snack at a local eatery, more a snack bar than anything else, but filled to the brim, typically a good indicator for good value for money.
The twelve tables each seated four, and nearly all seats were taking. Every single individual was eating chips, some with one or two sausages.

The only real tourist attraction, fort Jesus, is heavily overpriced. The next door old law courts are dilapidated and now house a semblance of an art gallery. Here, one display talks about the origin of the people on the coast, 'swahili', which means 'of the coast'. I thought scholars had settled this, both the language and the people being a mix of indigenous African tribes and visiting Arab traders, Omanis having controlled the east African coastal region for a long time, even moving their capital down south for a while.
Not so, according to the 'African school of thought', on the display in the old law courts, which states that the Swahili are actually, and only, an old indigenously African people. The opposing, 'European', school subscribes to the view I expunge above. Indeed, what does this difference between European and African signify? Not the heritage of e people involved. So it must refer to the parentage of the scholars, which, if true, makes the distinction rather ridiculous.

Just like Dar, Mombasa was a capital, until supplanted by an alternative inland. In Tanzania, this happened after independence, where Nyerere tried to establish something of an administrative utopia in what is now the capital of Dodoma. Mind you, Nyerere wasn't the first and won't be the last to try this out, though actions like these typically seem to be the providence of at least slightly megalomaniacal rulers.
In Kenya, it was the Brits who moved the capital inland. The soggy marshes of what is now Nairobi grew in importance from a stopover on the national railway to the most important trade outpost in the region. It only made sense to then also move the capital there, even though capitals tend to have a preference for being on either sea shore or river.

So, though Dar is, still, the de-facto capital of Tanzania, Mombasa most certainly isn't. Though lively and active, I can't help but feel that Mombasa suffers from something akin to an identity crisis, not sure as to what it's own position really is.
Where those from Dar seem to be more comfortable in their position of prominence, Mombasa feels like there is a bit of a gloomy mood hanging over the city, perhaps as a result of having been surpassed by those darn Kikuyu from upcountry.

When I returned to Nairobi a few days later, I found that the airport in Mombasa is quite a fancy affair. Clean, quite modern, nice cafes and snack places, but no public transport to get there. Only taxis ply the route to town, your only alternative being walking out of the airport for perhaps two kilometers to get to the nearest matatu route..

On the tracks

April 04, 2011 • Blog

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World » Kenya » Nairobi » Train station

Not yet having to decide on what to do for getting back to Nairobi, together with a Canadian I was to share a first class cabin on the train to Mombasa. Only for the Canadian to change his mind, joining two Germans in going on a sudden safari. Upside: I can travel in style, pretending to have booked a whole cabin just for myself.

The train station in Nairobi is surprisingly unimposing, while at the same time giving the impression of having been picked up and transplanted from some out of the way town in England, in the 1930s. Though, not unlikely, it was indeed built around that time and, most certainly, according to English designs.

Having gotten rather frustrated with the surprisingly sorry state of affairs of Kenyan Internet access, I got to the train station early, having given up on being able to do some work beforehand, where only a few whities were waiting to board the Mombasa train, while a score or so ticket salesman clustered around the entrance of the station, impromptily were selling tickets for the commuter trains leaving every hour or so.
Though the trains still run in Kenya, as well as in Tanzania for that matter, and while the east African states regularly talk about expanding the rail network, now to Rwanda, Burundi, as well as to Juba in the future Southern Sudan, the network still only slowly degrades, leaving more and more to be desired. And one way in which this is exemplified is that at the most prominent train station in Kenya, a no longer operating restaurant, "closed for renovations", has been so for nearly two years.

Also interesting, several of the signs at the train station are in English, French and… German, implying the railway station might have been built even before the first world war, when the Germans still controlled the Tanzanian mainland.
Additionally, the whites on the train are, obviously except for me, horribly young, painfully unattractive and, mostly, terribly British.

Knowing Kenya

April 02, 2011 • Blog

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World » Kenya » Nairobi » Milimani Backpackers

Stopping for a few days in Kenya, what struck me on my way from the airport to town was the extensive vegetation along the roads in Nairobi. And the streets appear in much better shape than in, say, Uganda, though airport roads in developing countries are often atypical.
However, other parts of the city, as I found the next day, are also more Johannesburg than Kampala and not at all unattractive. With several modern malls and lots of thriving businesses, I'm left to wonder if any NGO has any business in Kenya.

