While El Dorado is something for storybooks and popular mythology, I know the actuality of it all too well having grown up in California with Gold Rush history all around me as a child (my home town is called, 'gold town'.) Much is made about the wealth that flowed through Northern California during the mid-19th century, but rarely is the dirtiness of that period ever covered with people working in terrible conditions, catching all manner of diseases, often dying, and all to have the actual wealth go to an elite few with the connections. We've repeated this story in a number of ways over the past 150 years...

I mention this because of the title of this article, L’Afrique, nouvel eldorado des télécommunications (Africa, the new El Dorado of Telecommunication.) The article talks a great deal about the developments in the industry and the growth, but doesn't actually follow up on what is a very catchy title in that while the mobile phone growth in Sub-Saharan Africa is tremendous, it's illusory at best. This growth is being painted in such a good light at the moment, because a great many worldwide companies see a gigantic market there. This is definitely true, but what happens when the growth slows down? Yeah, I know, the slow down is years and years away given that there are a billion people there, but still, it's not as far away as you may think.

At best, a great deal of the adoption is coming about because service, coverage, and prices are sub-par. I think that everyone I've ever met in Sub-Saharan Africa has two if not more phones. One is for talking. One is for texting. Maybe one is for another region if they go there often. This isn't growth, it's people dealing with less than adequate service. Up until about 10 years ago, people in a lot of the US had to do the same as the coverage just wasn't "there" yet. And 150 years ago, miners in California bought multiple claims for when their current one ran out. You hedge you bets and when that translates to numbers, it looks impressive. But, you probably own more than one pair of shoes and always need new ones. You're really only wearing one at a time, so is there really huge possible growth in the shoe industry? Nope.

Yes, there is innovation, like this MTN address book function that Elia tipped me off to and is quite cool. But, I've seen this type of thing before. It was in the 1990's in the US and Europe. Innovation in mobile technology was awesome then. Every couple of months, something groundbreaking would come out from a network provider (not a handset maker mind you) and then they'd all flock to copy it. It was a wondrous time to play with mobile technology, but it's gone as flat as the growth rates in these regions.

I'm just saying that El Dorado was never found. The gold mines of Northern California dried up. A lot of things have happened along the way, but the one thing we know is that growth rates are finite. What happens when the growth flattens out or once numerous networks have swallowed each other? There's conflict in Eastern Congo for the materials that are fueling all this growth. What about that? What if the exports were to stop as they're systematically inhumane?

I know that a lot of my fellow tech bloggers will point to all that's coming about because of the mobile penetration and that the mobile phone is the computer in Africa (although my African friends with computers might disagree), but there is a day very soon where things will flatline and a lot of folks will be left in the lurch. Competition will dry up. Innovation will fall off. Prices will go up and then what?

Instead of constantly talking about growth (especially as if it's going to go on forever), maybe we should be paying a great deal more attention to what's happening at the top and on the sides of this new El Technorado and see that it really isn't all that it's being purported to be. Only then we can maybe talk about what's sustainable in the industry.

Although somehow fragmented, there is a very intense scholarly interest in African Studies in North America. Some groups are better organized and more active than others; some still hang on to a very colonial approach, while others have as their main goal to build bridges between academy and development efforts. The ASA, based at Rutgers, has a very good reputation. Groups that I am familiar with and recommend as reference points include the CAAS in Canada (with associated academic journal CJAS) and the African Specialty Group of the Asociation of American Geographers (which publishes the AGR). Yes, there is still much to do, but the potential is there.

One interesting resource for academics, more accessible than journals, is Africa Past and Present, a podcast about history, culture, and politics in Africa and the diaspora. Audio files can be listened to online or downloaded.

And since my interest is particularly in Senegal, I will highlight the following podcasts:

Transnational Islam, with Anthropologist Mara Leichtman.

Slavery in West African History, with Martin Klein.

Senegalese "history from below", with Ibrahima Thioub.

Amadou Bamba and the Muridiyya of Senegal (recommended reading) with author Cheikh Anta Babou.

Today is a big day: Tabaski. This is the name that Senegalese Muslims use to refer to Eid al-Adha, the Festival of Sacrifice that commemorates Prophet Ibrahim's devotion. As the story -- also present in the Old Testament and the Jewish Torah -- goes, God asked Ibrahim / Abraham to kill his son Ismail. Abraham, torn but determined to carry out God's will, covered his eyes and proceeded to fulfill the sacrifice. When he looked, he found that God had placed a sheep instead of his son. And this Muslims of all denominations commemorate all over the world in what is one of the main celebrations of Islam, which coincides with the annual pilgrimage to the Mecca, the Hajj.

So, I thought, it would be a big day for the Senegalese Muslims living in my city.

But I was wrong.

I had the pleasure to be invited to a little Tabaski celebration. My hosts where generous and kind, although they also seemed sad and disappointed for the lack of celebration. Some of my friends left Spain for Senegal in a rush last week, and one of them said: "I want to celebrate Tabaski the way it should be." Meaning, with your family, friends and neighbours in a party that lasts several days. A party so important that Wade's government had to pass laws regulating the places, number, and conditions under which animals will be sold for the sacrifice.

But those who were here had nothing to celebrate. Isolated in a quiet, non-descript building of a working-class neighbourhood somewhere in Granada, the food just made home seem farther.

Mango stones, white, smushed on the ground. Stones so sucked on and dry that it almost hurts to look at them. And many of them. Purple jacaranda petals. The couple on the corner selling peanuts is laughing with a friend. Lots of people on the street at the end of the day, the clouds all turning pink. There is a gigantic mushroom-shaped cloud north of the city, or maybe it's more like Eraserhead shaped. Turning all pink. I would like to be able to stay and watch the cloud go dark. Lots of movement on the main street. Some kids playing, jumping from a bench onto the metal bar on the bottom of a billboard (Vodacom "Ish, Yowê"), swinging back and forth and laughing. Everything seems so normal, so calm, but I cannot seem to feel these moments. Feel that they are mine too.

Across the street from my apartment, a guy was taking a break from his job two days ago. A woman came along, got in an argument with him, and stabbed him to death. Because I live in San Francisco, there will and has been media coverage of this, but it will soon be forgotten as the balance of coverage favors shots of the Golden Gate Bridge as opposed to the evils that lurk in the city although you can easily find them without really having to look all that hard.

As this event passes and this poor fellow is laid to rest, you won't see a continuous stream of photos showing the bad shades (prostitution, drug addicts, homeless) of a delightful town. It's the complete inverse with a shot like this one from Liberia. I have seen photos of children like this thousands of times before and they are something that I do not give thanks for today. That shot is not a good photo, but it is a shocking photo, if you haven't seen it before. All it does is to further the perception that most people in North America and Europe have of Africa.

Today is Thanksgiving in the US and as I grew up there, it's customary to state all that you are thankful for today. At this moment, in the context of this article, I am thankful for connectivity. I know it sounds like a strange thing to say, but it's a fact that while it allows for images and articles on Africa that continually portray it in a bad light to circulate, there is also the opportunity to see another side. We can turn the camera around 180 degrees and see what there is beyond the scope of what has been captured; the innovation, culture, history, food, music, and life that thrives in Africa. But most importantly, Africans can actually talk about Africa.

I am thankful for all who chose to take this path and show this when all of you know how much less resistance there is on the path that has you taking photos of children in the street to accomplish lord knows what at this point. Let us hope these efforts that move slowly now gain momentum with time. And in time, perhaps we will all be able to thankful that perceptions will have changed.