Simunza S. Muyangana

Stories Never Told ...

2011-11-02T12:39:00.000+02:00

A couple of weeks ago I met a friendly gentle man called Clive Shamwana through a friend. Clive is proprietor of Eight Reedbuck Hotel in Kabulonga, Lusaka. He is also the son to the late Edward Jack Shamwana, a lawyer who was convicted for his part in an attempted coup against the presidency of Kenneth Kaunda in in 1980. (The Attorney General vs Edward Shamwana, et al.)

I met the elder Mr Shamwana once when he came to speak at my school, St Paul's Secondary School, in April 1991. St Paul's was host to the national convention for the Zambia Young Christian Students that year. The recently pardoned and released Mr Shamwana chose to speak to us on multi-party democracy. During his talk Mr Shamwana made mention of his life while in prison. It was horrific to say the least.

Yesterday I came across Clive's blog, The Days of Lifer, which is inspired by the memories of his father. A "lifer" is prisoner serving a life sentence. Clive, however, uses the term to draw inspiration and gratitude for each day in his life. On his blog he shares his side of the story growing up as the son of a man incarcerated for standing up against the injustices he witnessed taking place by the government of the day. He also quotes liberally from journals his father kept secretly while in prison.

I am grateful that Clive has chosen to share these intimately personal details of his and his father's life. His writing fills important gaps in the story of who we are as a nation and how we got here. I hope the journal will get published some day. There is a lot that we can learn from the words of the elder State Counsel.

All respect due to Clive and his family.

ECZ - A Credible Electoral Body?

2011-10-12T08:47:00.000+02:00

I've always advocated for the need to have an Electoral institution that is deemed credible in the affairs of managing our national elections by the public. The Electoral Commission of Zambia, in my opinion, has failed time and time again to assure the people of Zambia of its independence and integrity; which is why many believe that the every election since 1996 has been rigged. Even in this years elections, when people took to the streets in the few sporadic incidences it was because they believe underhanded activities were taking place.

I am glad when I read opinion pieces like Rapheal Tuju's Crucial Lessons for Us from Zambia's Election because it gives some credibility to our institution. However, we should never forget that institutions in themselves are not infallible and every once in a while they need to be reminded by the people, as was the case in Zambia this year, "We are watching you!"

I'm Excited: TEDxLusaka 2011 Will Happen

2011-09-15T15:59:00.002+02:00

It' just over a year a go when Masuka, Kupela and I got together to discuss the the possibility of hosting a TEDx event in Lusaka. After a couple of sessions around pizza and a sumptuous dinner at Kupela's we applied for a license. The license was granted to us in November, 2010. Eager to stage the most important independent event of our lives to date we turned our hats inside out and marched into corporate offices asking them for sponsorship.

Sponsoring a TEDx event shouldn't be difficult. None of the members on the organising committee makes a cent from working on the event since all payments are made directly to suppliers. Sponsors may even suggest suppliers that they know will offer them preferential rates. An event like TEDxLusaka is also a media steal. It tugs at the heart of all the people you want to know in Lusaka. I couldn't think of any better event to align a corporate brand too. However, we would learned the hard way ... some things are not so simple.

The first date set and announced for the event was done after we thought we had a sponsor. We had sold our idea to a senior manager in a corporation and we were informed that they were keen to be the sole sponsor for the event. This was exciting - actually thrilling until as the day for event drew closer, our liaison went oddly silent on us. When we finally got hold of her we were promised we would be informed of the steps forward at the end of a management meeting that could happen, maybe might happen and eventually never happened. At the 11th hour we had no one else to turn to since we had stopped canvassing sponsors on the assurance that we had sole event sponsor.

Realising that the event wouldn't take place on the day we hoped it would, we informed our speakers of the circumstance and pushed the date back. Strapping our work boots on we hit the well worn track once again in search of sponsors. As time wore on this time round the answer form corporations sounded like an echo, "we love the idea but it's a little too late into our marketing year". We were exhausted by the time we got into a period when every marketing department in Zambia pleads "bankruptcy" because of events like annual Easter Egg dash, the Zambia International Trade Fair in Ndola and the Agricultural Show in Lusaka. We also felt it was a bad to hold the event soon after because, of course, it then became national election campaign period. Almost feeling defeated, we decided to pack in and take a break having gained a lot of respect for beauty pageant coordinators.

