Today’s recommended link: Cy Kuckenbaker’s photos from Malawi: http://cysfilm.com/ The corresponding Flickr album is at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cykuck/
Month: March 2007
vacation
Nyambadwe Hill
Other Nyambadwe photos at Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=nyambadwe&w=all 😉
TED in Arusha
Speaking of conferences, this sounds like an interesting event: TED in Arusha, Tanzania, June 4-7, 2007 http://www.ted.com/tedglobal2007/program.cfm Anybody interested in sponsoring me in exchange for live blogging? Oh well, too late, registration is closed.
BlogCampSwitzerland
I attended today’s BlogCamp in Zurich; a so-called unConference because it organizes itself like BarCamp. But heh, we’re in Switzerland so it was fairly well organized. I saw a couple of familiar faces. Maybe I should get a t-shirt saying “Blog conference tourist”… And I invited some of the Basel bloggers to the upcoming Basel… Continue reading BlogCampSwitzerland
Malawi bloggers
When I started blogging back in Jan 2003, one of my high flying and lofty ideas was to help cross the digital divide and point to content about Malawi. A goal I haven’t really managed to keep. But from time to time I’ve pointed to various Malawi sites. It’s great to see that the number… Continue reading Malawi bloggers
Price comparison
I pay 3.20 Swiss Francs for a kilo of tomato at the local supermarket. 3.20 Swiss Franc is currently about 384.56 Malawi Kwacha Compare this to current Malawi prices: Shoprite 199.99 MK Peoples 110.00 MK At the market, between 10 to 50 MK for one tomato depending on its size.
The power of insects…
We got to see the destructive power of tropical insects…. One of our cars stood idle for 3 weeks cos it needed to be repaired. Within those 3 weeks termites got into the seats, started eating away the insulation on the wiring, and created short circuits with their discharge in the fusebox, and thus corroding… Continue reading The power of insects…
Twittervision
Twittering on a map background: http://twittermap.com/twittervision
Uploading video
I wanted to upload a 30 sec amateur video of Lake Malawi, file format being AVI, file size 68 MB. I tried YouTube, I tried Revver, but both just show the first 4 seconds and then stop. The video runs fine on my old Dell. Any tips? (Update) this is what Revver had to say:… Continue reading Uploading video
Reading
I’m currently reading “The Last King of Scotland” by Giles Foden. See also this BBC report from Kampala
Textiles
Here are a couple of snapshots of wall hangings I saw: Tribal Textiles, based in South Luangwa, Zambia is making some very nice and original cloth. There’s a shop in Blantyre that has some of their textiles: La Caverna in Mandala House. Mandala House is one of the oldest buildings in Blantyre, built by the… Continue reading Textiles
Avocados
Here are a couple of snapshots of one of our dogs in Blantyre enjoying avocados: We’ve got an avocado tree in our yard and the dogs eat the fallen fruit.
Chiperoni country
Drive-by snapshot of the Chiperoni blankets depot in Luchenza, Malawi. See also: http://www.chiperoni.ch/wordpress/index.php?p=9
Where we have hope
Recommended read: good, informative book on Zimbabwe as seen thru the eyes of a foreign journalist, that was based in Harare from 1980 until he was expelled in 2003.
Big Three
Just arrived back in Basel and I’ve got the big three: Running water Electricity Telephone