She calls her initiative 'the African version of We Are the World'. 'In spite of our limited means Africans can also show solidarity with Haiti and contribute to its reconstruction', says Senegalese singer Coumba Gawlo. Therefore she is organizing a benefit in Dakar on March 6, called 'Africa for Haiti'. The musician, known for her cover of Miriam Makebas Pata Pata, manages to gather big names of the African music industry like Youssou Ndour, Alpha Blondy and Papa Wemba. These artists will also record a song from which the proceeds will go to the Haitians.
Granting many a request to also put the films I shot in Bobo Dioulasso, Burkina Faso, on my own web site. Since I took up the videocamera - or rather, my Lumix photocamera - I seem to have struck a new audience. Fascinating how moving images give my reports a new dimension. It is a medium that I'll definitely will explore further. To see the videos, click 'more'. (more)
During my stay in Bobo Dioulasso, Burkina Faso, a musician friend asked me to film his videoclip. The song Saya Mama in the Dioula language, is about his mother who died when he was five years old. Filming and making a clip was a first for me - nevertheless Zanké was happy with the result and it's shown on tv in Burkina on a daily basis now. Glad I could help out an African friend.
For non Dutch speaking visitors complaining they can't follow the blog I've been keeping for Dutch journal nrc.next I've got news: you can finally get at least some of the content of it. In Bobo Dioulasso, Burkina Faso, my last visit to an African town, I explored the possibilities of video. Holding a videocamera for the first time in my life I discovered I love filming. Better yet, my video experiments have been received with enthousiasm by readers and colleagues. This is definitely a powerful medium I'm going to try and master!
You find the one to two minute films underneath the text on the following entries: Welcome to Bobo My place in Bobo Dioulasso The women potters of Farakhan Greeting rituals in Burkina Faso Portrait of a musician My farewell party
They were getting bored out of their skulls, the students of the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, where I stayed on campus this Summer. The academic staff in the entire country was on strike to enforce better financing of Nigerian higher education. Because of that students were twiddling their thumbs for months, nobody could graduate and most of them eventually gave up and went back to their parents'. When the union recently announced a provisional end to the strike, because the government had promised to raise the budget of education, students coming from all parts of the country hastened back to their universities in order to sit for their exams. Whether their professors will keep at it in the long run, remains to be seen. The Nigerian government is not exactly known for keeping its promises.
The book reads like a script for a Hollywood thriller, but one with content. It's Our Turn to Eat is the story of Kenyan whistle blower John Githongo, appointed Kenya's anti corruption chief when a new regime came into power in 2002 that finally was to make a clean sweep. Instead the idealist Githongo discovers the contrary: corruption under the new regime is just as rampant as under the old. A well documented book that also poses critical questions about the Western reactions - or rather, the lack of it - to the scandals that lead to the highest regions of power, including president Kibaki. In an interview author Michela Wrong describes it as a 'naive and wishful thinking donor community which desperately wanted to start lending money again... and didn't want to see the evidence (of corruption, FvZ).' Only one British High Commissioner in Nairobi dares to 'throw up the truth over the shoes of the establisment'. He became the heroe of the Kenyan in the street but a pariah in diplomatic circles. That the book cannot be sold in Kenya says enough about its explosive content. Michela Wrong, It's Our Turn to Eat (Fourth Estate, 2009)
Five weeks in Nigeria and still I hadn't gotten used to it: the disapproving looks when I as the only woman in the bar ordered a beer. Nigerian women don't drink beer, or at least, not in public. They prefer nauseatingly sweet girly drinks like Smirnoff Ice, which they think more ladylike than lager, in spite of its higher content of alcohol. Beer has a funny reputation in Africa's most populous country. For some reason beer is percieved as something much more dangerously alcoholic than for example wine. Maybe because Jezus in the Bible does pour down a glass of wine or two, but never a pint of lager? Nigerians even think palm wine - which I know from my own experience can have a pretty drastic effect - more innocent than beer, judging this statement last week in front of an Osun State court. The defendent argued he had not drunk beer, but only palm wine, and therefore he couldn't have been that drunk.
No electricity, no water and lousy phone connections: since two weeks I'm sharing the troubles of everyday life with the Nigerians. For the fifth chapter of my book on cities in Africa, I'll be living for five weeks in the city of Ibadan, Southern Nigeria. In this biggest indigenous town of Africa I'll look into what urbanisation does with family ties and tradition. If you read Dutch (or don't mind merely looking at the pictures), check out my weblog with the Dutch newspaper nrc.next.