The thing, though, with an event like TEDx is that it attracts a particular kind of audience. The TED by-line is "ideas worth spreading". The kind of person interested in attending an event like TEDxLusaka is someone usually on the hunt for fresh conversation - new ideas, challenging memes and fresh perspectives. TEDx brings people like that together. It therefore wasn't surprising that at the last Development Discussion Group meeting someone invariably asked "what happened to TEDxLusaka?"

So, we are at it again ... however this time round we're self-sponsoring. Why not? We've asked a couple of friends to help with contributions and the response so far is amazing. Our venue has been picked, our speakers will be decided very soon and on November the 5th TEDxLusaka will happen.

Do we need help? Yes, we do. A lot of if it infact. We'd really appreciate it so much if you could get involved. Why don't you, actually? Drop us an email at info@tedxlusaka.com and we'll let you know how you can help.

The event website is up again and if you'd like to find out more, please visit http://www.tedlusaka.com/.

Ideas worth spreading - I like the sound of that. It excites me.

Sister Girl

2011-03-17T01:00:00.000+02:00

My friend Samba and I were having our usual late night debate/conversation online about world views and the need for paradigm shifts. Once again, this time we got into the different expectations that men and women have when they get into relationships and the influence that society plays on their expectations.

As we were chatting the Grits album "Dichotomy A" was playing in my ear. The song "I Be" came up and and its very end is the following poem which I shared with Samba. She likes it. Hmm... we agree on something. LOL!

Sister Girl

By Gabrielle Howard

Sister girl, you must be trippin'

fallen head over heels for a man that don't love you

don't know god, and don't wanna do either

Letting him wine and dine you

a small price to pay to get the divine

of modern day tales of cats and pearls before swine

No wonder you feel all men are dogs

your brokenness, his neediness has brought you to this conclusion

but there's another solution

after all men are made in the image of god

even if they are delusional

Set higher goals

godly, ambitious, educated brothers do exist

you just can't see because your vision is twisted

Close your eyes and I'll paint a picture of a man

who ain't posted up in clubs tryna get yo number

who looks at yo set of eyes, not the predictable others

Who prays to god for his queen

so he ain't impressed with hair, weave, short dresses

bling and superficial things

He knows that a dime piece

doesn't come with a price tag on her tail

but virtue in her heart

Something that he discovered on his knees

before god, not you

So you want a good man?

here's what you do

button up that shirt

loosen up those pants

opt for steppin' instead of the latest booty dance

and when an unusual suspect comes at you give him a chance

Kings don't rock crowns and crowds, for what?

they're more secure than that

ask god what you need and not your girls

and remember, you determine your self-worth,

make the necessary sacrifices even when it hurts

Oh, and get "dog" out of your vocab

god and his royal priesthood can hear your every word

and to think D.O.G. spells MAN is beyond absurd ya heard!

Zone Fam - Shaka Zulu On Em

2011-03-06T15:50:00.000+02:00

My support for the Zambian hip-hop community has been on the low for a while now simply because I haven't heard anything I've enjoyed for just over two years now.

The last Zambian hip-hop artist I bought an album from was Conscious after I was persuaded ever so gently by my friend Samba to attend his album launch. The material for his album had a couple of clever concepts and I appreciated the fact that he hadn't fallen into the lazy rut of pleading for my attention by trying to impress me with baseless braggadocio.

At Conscious launch I was also introduced to a young rapper known then as "Al the Lyricist" who showed a lot of promise with regards to original style and content. Al has since released two albums, none of which I have had the opportunity to listen to yet. His most recent album came out only a week ago and I'd love to hear what he has has been working on.

Sometime last year, in a conversation with Mhuthandeni Phiri, a fellow hip-hop enthusiast who is also founder and chairman of the Hip-hop Foundation of Zambia, we seemed to agree that the ailing element holding our artists (english and vernacular) back was a dire lack of content. It would seems like they all latched onto the in phrase of the time "swagger" and have now driven themselves into settling hyperbolic scores of beef that are painfully boring in ways that I would have never imagined.

