It's been quiet all day, but now just as I start writing this, more gunshots ring out in the night not too far away. We're under a curfew and the police and military have orders to shoot violators on sight.

The riots started early Friday morning, and as in 2001 we woke to the sounds of shooting and, when we looked outside, saw billowing smoke in several places. Unlike September 2001, it seemed pretty calm around the hospital, with no refugees fleeing over the walls onto our compound or gangs of youths pursuing them.

By 10 am or so, though, we were ordered to leave the hospital compound, which was considered too close to the trouble, and to move to another compound about 2 miles away. We quickly gathered a few things and joined the convoy, five cars moving up the streets nearly deserted except for some youths at roadblocks and defending their neighborhoods.

Throughout Friday and Saturday, things remained unstable. In many parts of town, whichever group was the majority was attacking the minority: beating, killing, burning homes, shops, and places of worship. Those attacked, men, women, and children, fled wherever they could for safety, sometimes onto the compounds of our missions and friends, or any place that seemed a bit safe.

Being a member of the crisis management team, I spent much of Friday and Saturday helping to assess the situation and determine our response. My specific task was setting up Internet-based communications (a chat room, Skype chats, Skype-to-phone text messages, and a situation summary wiki page). Along with radio communication (phones were not working), these proved very helpful.

By Saturday evening, it seemed that the police and military had things pretty much under control in the areas near the hospital, so we moved back. Since then it has been pretty quiet. Barring any change tonight, we'll probably go back to our regular schedules tomorrow, though Hillcrest school is closed at least until Wednesday. I'll probably spend a good chunk of the week in debriefings and assessments of what happened and what we can do better next time.

Maybe I'll talk a little in the next blog entry about some of the emotional stresses and turmoil of these situations and their aftermath. It's important to emphasize that our family and co-workers were never under any physical threat or even discomfort -- we had a fine time Friday and Saturday with our friends on the other compound! Electricity, water, food, beds, and even Internet all day long. Our situation couldn't even begin to compare with the plight of hundreds or thousands of people in Jos who were injured, killed, lost loved ones, or made homeless.

While Europe, the Far East, and the US plunge ever deeper into economic crisis, Africa is quietly realizing a vision delayed more than 40 years. A few weeks ago, three large regional economic trade blocs: COMESA (Common Market for East and Southern Africa), SADC (Southern African Development Community), and the EAC (East African Community) joined together to form one large free trade area. Twenty-six countries compose this new economic alliance and although most of Africa in the west and north are not yet included, this is an important step to economic unity.

It is no secret to the world that Africa is far behind in terms of economic and political growth and maturity. The shameless exploitation of our natural resources by the West and China combined with the ineptness and blatant corruption of many of our leaders has proven to be a lethal combination in the continued colonialism of Africa.

This union is an attempt by some African countries to fix the current problem. Through this improved economic and customs union, it may be possible for Africa to have more control over our economies in order to ensure that the people and not just the upper class benefit. By removing trade barriers that restrict the movement of goods and services, we Africans are trying to stimulate economic growth independent of foreign (i.e. Western) influence. This new union brings together around 300 million people and an estimated GDP of $630 billion into one trade bloc which has enormous potential for growth. (Figures from bbc.co.uk).

With this new economic unity, it is now possible for us to negotiate with organizations like the EU and NAFTA, and large countries like the US, India, and China on a more equal level. Previously, these large countries and unions were able to isolate one or two countries and impose prices, development plans, and the distribution of benefits on them with little trouble. Now this will be more difficult for the so-called “great powers” of the world as Africans are coming to the negotiating table more united, ensuring that we are listened to and respected. This will allow us to have a better position in bargaining, and perhaps it will enable us to get better prices for our goods and ensure a diversification of our economies from the heavy dependence on the extraction of natural resources.

With this new union, it will be easier for us to set our own standards for development, and, with an integrated economy, we can all develop together. By concentrating on our own priorities for development, Africa can develop the way Africa needs to develop and not the way Europe or America wishes us to develop. The mistake of many African countries during and shortly after their independence was, and still is, the reliance on Western economic development models for growth. We had forgotten that we are not Europeans and were blind to fact that these so-called development models were actually dependency models. This new union could enable Africa to break with these exploitative policies and start catering to the needs and wants of its people. Too long have the people of Africa been low on the list of beneficiaries to the wealth of their nations. They have always had to wait for the Europeans, the Americans, or the Chinese, and corrupt government officials to get their share before they are allowed to have what remains. This must stop now, and it is my belief that this new economic union is a step in the right direction.

However, the true importance of this union is that it can be seen as a progression towards political unity on the African continent. The next steps to achieve this ultimate endgame would be the initiation of a better customs union, the establishment of a monetary union, and, finally, progression into a unified political entity.

The first major step has been taken, and now it is up to our leaders to lead and for development to start up again at a pace, and in a direction, that benefits Africans.

Although many challenges still await the African continent, this is a step in the right direction. I am not a fool to believe that this union will instantly solve all of Africa’s problems and that it means all leaders have finally realized what is important, but I am excited because it offers hope that the dream of people like Kwame Nkrumah and Sekou Toure about a United States of Africa can become reality. The challenges are known, and we must understand that certain actors within the US, Europe, China, and others outside the continent and within will do whatever it takes to prevent this dream from becoming reality. They should know that their time of dominance, oppression and almost Messiah-like influence is coming to an end, and there will be no place to hide when Africa comes storming into the developed world, free from the chains of oppression.

