Today is the DRC's 49th anniversary of their declaration of independence. On that day, Patrice Lumumba, the first Prime Minister of the Congo, gave the following speech (full text in English can be found here):

[Video via Voice of the Oppressed]

Update: If you're interested in reading about the Independence celebrations in Goma, in North Kivu, read this blog roundup I wrote for Global Voices.

Not that long ago, I took a close somebody to visit my tailor in Guediawaye, Dakar. We were close to the Lycée Limamoulaye, certainly not the richest part of grand Dakar, some 2 hours from downtown traffic allowing. Lamine (the tailor) had his workshop right in the middle of the market. I could barely hold my excitement -- I had visitors, and a few families had invited us over for dinner. To make a long story short, I guess I walked a little too fast through the very narrow, filthy, and badly ventilated passages inside the market. When I turned around my companions were grabbing each others' arms for life dear, and the palest one said in a high pitch voice: "Please don't walk so fast, I'm afraid if we lose you they will put us in a pot and eat us alive."

I was not surprised to hear this, since the first thing I did every morning was to fight my adoptive sisters and their very sharp forks right outside my bedroom door.

Jokes aside, a few minutes later, he actually asked me to get them out of there in the first taxi, and I had to cancel the many activities I had planned for their entertainment that evening: a dinner with my adoptive family (they thought my house was disgusting), a wrestling match (they thought the stadium was disgusting), and some more socializing around (I guess they thought my friends were disgusting as well). What a disappointment. They thought everything I liked was revolting and scary. But how could that have happened? We've always been such good friends!! We've spent so much time together, we've read so many books together, danced so many songs together, watched so many movies together!! I remember for example when we watched Indiana Jones, oh, our beloved Indy with his brimmed hat and shiny little eyes, whip hanging from a side to keep under control those little wicked-looking colored people, some of which ate hearts from living humans. Or wait, that super cool movie, King Solomon's Mines. Now that's a classic including some pot and human cooking action!! Those good old times of popcorn and brave white men who could always avoid being devoured by the savage peoples. Sigh. Now that I think about it, no wonder my companion felt intimidated being one of the only three whites in a sea of blackness: he had forgotten his whip at home (although he remembered to bring the hat and the Coronel Tapioca jacket).

Via funkhundd

Anyways. I couldn't help thinking of this person yesterday when I read the news. It was with big pleasure that I sent him a link to this article, published recently in several African newspapers and titled: Les premiers Européens auraient été cannibales -- the first Europeans ate human flesh. And the remains that confirmed this were precisely in Northern Spain, the place where this person comes from. They found some human-sized pots in the area as well.*

In the subject line, a reminder: "humans for dinner today -- just like in the good old times!"

* This part is not true, I admit. But the rest in this post is.

Thanks to this article, I found out about an exhibit that opened recently at the San Francisco De Young Museum called "Art and Power in the Central African Savanna" showing sculptures from four Central African cultures: the Luba, Songye, Chokwe, and Luluwa, which are all basically ethnic groups from what is today the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Most of these sculptures were used by witchdoctors during religious rituals, or as the press release for the exhibit puts it more elegantly:

these power figures act as containers for magical organic ingredients and serve both religious and political purposes. According to traditional beliefs, the figures mediate between the human and spirit worlds to insure a healthy birth, successful hunt, or triumph over an enemy.

I have to say that I find it amusing that the press release quotes Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco director John Buchanan as saying, “This exhibition contains an extraordinary selection of rare works that will resonate dramatically with modern and contemporary tastes". Really? Resonate with modern tastes?

Anyway, I'll definitely check it out soon since I love Congolese art and I'm museum nerd. Also, it seems that this is the last stop of a lengthy US tour before the artworks return to various individual and institutional lenders from around the world, probably never to be seen together again.

As DR Congo turns 49 years-old in its current incarnation, I just wanted to post a photo of the boulevard which is named, "Boulevard 30 Juin" in honor of their independence from Belgium in 1960. This was taken at sunset on a very humid, yet lovely day in the capital.

There is no doubt that Twitter is a global phenomenon; influencing politics and entertainment. To think that the company is only two years old, its truly inspiring.

For people who love live updates and with access to the internet, this is an awesome tool. For those in South Africa where the mobile device interface is active; am sure they are beyond happy.

But what about other countries where the internet has remained a dream? Where promises of true broadband have just been a disappointment? Where operators or companies are yet to see the need of delivering twitter updates to mobile phones? Maybe its just a case of making a business out of it.

I was happy to participate in a twitterthon championed by Computer Aid the other day. The drive was to raise the level of computer donations to Africa. The event achieved its objectives.

The most disturbing thing was that a friend of mine (I would like to think that way), wrote to me complaining that the computers are being dumped to Africa and that kind of thing. I wondered, whether that was the debate, as to whether the computers are being dumped or not, that is the responsibility of our governments to ensure that the machines are of higher standards. Kenya has imposed a 25% tax, Uganda, Zambia have banned but Rwanda is still receiving. After talking to several people in the rural areas who have been conned about the new computer schemes only to learn that they were refurbs, I like to steer clear of the debate and let the people decide. For instance; I talked to the principle at Kigari teachers college in Kenya about why they buy refurbs and she was in praise of the computer performance.

In Canada, the schools use refurbished computers, makes you wonder, how many rural schools or hospitals would be happy with that refurb. I guess the point is that the manufacturers should be made to open up recycling centers like they do in the west, then all the comps will be there.

Anyway, I digressed too much, the debate was about twitter.