A cardinal point that our hip-hop artistes have forgotten is that entertainment is the value we expect to derive from them. When we slide an album into our players or watch music videos, most of us are looking forward to some sort of feeling that makes considering their artwork in our time worthwhile. This is why we pay hard earned cash to listen to comedians, watch plays, get serenaded by balladeers or adorn our walls with paintings. The rule is no different for the hiphop artist. For example, the reason a high placed director in one of Zambia's blue chip companies is willing to quote TI's "Get Back Up" on her facebook status is by her on admission the positive vibe she gets from listening to it.

I can not to be the first to say this but I feel like I reiteration to the Zambian hip-hop community is necessary here ... the stories of how many girls surround you or how supposedly rich your alter ego could be is tired. It is a lame imitation and we expect so much more.

Enter Zone Fam with "Shaka Zulu on Em ..." This is the first Zambian hip-hop song in the last three years that I've played over and over again like I did with The Organized Family's "Koka-kola" or JK's "Kapilpili". Zone Fam's clever word play flows easily over an infectious beat. What I also enjoy is the sense of African pride I get to partake in as I'm invited to "Shaka Zulu on Em ..." It is entertaining and I am looking forward to listening to more songs from Zone Fam. They've impressed on me that they just might have something to go on, the very basics of rap - rhythm and poetry.

I hope Zone Fam can be that game changer that many of us have longed for. My respects also go out to Slam Dunk Records CEO Holster hoping that he continues to have a positive influence his proteges because we could do with a lot bit more of "getting our fists up" with pride before we end up emblazoning the epitaph of Zambian hip-hop with Common's words - "I used to love H.E.R (hip-hop)".

airtel Zambia asks "What's your Magic Number?"

2011-02-10T14:24:00.001+02:00

Hooray! airtel have introduced a new service (tariff) that they call Magic Number.

How it works is that if you are a subscriber on the airtel network, you can now opt to pay a daily once-off tariff of K500 (10c) upfront for all the calls that you will make a single number (your magic number) of your choice. You can call your Magic Number as many times as you like and for as long as you like until the accumulated talk time you've spent in conversation with that number gets to 60 minutes in that day.

Those of us that frequently call the same number can opt to instead register a Magic Number with airtel for K5000 ($1) and enjoy the service of chatting with that person every day for the next 15 days. Selecting to pay K5000 upfront feels like you've been given an extra 5 days of talk time for free. However, subscribers who pay K500 are free to choose a new magic number for each day they opt-in.

I would interested to find out how relationships fair now that calls all day to your significant other cost only K500. It shouldn't too long before we hear of a lover's tiff preceded by the question, "Who did you use your Magic number on?" Better still, I'd love to see how airtel's competition respond to this.

To activate a Magic Number for the day or 15 days airtel Zambia subscribers need to dial *404#.

Have fun!

Open Office Impress Now has a Presenter Screen - Hooray!!!

2011-02-01T13:41:00.000+02:00

When I spoke at the Lusaka Radio Summit last year, I used Chilu's macbook pro to project my presentation on to the screen. Like most mac users Chilu prefers to use keynote. I've heard a lot or people mention how good Keynote is for designing good presentation. Although, I have not been able to use it as a designer yet, the radio summit afforded me the opportunity to use it as a speaker.

Little Things Mean A Lot

What I grew to like about keynote in my little time spent interacting with it was the Presenters Screen. Most presentation software like powerpoint (the last version I used was 2007) will show you the current slide that you're speaking to on the screen of your laptop while you speak. A Presenters Screen has an added advantage in that it will also show you the next slide coming up, time and other handy things like notes that you might want to you while you speak. This is really helpful as it helps transition through slides as you speak with ease.

Since December, I've been using OpenSUSE since I formatted my machine and realised afterwards that my Ubuntu Installation CD was missing. Fortunately, I had an OpenSuse CD lying on the desk and that is how I came to change OS once again.