On November 21 at 21:00, Radio Okapi journalist Didace Namujimbo was shot and killed in Bukavu, Congo DRC. It's not only a tragic affront to freedom of the press (DRC is in the lower 15% of the world) but sad to me as I had met Didace on my trip to DRC this year. I can't speak French, so our conversation was quite brief, but he was one of those people who exuded a warmth from him. He was also a father and sadly whomever shot him leaves behind a wife and three children.

Of course, I could on about this. I could eulogize and wax about how sad this is. I'm not going to though because the real crime in all of this is the complete lack of balance in media when it comes to DRC and Sub-Saharan Africa at large. Yes, Reuters picked the story and of course MONUC has an article, but there is nothing on BBC or CNN about it. While this may change once the reporters wake up after the weekend, it currently sits that all they're talking about is the conflict up in North Kivu. And it's not like that conflict is raging. There is currently a ceasefire, so Didace was killed on what is in reality a slow news day.

Anyone reading this is more than likely aware of the fact that news coverage in Africa is quite poor, but what irks me beyond everything else is that this is just viewed as "normal". What do you expect, they're savages there, right? Wrong. Bukavu is not Goma. It is not a violent area. It's calm, beautiful, and about as normal as any town can be. This assassination has just come up from nowhere, much as the previous one a year ago. But again, in Western eyes, this is normal.

Congolese have every right to be affronted by such an assumption. If they keep up with European media, they too could assume that Europe is a violent place full of "savages". I bring to light, Ivo Pukanić who I wrote about here and here. He was a journalist killed by a car bomb last month in Croatia. No matter how you want to argue it, these two murders are exactly the same. Ivo and Didace were both journalist, both killed by others trying to silence them, and more importantly both human beings. Yet, for Ivo there was news coverage all over Europe as well as in the US because it was viewed as "shocking". For Didace, nothing. A couple of minor blips on some blogs here and there. Just a normal day in the Heart of Darkness. Is it time for another trip to Panzi?

We have to stop viewing Africa as a less-than continent where killing is expected given the circumstances. We have to understand that foreign journalists are not serving the citizens of Africa. They are serving Western media conglomerates who work to glorify the violence and not tell the stories. Lastly, we have to understand that we are directly responsible for all of this. There are great swaths of minerals in central Africa that everyone wants to control and profit from. This want causes conflict which then causes a good person like Didace Namujimbo who was just doing his job to be killed all in the name of our being able to buy the next iPhone.

It appears that once done with their weekending, the BBC has gotten around to a scant two sentence mention of Didace.

Ben Affleck is in Congo again. He was already there a few months ago and ended up creating a short piece that was aired on American primetime television. Affleck is definitely one of the least annoying celebrities to hit Africa this year, especially when compared to that jaunty Rankin fellow as he keeps going back. But even still, what is he doing there? He claims to be trying to draw attention to the region; a region that if anything, is not lacking for attention, as opposed to clean drinking water which they could use just a dash more of. So what is it? Simply put, Affleck is obviously embarking on Celebrity Humanitarian Fashion Education.

While not the best acronym, CHFE is incredibly crucial to all celebrities that want to journey to a crisis-stricken region and have it be known that they do indeed care as you can see in the way they dress that they're ready for anything. It is critical not to make a fashion faux pas like she did. Those sunglasses may block the equatorial sun that is indeed strong (I got knocked down for three days with sunstroke after being an idiot) but they're just too fancy and out of touch. They're not a classic Ray Ban or other "rugged" travel sunglasses. No, Affleck is on to something here and he's going to get a lot of recognition for it. All the Paris Hiltons will never be caught offguard again and for that, the celebrity world will be ever so thankful. The actual people living in Africa? Well, there is so much hope and they're such survivors, that they'll probably just manage.

White African

A few days ago, we were lucky to be featured in a post at the very popular blog White African. Maintained by Hash, aka Erik Hershman, internet guru on African tech and all sorts of cool ideas and innovation in and for Africa, it has been one of our favorite blogs for a long time. We could hardly contain our excitement when we read his positive feedback, as he's also one of the bloggers and internet entrepreneurs that we most admire. He said:

What Maneno is trying to build could be a really effective hosted blogging tool for Africa.

In addition to the boost to our motivation to continue improving Maneno, Erik Hershman's post also gave us the initial exposure we needed to get more people to sign up to Maneno and to test the system, so we can keep fixing problems, improving some functions and adding new features. For all that, we are very thankful to Erik.

His writeup was also picked up by a couple other bloggers that we'd like to mention too.

Kouya Chronicle

Kouya Chronicle is a blog that often focuses on translation issues in the developing world, since its authors are Eddie and Sue Arthur who spent twelve years in Côte d'Ivoire translating the Bible for the Kouya people. Here's what they wrote about Maneno:

If you are an African based blogger, or would be blogger (indeed, if you live anywhere with poor bandwidth) you should take a look at Maneno

Tinderblog

Tinderblog is a blog about technology in developing regions (ICT4D, as some like to call it), maintained by Chris Wilson and Jim Jepps of Aptivate. Although we didn't know their blog until they wrote about us, we have included it in our feed readers and are now following it quite frequently. They devoted a very interesting post to describing the use of Maneno, with the title Maneno: The future of CMS (hopefully). The post is a reminder of how empowering people in developing countries with online publishing tools that are not adapted to their needs, equals unusable tools. That's exactly what motivated us to start Maneno, and reading the last paragraph of the post felt like we are working in the right direction:

Although Maneno is still in a beta version it works like a dream and looks very impressive. It seems just the ticket if you are setting up a new site with little knowledge of design and want to ensure potential readers in Africa actually get the opportunity to read what you have to say.