I want to take the train to Mombasa and back, but in a chat with an American who runs a hostel on the coast, "not now, though, … We had a few… problems with authority…", I was told that on a recent trip from the coast to the capital, his train completely broke down and they had to switch to matatus, busses, to get to Nairobi.
Perhaps I should bus or plane it back.

Twelfth Night; or, What You Will

April 01, 2011 • Blog

World » Uganda » Kampala » National Theatre

Worldly Kampala benefits from the presence of the Kampala Amateur Dramatics Society, KADS, who have been performing musicals and plays for the last decade or so. This time around, they're putting up a rendition of the Shakespeare comedy Twelth Night, pretty much in its original form. This being my last night, for a while at least, in Uganda, a bunch of us went to the play's opening night in Kampala's National Theatre.

It's a light play, a comedy of mistaken identity, of course, which is thought to have been put together to celebrate the 12th, and last, day of Christmas, apparently in days past, known for its rowdy character.
Oddly, the play is set in Illyria, the eastern coast of the Adriatic.

It's always great to see theatre in out of the way places, most of Africa not being known for its theatrical prowess. And several of the performances were pretty darn good. Unfortunately, the theatre, though small, doesn't have the best acoustics and some of the female players weren't always that easy to understand, the men putting up much louder shows.
Probably the biggest challenge, possibly both for the players and the audience, was the play being done in the old English of Shakespeare's days. As it's a comedy, I'm sure that several of the jokes were lost on me, and many only registered after a short lag, having to decode the old English first.
In a way, it's odd, or at least interesting, that KADS chose to not go for a contemporary adaptation.

Nevertheless, rather good fun. Go see it while you can, if you can!

The mzungu corkscrew

March 27, 2011 • Blog

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World » Uganda » Lake Bunyonyi » Byoona Amagara

Uganda is slowly becoming a celebrated alternative to Kenya and Tanzania for wildlife safaris. But that's not all it has to offer. The deep south west of the country, straddling the borders of both the DRC and Rwanda, sometimes referred to as little Switzerland, has a gorgeous lake at it's center, some 30 kilometers long and seven kilometers wide, and has a few dozen islands dotted around inside it.
Perhaps not exactly Switzerland, the area feels more like a less rocky version of the Belgian Ardennes and has a climate that resembles Belgian summers. Cool in the evening, warm during the day, with lots of chance of rain. And it's green.
It's also the place where you can play around with gorillas in the mist, walk in the footsteps of Dian Fossey, whether you stay on this side of the border or hop over to Rwanda.

Getting away for the weekend, my last in Uganda before heading back to Salone, we spent two nights in a cottage on one of the islands inside lake Bunyonyi. It's possible to take a motorboat, but customary to paddle your way down, an hour's journey from the mainland. Marlies had to leave the country to extend her visa, so while she left for Rwanda, we sipped G&Ts and had a lovely lunch at Birdnest, a Belgian run exclusive hotel on the edge of the lake.
When, at long last, Marlies successfully returned, we had to paddle hard to stay ahead of a huge rainstorm, which we barely managed.

The next day, when Marlies, Wouter and myself decided to go for a short canoe ride on the lake, we severely struggled to not continuously end up in the mzungu corkscrew, where, despite franticly trying to prevent it, your canoe ends up spiraling out of control, you ending up going round in circles.

World Summit Award

In other news, inZIM.com was nominated for the World Summit Award Global Contest as the best e-Content example in e-Science & Technology from Uganda.

MoMoKla

February 28, 2011 • Blog

World » Uganda » Kampala » Google offices

MobileMonday, MoMo, is a networking organisation for mobile industry professionals focusing on business development through virtual and live events to share ideas, best practices and trends. The platform was founded in 2000, in Helsinki, and now has over 100 chapters worldwide. In Kampala, the platform is run by Daniel Stern, who isn't on Facebook yet, but has given the platform a decent website, though it's the global MoMo website, which obviously has the reach.
If you were in tech before the bubble burst a decade ago, you probably realise that the MoMo meetings derive from the wildly successful First Tuesday meetings, started in 1998 and still going strong in some 10 chapters across Europe, where tech startups mingled with VC funders.
Both have survived, but it's MoMo which seems to be the more extensive one.

Here in Kampala, Monday night's meeting saw four speakers and some 80 attendees, most of them locals, coming together at the Google offices close to downtown Kampala.
MC for the evening was the jovial Simon Kaheru, @skaheru, from SMS Media, with speakers Michael Niyitegeka, @niyimic, a lecturer at Makerere University, Denis Ruhero, director of DMark Mobile, Elijah Kitaka from Google Uganda and the Dutchman Reinier Battenberg, @batje, who is responsible for UgandaWatch, an online platform for monitoring the Ugandan elections.