I made a presentation to a client in Kitwe this morning - during which we brainstorm issues of content for their website. For my presentation today, I used my own laptop running OpenOffice Impress. You should have seen the beam on my face when I realised that the current version of OpenOffice can now display your presentations on a Presenters Screen like Macbook Pro. So, so cool ...

Small things like make a huge different in the experience of a speaker. Cheers to OpenOffice.

What on earth are the dudes in Kalabo smoking? Stay away from them young girls ...

2011-01-28T11:27:00.000+02:00

Being a year older today, I thought I could start writing on a new leaf ... I'd hoped that I'd keep my posts a lot more more positive and inspiring. However, it looks like life doesn't want to me to get mushy on you.

Over 400 girls last year couldn't right their exams because they got pregnant. Pardon me if I'm being naive but I think 400 is a terribly large number if the Ministry of Education reported this number for nation Zambia. Think about it - 40 girls in each province unable to write exams province makes for an incredible lot of girls denied an education. The horror is these girls are all in one district. Can you imagine ONE freakin' district with a population of 114, 806 people (2000 Census Data)?!?!?

What are the dudes in Kalabo smoking? Even 500 girls in the previous year. I mean like WTF!!!! Now imagine ... hum along to the John Lennon's song if it helps you ... what the figures are for the whole nation? When we (men) complain about how much effort is being made to to secure the rights of the girl-child it can only be because we don't understand the tragedies that being dealt out on our sisters and daughters.

Let's get real ... there is enough data to show that most men in our nation are hardly able to sustain the livelihoods of their families. How then does it make sense that you deny a girl the one opportunity she has of making it to stand on her own two feet? Freakin' bastards! OK, so father of the bride is probably thinking - since I can hardly make it I am better marrying her off. No, you loser! It's your responsibility as a parent to protect your child and help her to take advantage of every opportunity she can because (ping) chances are very high that she is marrying into the family of some guy who is even in a much dire situation that you are.

There goes my birthday! You can read the facts on the story that is working me up here - http://www.lusakatimes.com/2011/01/28/400-kalabo-girl-pupils-exams-pregnancies/

It's Getting Hot in Here..

2010-12-14T12:03:00.000+02:00

Nelly sings: "It's getting hot in here so take off all your clothes ..."

I am still looking forward to meeting that one decent girl who answers back and says ... "Eish! You know, Nelly. It's true."

Fictional Title's I Look Forward to Reading in 2011

2010-12-11T09:11:00.002+02:00

In recent years I haven't read a lot of fiction despite the fact I really do enjoy a good story. I have still read books, however my collection is hugely made up of titles in the following categories - Christian Faith, Business, Web Technology and Personal Development.

About 4 months ago I discovered that my friend Masuka organises the Lusaka Book Club that meets regularly (almost once a month) to discuss books the have read. The conversations around a book are often light-hearted with a good measure of analysis because of the different people that make up the membership of the book club. Now that I have joined the book club, I hope that I'll now be able to enjoy a a regular fix of fiction with my regular reading.

In 2011, we hope to read the following novels

The Concubine by Elechi Amadi
Crossing by Andrew Xia Fukuda
The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson
Mine Boy by Peter Abrahams
The River Between by Ngugi wa Thiong'o
A Bend in the River by V.S. Naipaul
The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer
In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez
Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
Spud by John van de Ruit
We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver

The ghost of Zambia Airways haunts us still...

2010-10-28T13:54:00.002+02:00

Most Zambians miss the times when we had our own national flag carrier but no one more so than Zambian Ambassador Alexis Luhila who now has a whole nation wondering if he have pulled a fast one on Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf when he presented his credentials to her recently.

In his obvious attempt to charm the good lady President on the close ties shared between Zambia and Liberia, he informed Her Excellency that Zambia Airways would soon resume flights from Lusaka to the Liberian capital, Monrovia. (source: http://liberianobserver.com/node/8778)

But ... Ahem ... ~~dude~~ bwana ... (in whisper) the MMD government pulled the plug on Zambia Airways in 1995.

