January 2009
18 posts
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The Sapeurs of Congo: Open Gutters and Gucci...
The Sapeurs adhere to a subculture of high fashion, often against a backdrop of extreme poverty. Many live in shacks bordered by stinking sewers in the southern suburbs of Brazzaville. Those of them who can work double jobs; those who can’t must beg, borrow and occasionally steal; whatever it takes to strut in Versace, Prada and Gucci. Meet the Sapeurs of Congo.
In a country where many...
Afrigator, Kenya Unlimited and an Abandoned Blog...
I hope my modest tumblelog will be around 2 years from now, and I hope tumblr will still be there to host it. If Afrigator’s figures are anything to go by there should be over 20,000 African bloggers on the scene by mid 2011. The growth in the last 9 months has been amazing. With over 5,300 blogs indexed, that’s a whopping 135 % increase since its 1st anniversary in April,...
First full day at the office
Ok, dude, put that cigarette out and put a suit on. It’s your first full day in the office at your new job, and it’s going to be a challenging one.
Google keeps delivering in Africa
“Today, I just noticed something strange about the Google Nigeria page, and I was curious. That’s when I saw this phrase:
Google.com.ng offered in: Hausa, Ede Oyinbo
At first, I thought it was a fluke, not because Google lacks translation skills, but because I was wondering what Google has to do with Hausa or Yoruba language. Not that I didn’t know that Google also offers search pages in...
For your browsing pleasure on January 17, 2009
I am de-cluttering my bookmarks on delicious. I have 3,246. They’re all private. But not for long.
Jackfruity will be 3 years old in May 2009. Long before Afrigator and Appfrica, Rebekah Heacock’s site was a leading advocate for the emerging African / Ugandan blogosphere. She also founded the Kampalan, “a space for communal musing by the Ugandan Blogren”, and is an...
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So you want to follow tech trends in Africa...
I follow high level and low level African tech trends and the development of the emerging African semantic web. I’d be happy to give you my list of Top 10 bloggers on these subjects but Jonathan Gosier at Appfrica has already done it for me.
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Portraits of the Kings of Africa
Daniel Lainé is a French photographer and 1991 World Press Photo winner. His photo collection of over 70 African monarchs was first published by Ten Speed Press in 2000.
Eighteen of the images and their accompanying descriptions can be viewed on Tamarin Photo.
In Cameroun, the Baba of Rey-Bouba made me wait eight days in a cabana. In Nigeria, for fifteen days I followed the traces of the Oni of...
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“Performing two Google searches from a desktop computer can generate about the...”
– Article by Jonathan Leake and Richard Woodsin
David Sheen, Becky Bee and Radical Activist...
Anarchist architect, filmmaker and eco-activist and David Sheen has the most most comprehensive Africa inspired earth building portal on the web. He waylaid me for 2 hours last night while I was surfing for some background info on Becky Bee. I came across the transcript of an interview Sheen conducted with her. In it she describes her first earth architecture epiphany:
And then I went to...
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African quizzes: for fun and against the clock
I was delighted to see so many African quizzes on Funtrvia. The site claims to be:
the world’s largest and oldest trivia website, running as an online community since 1994! with 1,000,000 trivia questions in 10,000 categories, created by over 30,000 different visitors to this site, from over 100 countries around the world. Over 1.4 million registered members and 6,000,000 guests have played a...
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The Coolest Gas Station in Africa
Even before its refurbishment in 2003, the Fiat Tagliero petrol station in Asmara was one Africa’s most iconic Art Deco structures. Designed by Giuseppe Pettazzi and constructed in 1938, the futuristic building is modelled after an airplane.
During construction, and against Pettazzi’s wishes, wooden pillars were used to support the reinforced concrete wings. On the day before opening the...
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“Fact is, when you’re looking at photos from last night’s holiday...”
– Web 2.0 is so over. Welcome to Web 3.0 by Jessi Hempel.