On the whole, the evening was interesting, though the most interesting talk came from the Dutchman, simply because his was the only talk which referenced a tangible real-world solution, even though I'm not sure as to what extent a platform like UgandaWatch, which allows for plotting a host of data around the election sent in by citizens using mobile phones, can provide sound and valuable data. Similar to Ushahidi's solutions surrounding elections or disasters, the collected information can be indicative, but, by design, remains anecdotal.
This, perhaps, is underscored by Battenberg's mentioning that on the day of the presidential election, his website had some 1700 visitors, which I don't find too many, given the context.
Nevertheless, the implied power of having ad hoc real time geographical information at your disposal remains fascinating.

Battenberg was the only one who delivered some true insights, giving the crowd his guidelines for running UgandaWatch:

  • Show your source.
  • Show your original message.
  • Make messages tweetable.
  • Show if you have followed up.
  • Show context.
  • A location is not a set of coordinates, but has a name.

And he shared some lessons learned:

  • Twitter is not a source of information.</li
  • Facebook beats Twitter.
  • Taggers (those that verify incoming messages) are volunteers, so review their data.
  • No news means nothing. (Though I would like to add that receiving news might also not mean anything.)
  • We need to work on base data. This, to give value to the information coming in.

Niyitegeka, the Makerere lecturer, talked about how his students grew up in a wired world but are taught using analog methods. Mildly interesting, in my view, but also something that I find hard to consider relevant for Uganda, where some 90% of the population doesn't have access to electrification. The best part of Niyitegeka's presentation was him saying that students' attention is lost after 15 minutes, that students can't be reached with just a Powerpoint, but that video is required. This, of course, was supported by his Powerpoint (though, truth be told, his presentation was only 15 minutes long).

Ruhero, with his company providing news updates to mobile subscribers, kicked off a long debate on why so few mobile apps are built and used in Uganda. Later, Kitaka divulged that it's estimated that only 1% of Uganda's phones are Android or iPhone, which, to me, makes it clear that the market is way too small to support locally relevant apps which have no international context. Kitaka suggested that, to monetize usage of mobile applications for the 95% of basic cell phones, it wasn't necessary that the end user paid, as there are other sources of income, suggesting the telcos should play a role in financing new apps and applications.
Though this was received reasonably well by the crowd, both in the room and for those using the hashtag #momokla, I was hearing a description of the model perpetuated by many of the world's NGOs for the last half century, which by many individuals are not considered to have been too successful.

Ruhero, whom I can't find on Twitter, said he wanted an app that would mix location based services and social networking. For a second, then, I was wondering if I had stepped back in time, myself being an avid FourSquare user, the only location based social network with some, though very limited, traction here in Uganda.

I's good to see events like this raking off in Kampala. Listening to what the speakers have to say is nice, but the mingling and networking afterwards is what's important, and lots of that happened as well.
With the Linux User Group and the Google Technologies User Group, both facilitated by Google, it's nice to see there truly is a tech buzz in Uganda.

Rafting the Nile

February 27, 2011 • Blog

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World » Uganda » Jinja » Nile River Explorers

Back in 1999, the Ugandan government agreed to the building of the Bujagali Falls dam, some 8km north from the source of the Nile and the town of Jinja, on the edge of lake Victoria. Construction was to take 44 months and be finished by 2005. Currently, the dam is expected to come online this year.

This week, the schedule foresees the closure of parts of the flow of the river, which will result in several of the rapids, including the often visited Bujagali Falls, to be inaccessible, before they will be submerged upon completion of the dam. As a result, the handful of white water rafting operators in Jinja will be forced to start their tours a few kilometers downstream, on the other side of the dam.
Commemorating the upcoming closure, this weekend saw a major event, which might end up becoming a yearly thing, where six NGOs, focusing on conservation of nature and wildlife in Uganda, were sponsored through the proceeds of a bunch of activities on and around the mouth of the river Nile.

Some 100 individuals signed up for the full deal, which included a night's stay, rafting, dinner and drinks, as well as a t-shirt and a DVD of the rafting trip, though the latter two still have to show up.

These upper bits of the Nile are mostly tranquil, though the few rapids are nicely challenging, including the rapid which goes by the name of 50/50, where, in our group of a dozen rafts, not one didn't flip. However, with the life vest, it's impossible to stay under water for long and the water being balmy, it's no real punishment to be thrown overboard.