I'm being harsh on the elder gentleman ... especially since not too long ago another flight crew took the skies under the moniker Zambian Airways. Anyone can see how that mistake could be made ... except ...

(whispering again) ~~dude~~ bwana ... Zambian Airways shutdown in 2008 and HERB, leader of the MMD government was yelling when he informed the whole nation that he didn't like the people involved in that crew.

Which leads me to ask the question ... what was going on in the Ambassadors mind?

What should not be forgiven, however is a newspaper that lies to us about what the the Zambian Airways Planes looked like. How does a newspaper edit the picture of a plane with Lufthansa livery for it's news story. What happened to journalistic integrity? (http://www.zambianwatchdog.com/?p=9655)

How to Set Up a Zain 3G Modem on Ubuntu

2010-10-27T23:13:00.003+02:00

So I finally walked into a Zain Centre and asked for their 3G USB Modem. The usb modem they currently have on offer is a Huawei E1550. Getting connected is simple plug 'n play (after you've bought a data bundle) for those on XP, Vista, 7 and Mac OS X (10.4 and 10.5). However, as you may have guessed Zain (or is it Huawei) haven't included any drivers for linux. I mean, who does that in this day and age?

Fortunately the Huawei E1550 seems to be quite a popular modem therefore searching for instructions on how to set it up on Ubuntu Lucid Lynx led me to some handy instructions here - http://franklinchua.wordpress.com/2010/05/03/huawei-e1550-on-ubuntu-10-04-lucid-lynx/ (note: i used gedit instead of vi. so feel free to replace that bit if you want to.)

Once you've got your system to recognise the modem (and not only the memory), you will need to set up the your service provider and APN details via network connections. The details for getting connected on to Zain Zambia's 3G network are:

Service Provider: Zain

APN: internet

Plug those details in and you should get online with ease after that.

Update (1.11.10): When I used the method above I had a problem with using other usb devices to my laptop. I've found out that you can also get the modem to run by simply running the following command. If you used the instructions on the previous page, delete the file you created. :

$ sudo apt-get install usb-modeswitch

$ sudo usb-modeswitch

Other usb devices should now be able to connect with while you have your 3G dongle on.

bring on th the ice age ...

2010-10-06T22:43:00.000+02:00

A couple months ago, Samantha Spooner of Kenya's Nation Media group asked if she could interview me for a special report she was putting together on the entrepreneurial African tech scene. The questions Samantha asked me mostly centered around my entry into the IT field and led to the topic of what I was currently working on. The resultant articles form the interviews by Samantha and her colleague

Africa's Software Developer's Build Global Gem's from Dusty Kiosk's - Business Daily Review, Kenya
Africa's Hottest Techies - Africa Review, Kenya
African's on Tech Edge - Africa Review, Kenya

If you read the articles you may realise that I mention that I left Africonnect Zambia Ltd. Something that I haven't mentioned yet on this blog ... I left Africonnect in March of this year (2010) after we came to the conclusion that running a design unit within the ISP wasn't yielding the kind of results that we had hoped it would when I joined the team. During the time I was at Africonnect, our moribund group of four (often three and later two) man unit worked hard to introduce a new level of communication architecture and design to the Zambian website scene. We relished every single challenge that came our way. However, a challenge we consistently struggled with involved the clients (esp. government) realising the true cost of professional services like web design, content writing and web-based platform development. It eventually became very hard for a highly skilled team like the one I lead to compete with one man "joomla" website production who offered the client an all inclusive price that was often less than a quarter of our production cost.

The pro free market pundit would argue that it was probably fair game and I would be inclined to agree except in this instance the client very often isn't completely aware of the cost implications on quality for the product they seek. The Zambian corporate buyer very often assumes that getting website is like waling into a shop to buy a word-processing package. Unfortunately, unlike a common disposable item in the case of websites ... one size does not fit all. One glance, at almost all the Zambian government websites serves as proof that the lowest bidder in a tender to provide website services probably doesn't know what they are talking about.

Welcome the ICE Age ...