How then can twitter be used to reach more people in Africa? It has to come with increased connectivity and increased awareness, that its not a tool for spreading rumors and malice but a constructive tool. You can imagine the power of twitter in a crisis situation like in Kenya last year with the post election violence.

The best thing about twitter is that you can share your thoughts, whether professional or just personal issues- it is the new way of people keeping in touch!

These are just random thoughts....

Last week I visited for the first time the Jazz Heritage Center which is, on their own words, a non-profit housed within the new $72-million Fillmore Heritage Center, a mixed-use project at the corner of San Francisco’s Fillmore and Eddy Streets in the historic Fillmore District. I went there to see the photo exhibit "America's ambassadors embrace the world". The exhibit was about the jazz tours around the world sponsored by the US State Department during the Cold War years, as sort of public relations and diplomacy initiative. Because who didn't like American jazz during the 1950's and 60's?

The more than 100 pictures in the exhibit were little known images of famous American jazz musicians such as Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Benny Carter or Randy Weston, playing in the four corners of the world in front of the most diverse audiences. Some of the images predictably showed the musicians visiting touristic attractions or in meeting with Kings or government officials, but there was the occasional unexpected gem like the one showing Dizzy Gillespie with a pipe in his mouth driving Yugoslav musician Nikica Kalogjera by motorbike through the streets of Zagreb in 1956.

But the pictures that really caught my attention were, of course, the ones showing visits around Africa. I particularly enjoyed the 1960 Louis Armstrong African tour, which took him to 27 cities in 3 months, including Kinshasa in the Congo, then still called Leopoldville. As shown by the photo below, Louis was greeted in the Congo by joyous crowds, drummers, and dancers. Apparentley local talents, inspired by the story of Okouka Lokole, a legendary figure with powers to charm wild beasts with his music, composed a song in Armstrong’s honor with the words: “They call you Satchmo, but to us you are Okouka Lokole".

After Leopoldville/Kinshasa, Armstrong and his All Stars band appeared in Elisabethville in Katanga Province, now called Lubumbashi. Apparently, he was very proud that his concert had stopped a civil war when a day-long truce was called so both sides could hear them perform. Not only I had no idea that Armstrong visited the Congo, but through this exhibit I also learnt that singer Velma Middleton suffered a stroke and ended up passing away in Sierra Leone. Armstrong was ordered by a physician to take a break because of fatigue, but instead ended up filming Paris Blues in the capital of France. In January of 1961, Louis Armstrong and the All Stars crew returned to Africa for the final leg of the trip, which took them through Senegal, Mali, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Sudan.

This photographic collection fascinated me not only because of all the new information I learnt about the diplomatic role of (mostly black) American jazz musicians around the world at a time when segregation still existed in the US, but also because of the little knowledge and exposure I had to those events. We live in a world of excessive recording of minimal events, in which a celebrity generates an almost infinite trail of digital evidence. And so those times in which cameras were not constantly watching over the shoulder of famous musicians on tour, seems like a lost world in which imagination and discovery still had a place.

Would it surprise you that 10% of all the data centers in Africa are on Mauritius? It shouldn't given that there are ten in total for the continent and of those, six are in Egypt. In Sub Saharan Africa, there are four data centers. Yes, four.

I found this out while poking around the net and coming across a site quite aptly called, Data Center Map. I'm not sure if it's 100% accurate, but it seems pretty good and has been around since 2007. For instance, they list 786 data centers in the US in comparison to the paltry four in Sub Saharan Africa on a continent of one billion people. But the US is always a bad comparison. To put this more in to perspective, Slovenia, a country of two million people and only 20,000 square km has five data centers.

So, basically, your choices amongst the few are Internet Solutions, RSA Web, and Teraco in South Africa or Bhumishq in Mauritius. Not that amazing, which is most likely why so many African sites are hosted in the US and Europe; Maneno included for the time being, although we're hoping to change that in the near future. If anyone has information on more data centers in Sub Saharan Africa, please chime in below.

With the East African cables coming online, one can only hope that we'll see more enterprising groups open up data centers in Kenya, Tanzania, or even Mozambique. Obviously, they aren't cheap to set up, but a lot of factors like power don't come in to play so much when building a data center due to their having a dedicated power system (usually their own generators) in some capacity due to how much they use. The only real issue is that solid terrestrial connection to the outside world. It will be interesting to see what happens in this space and I wouldn't be surprised if Google already has designs on plopping down at least one of their data containers. On that note, you should check out the article on Data Center Map about data center containers. It's a good comparison of all that's out there in this market which will be pretty critical to all the "cloud" talk that's hot these days.

This is Kenya's premier Constituency reporting site.

Two friends, Shara Karasic and Katrina are now in Swaziland for BarCamp Swaziland which is happening on the 27th. Along the way, Shara managed to take a shot of the entertainment system during one leg of the flight (I'm assuming the Johannesburg Mbabane leg of it) and an ATM at the Joburg airport which I've included below.

While most inflight systems ATMs have a decent combination of English along with a couple of others like French, Spanish, Japanese, Russian, etc. this flight ATM had six languages that are all spoken in South Africa! Obviously English is there as well as Afrikaans, but take a look at the Sepedi, Xhosa (IsiXhosa), Zulu (IsiZulu), and Venda (Tshivenḓa). All I can say is wow. In the US you're lucky to even get two languages, despite the fact we actually have no official language.

Had to make a few corrections based on the the fact that is um... an ATM and not an inflight airline system.