The outfit hosting the event was Nile River Explorers.

Ugandan elections are over

February 20, 2011 • Blog

World » Uganda » Kampala » National Theatre

The Ugandan elections are over, using certain words in text messages meant the messages wouldn’t arrive, which I confirmed, but outside observers said the elections were quite free and fair, though locals dispute that, which is something I also heard resonating when asking around.

Friday’s elections were surprisingly low tech. Three elections were held at the same time and the polling stations were no more than marked off open areas where, in stead of a ‘police line do not cross’, white tape was strung up between a few poles creating a roughly circular area for the polling stations with a series of stations where voters would pass by on their way along the edge of the circle.
At the first station, voters’ eligibility to vote would be checked, after which they would receive a ballot. Armed with the ballot, at the next station, they would be able to put the ballot inside a small black basin to mark their preference. After this, the ballot was to be folded and put inside a ballot box at the next station. Then, with two more votes to go, this was repeated twice while, following that, at the last station, a fingernail was marked as proof of the voter having done his civic duty.
Cycling around town on Friday, when 99% of the shops, cafes and restaurants were closed, I stopped at a polling station close to my hotel at closing time to observe the procedures that followed. Very slowly and very openly, with a several scores of spectators surrounding the polling station, keeping track of the correctness of the procedural steps, the votes were sorted and counted.
The whole process was a bit tedious, as it was rather slow, but also surprisingly moving, in a way, seeing the essence of democracy at work right in front of my eyes.

The 2011 Ugandan presidential elections were, at best, a two horse race, with the remaining 6 candidates getting a negligible portion of the votes. Every time one of the non-contenders was awarded a vote, which happened no more than two dozen times out of the few hundred votes which were counted at the polling station I was observing, cheers rose up from the spectators.

The incumbent, Museveni, eventually won with about 68% of the votes, which wasn’t a surprise at all, as that was close to what the polls predicted. The main challenger, Besigye, collected about 23%, which was a few points higher than was previously expected. Nevertheless, Besigye’s supporters are crying foul.
To me, it seems that the published outcome of the vote is pretty close to the actual tallies of the votes that were cast. It’s no secret that Museveni has been buying votes, changed the electoral make up and plundered the state coffers to get there. And perhaps millions of voters weren’t issued with voter cards while plenty names on the registers were shown to be invalid.

In other words, it does seem the vote was rigged in Museveni’s favor, though the voting itself was rather free and fair.

Play

Together with two Dutchies, I was, on Sunday, planning to go to a play at the National Theatre called Crazy storms, aptly “a play on post election violence”, but focusing on the Kenyan elections from a few years back. However, we found the theatre very closed, while Museveni’s supporters were doing victory laps in town.

Elections, jobs and Twitter porn

February 18, 2011 • Blog

World » Uganda » Kampala » Etana Motel

This morning, Ugandan elections, from presidential through to local, have kicked off, which most likely will give Museveni, an American backed head of state who just wrapped up his 25th year in power (sounds familiar?), a sizable victory. The man is still popular with a large portion of the population, which makes it a bit surprising he raided the state coffers to finance his own electoral campaign and hand out brown envelopes (cash ‘donations’) when necessary.
Then again, it’s likely Museveni wants this to be the most peaceful elections in Ugandan history, while still making sure he’ll easily come out victorious. To do so requires him making sure he’ll have a majority backing, some of it aided by facilitating voters’ decisions at the ballot box with cash infusions.

There’s a subdued but clear alertness (article in Dutch by Marlies Pilon, a Dutch freelance journalist here in Kampala) in the west that the elections here could turn nasty. Then, there was an alert sent out by the Ugandan Inspector General of Police, which warned of terrorist attacks in the run up to the election. This, after an attack last year killed 74 Ugandans watching the soccer world cup finals. Which proves again that there are better ways to spend your time than watching soccer.
Insider information told me that the Inspector General has business ties with security firms, which might explain the supposed heightened perceived tension and I’m not easily impressed by such warnings anyway, but when, on Wednesday night, explosions rocked Dar es Salaam, I was considering being more careful. Until the explosions turned out to be an armory accidentally exploding, killing at least 20 people in the process.
Sadly, this was the second time in two years this happened.

Meanwhile, last night, I hosted a quiz at Bubbles O’Leary, where the previous quiz’ winners have to host the next one. Of the seven members of my team, only Wouter and myself showed up to host the quiz, with me MCing. Thankfully, it wasn’t just me, as the hosts have to also correct all the players’ answers, which is a lot of work, with a required ten rounds and, yesterday, eleven teams.