She calls her initiative 'the African version of We Are the World'. 'In spite of our limited means Africans can also show solidarity with Haiti and contribute to its reconstruction', says Senegalese singer Coumba Gawlo. Therefore she is organizing a benefit in Dakar on March 6, called 'Africa for Haiti'. The musician, known for her cover of Miriam Makebas Pata Pata, manages to gather big names of the African music industry like Youssou Ndour, Alpha Blondy and Papa Wemba. These artists will also record a song from which the proceeds will go to the Haitians.
Granting many a request to also put the films I shot in Bobo Dioulasso, Burkina Faso, on my own web site. Since I took up the videocamera - or rather, my Lumix photocamera - I seem to have struck a new audience. Fascinating how moving images give my reports a new dimension. It is a medium that I'll definitely will explore further. To see the videos, click 'more'.
During my stay in Bobo Dioulasso, Burkina Faso, a musician friend asked me to film his videoclip. The song Saya Mama in the Dioula language, is about his mother who died when he was five years old. Filming and making a clip was a first for me - nevertheless Zanké was happy with the result and it's shown on tv in Burkina on a daily basis now. Glad I could help out an African friend.
For non Dutch speaking visitors complaining they can't follow the blog I've been keeping for Dutch journal nrc.next I've got news: you can finally get at least some of the content of it. In Bobo Dioulasso, Burkina Faso, my last visit to an African town, I explored the possibilities of video. Holding a videocamera for the first time in my life I discovered I love filming. Better yet, my video experiments have been received with enthousiasm by readers and colleagues. This is definitely a powerful medium I'm going to try and master!
They were getting bored out of their skulls, the students of the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, where I stayed on campus this Summer. The academic staff in the entire country was on strike to enforce better financing of Nigerian higher education. Because of that students were twiddling their thumbs for months, nobody could graduate and most of them eventually gave up and went back to their parents'. When the union recently announced a provisional end to the strike, because the government had promised to raise the budget of education, students coming from all parts of the country hastened back to their universities in order to sit for their exams. Whether their professors will keep at it in the long run, remains to be seen. The Nigerian government is not exactly known for keeping its promises.
The book reads like a script for a Hollywood thriller, but one with content. It's Our Turn to Eat is the story of Kenyan whistle blower John Githongo, appointed Kenya's anti corruption chief when a new regime came into power in 2002 that finally was to make a clean sweep. Instead the idealist Githongo discovers the contrary: corruption under the new regime is just as rampant as under the old. A well documented book that also poses critical questions about the Western reactions - or rather, the lack of it - to the scandals that lead to the highest regions of power, including president Kibaki. In an interview author Michela Wrong describes it as a 'naive and wishful thinking donor community which desperately wanted to start lending money again... and didn't want to see the evidence (of corruption, FvZ).' Only one British High Commissioner in Nairobi dares to 'throw up the truth over the shoes of the establisment'. He became the heroe of the Kenyan in the street but a pariah in diplomatic circles. That the book cannot be sold in Kenya says enough about its explosive content.
Five weeks in Nigeria and still I hadn't gotten used to it: the disapproving looks when I as the only woman in the bar ordered a beer. Nigerian women don't drink beer, or at least, not in public. They prefer nauseatingly sweet girly drinks like Smirnoff Ice, which they think more ladylike than lager, in spite of its higher content of alcohol. Beer has a funny reputation in Africa's most populous country. For some reason beer is percieved as something much more dangerously alcoholic than for example wine. Maybe because Jezus in the Bible does pour down a glass of wine or two, but never a pint of lager? Nigerians even think palm wine - which I know from my own experience can have a pretty drastic effect - more innocent than beer, judging this statement last week in front of an Osun State court. The defendent argued he had not drunk beer, but only palm wine, and therefore he couldn't have been that drunk.
No electricity, no water and lousy phone connections: since two weeks I'm sharing the troubles of everyday life with the Nigerians. For the fifth chapter of my book on cities in Africa, I'll be living for five weeks in the city of Ibadan, Southern Nigeria. In this biggest indigenous town of Africa I'll look into what urbanisation does with family ties and tradition. If you read Dutch (or don't mind merely looking at the pictures), check out my weblog with the Dutch newspaper nrc.next.