Vacancies

If you’re looking for a job in the international NGO sector, check out Neil Smith’s jobs4development.com. An excellent no-nonsense job board that’s easy to navigate and has lovely filtered RSS feeds available to its users. He’ll have a hard time fighting the big guys in the sector, though. Particularly the still horribly unusable, but very successful, devnetjobs.

Porn on Twitter

Interesting trend: porn stars who tweet: @AsaAkira, @flowertucci, @JenaveveJolie to name a few. Here’s an exciting tweet in honor of Valentine’s Day.

No mail for the USA

February 07, 2011 • Blog

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World » Uganda » Kampala » Etana Motel

After first struggling to find a place that sells postcards, I then struggled to find a working post office, in the end having to get to the downtown main post office to send a postcard to the USA. (Really, why even bother to sell cards to tourists?) Only to discover that there’s currently an embargo on postal services to the US and Canada.

Due to a heightened fear of receiving parcels from Africa to the US containing bombs, the Ugandan postal services is currently not accepting postcards to the US.
As these things go, details are tricky to extract from civil servants the world over, these postal workers being no exception. In order for me to find out when this embargo was to be lifted, a gentleman at the service desk gave me his personal cellphone number to call.

“When will this be over?” I asked. “They said they will contact us again in March.” They? March? I has a sad.

Update (10 Feb): A newspaper article yesterday claimed that the ban was worldwide but only for packages. The ban was announced in November last year, indeed after the Yemen mail bomb, saying it would come into effect when post offices (outside the US) wouldn’t be able to use bomb sniffing equipment by February 2011. The article claimed that the equipment costs some 100.000USD and strangely said that, in Uganda, all mail to the US, not just packages, won’t be accepted for the time being.
Apparently, also according to the article, Uganda sends no less than a million pieces of mail to the US, annually, which either results in a turnover or a profit (the article wasn’t clear on this) of 35 billion Ugandan shillings. I find this a bit rich, as this currently equals some 15 million USD. If, indeed, profit, or even turnover, on mail to the US is that high, spending 100.000 USD on equipment to keep the money flowing seems a pittance.

Another article in the Monitor has a slightly different story and is not completely correct, citing different figures and claiming that the ban goes into effect today (the 10th).

Interestingly, searching online for more info seems to suggest this embargo really only applies to Uganda.

Mactastic

February 03, 2011 • Blog

World » Uganda » Kampala » Etana Motel

This wouldn’t be Africa if, in whispers, the store clerk of the only Apple store in Uganda wouldn’t be offering me a cheaper second hand adapter instead of the new one, which was heavily overpriced. I was Saved, for now. I need to get myself a new Mac.

My Mac had two hard disk crashes early on In it’s life, one of which was covered by the warranty. It also had the cover replaced, under warranty, and it has been in need for another replacement for years.
But I’m waiting for the new line of MacBooks to come out in a few months to replace my three and a half, going on four, year old machine.

Imagine the annoyance when the adapter stopped working yesterday. Already twice this week it had done that, mysteriously returning back to action in minutes. Now, it had even used up its last legs.

There is exactly one Apple dealer in Uganda, the same single one that also supplies Kenya and Tanzania. Interestingly, their computers aren’t taxed, meaning that their machines, without tax, are actually a bit cheaper than the same machines in, say, Holland, with tax. Unfortunately, their peripherals, such as an adapter, are taxed, meaning that the adapter I needed was going towards twice the price here, of what it would have cost in Holland.
Interesting, as, as a consumer, buying your MacBook here in Kampala is slightly cheaper than in Holland.

And on a slightly related note…

In Uganda

January 23, 2011 • Blog

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World » Uganda » Kampala » Etana Motel

I shared my flight from Accra to Nairobi with the Ghanaian soccer team.

Kampala is in much better shape than I remembered, though this might be related to my now coming from Sierra Leone, last time arriving from Thailand.

Nevertheless, it’s really good to experience the existence of a local middle class. On my third day in town, I went for a stroll. Well, a walk. And stumbled upon three malls, a host of supermarkets, plenty of restaurants, in every price range imaginable, several day care centers and a handful of gyms. Obviously, this could not all be surviving on the country’s expat population or non-indigenous upper class.

On that same day, I had a visit of the less than enjoyable Kampala version of the Delhi belly. I had to resort to asking a furniture store for relief, where their toilet didn’t turn out to have neither water bucket nor paper. My book suffered.

I’m here to rebuild the ugandaradionetwork.com website. URN is a news service, providing radio stations with national and regional news (for a fee). Their corporate website as well as their article management system will be overhauled.

Morocco

In other news, I managed to get my pics and stories up from Niamh and my time in http://babakfakhamzadeh.com/keyword/morocco/.

Round the world trip for under 2000 euro

A while back, ‘travel hacker’ Steve Kamb claimed he was going to do a round the world trip for just over 400 USD. Impressive, you might say, but he wasn’t going around the world and the hacking involved vacuuming up airmiles wherever possible, in the year prior to his trip, then spending them on his trips.
In other words, the guy still has to prove he manages it (he should be on his way now) and his feat is not at all straightforward to reproduce.

For mere mortals, a round the world ticket typically starts at perhaps 2000 pounds, excluding taxes, if you’re booking through British Airways, though this would only give you some six stops. Kamb claims his itinerary, with no less than 16 stops, would normally cost 6000 USD.

I present to you a proper round the world trip in 11 (well 10) stops and 2 months for under 1800 euros. This spring and summer, bookable online right now.
All prices were confirmed in the last few hours.

+ Eindhoven – Londen Stansted, 22.99 euro, 30 April 2011, RyanAir
+ London Gatwick – New York EWR, 168 GBP (197.69 euro), 6 May, Iceland Express
+ New York LaGuardia – Los Angeles, 179.40 USD (131.93 euro), 12 May, SouthWest
+ Los Angeles – Auckland, 604.35 USD (444.44 euro), 23 May, Air New Zealand (through AirFare.com)
+ Auckland – Melbourne Tullamarine, 189 AUD (137.55 euro), 30 May, JetStar
+ Melbourne – Kuala Lumpur, 329 AUD (239.43 euro), 3 June, AirAsia
+ Kuala Lumpur – Bangkok, 104 MYR (24.98 euro), 8 june, AirAsia
+ Bangkok – Delhi, 2690 THB (64.48 euro), 13 June, AirAsia
+ Delhi – Sharjah, 131 euro, 18 June, AirArabia
+ Sharjah – Alexandria, 178 euro, 23 June, AirArabia
+ Cairo – Brussels, 109.99, 26 June, JetAir

Total: 1682.48 euros. Taxes and whatnot inclusive. If you want to be difficult about it, some airlines do charge you extra for paying with certain credit cards.
Then again, JetStar often has super deals from Australia to South East Asia.
Also, several of these flights, at these prices, only allow for hand luggage. So, throw in an extra 100, or so, euros to cover additional expenses and you can fly around the world for under 1800 euros. Not too shabby, eh.

Quiz, progress and traveling with an iPad

January 05, 2011 • Blog

World » Sierra Leone » Freetown » Home

To have the inner and outer tire replaced on my bike, I pay 7 euros. In Sierra Leone. In Holland, I pay 35 euros. That’s the cost of progress.

What to do before traveling with an iPad

Whether you’ve got a 3G or wifi only iPad, if you are traveling abroad, chances are you won’t have easy or constant access to the net. So this is what you do to stay on top of things.

+ cache the relevant Wikitravel pages through PocketTrav.
+ cache the relevant Wikipedia pages through Simplepedia.
+ cache detailed maps though Google Earth or the built in Google Maps. Google Earth is better, because that will also cache Wikipedia articles on the maps you’re caching, but is also more picky as to requiring a connection. Charles (see below) suggested OpenStreetMap as an alternative.
+ consider getting relevant Lonely Planet sections as PDFs. Or if you’re going to the ‘right’ location (and live in the US), one of their iPad optimized guides.
+ when you have web access, use Wikihood to see what sights are nearby.
+ Relevant web pages can be cached using Read it Later or InstaPaper (thanks Charles!).

O’Casey quiznight is back

Thursday January 6 sees the start of a new year of quizzing. 8pm at O’Casey blues bar. O’Casey blues bar is right next to Alex’s.

Photography in Marrakech

January 02, 2011 • Blog

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World » Morocco » Marrakech » Maison de la Photographie

What is probably the city's best kept secret, so be quick, is the maison de la photographie, on the northern edge of the medina. Three floors with photographs from Morocco, covering the 1860s up to the 1950s. The top floor, just a tad higher than almost all the buildings in the medina, opens up a wonderful view of the city, with the snow covered atlas mountains in the distance.

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