When I left Africonnect, I was pretty worn out in-part because aside from client websites - we were always working on (and maintaining) our own projects - iSMS.zm, ndola.co.zm, mongu.co.zm, etc. The reality is, at the end of the day, we didn't enough time and manpower to get these projects out in the way I wished we could. I am a content person at heart and not being able to do good justice to our own content projects always broke my heart.

I a couple of weeks off to rest and when I eventually got back to consulting with friends, family and a business partner about what could be offered in the Zambian market. digital ice interactive media was born out of these discussions. The idea is simple - to work with clients that intend to realise measurable benefit from communication online. To test the markets need for our services, we've decided to bootstrap this venture meaning that it hasn't borrowed any more and it grows solely on the payments it receives (probably explains why I'm the only employee to-date) and so far ... Our own website is pretty rubbish at the moment but look forward to getting a proper description of the services we offer soon.

The other area that we're (trust me, my business partners do exist) getting back to is content - BH Magazine which I was privileged to start with a couple of friends in 2000 has been dormant for the good part of the last two years. If you've read the articles listed above, you will notice that I mention that it will return this year. We also have in mind at least two more content sites to introduce before year end. I will write more on these in time to come.

A brilliant 25 years, Naomi Campbell!

2010-09-22T08:42:00.003+02:00

This morning I noticed on SKY News that last night my absolute favourite (double superlatives so that you are left with no doubts) super model, Naomi Campbell, celebrated twenty-five years of her modelling career.

Naomi is an amazing beautiful young woman and the only model that I bother to notice on a catwalk. However, I also love her because she is generous, humorous and I'll say it again - sexy. I know that somebody is going to throw in a comment or two about missile launched smartphones and tainted sparkles but I won't let that spoil my celebration of her career because

I too would throw my phone at someone who irritated me immensely. especially at an MMD government minister given the nonsense they come up quite regularly i.e. Michael Kaingu's recent rant on why he thinks we shouldn't hold elections next year
Would you really ask if the sachet of diamonds given to you by Mr. President were "blood" diamonds? note. Only congregants from churches that did not receive donations from an abused presidential slush fund may comment on this

That said, I do applaud the efforts being made to bring Charles Taylor to justice. I also encourage you not to support African civil wars or child abuse by not buying "blood diamonds" with your next purchase of precious stone jewelry.

To Naomi, I raise my glass - "For being so beautiful and elegant in the practice of your craft. For your numerous charitable efforts towards many around the world that have needed a helping hand. May you continue to enjoy an illustrious career that continues to put the pretenders and the haters in their shameful place. God bless you abundantly and have fun. Naomi!"

nb. I would like to retract the statement I have made above on throwing phones at public servants. I have been advised that it would be impolite. It has come to my attention, though, that certain cultures would rather you threw shoes at them. I am inclined to agree.

Highlights from Tech 4 Africa Day 1

2010-09-09T06:47:00.004+02:00

Tech4Africa Conferenceⁱ 2010 was the first of what will hopefully become an annual web and emerging technology conference that brings a global perspective to the African context. Founded by digital maven and entrepreneur Gareth Knightⁱⁱ, Tech4Africa Conference 2010 was held in South Africa at the The Forum | The Campus in Johannesburg on the 12^th and 13^th of September, 2010. Key note speakers at this years event were Clay Shirky, Adjunct Professor at New York University's graduate Interactive Telecommunications Program and Leila Chirayath Janah, founder and CEO of Samasourceⁱⁱⁱ a social business that connects over 800 women, youth, and refugees living in poverty to digital work.

As delegates to the conference, we were offered the choice each day to either attend either a track of talks of a technology theme or an alternative track of talks that discussed the business behind emerging technologies. Session in the “Technology Track” featured experts in the fields of computer programming, telecommunications engineering and interface development among other fields while the business track was geared towards entrepreneurs, business managers and anyone else interested in listening to expert advice on content, mobile. internet and other emerging technologies. I had initially planned to attend sessions in the Technology Track on the first day and sessions in the Business Track on the next day, but I instead chose to switch between tracks depending on what I thought would be the more relevant topic for me at the time.

Is that a spud you're speaking through?

The first session in the Technology track hosted Steve Song. As the Telecommunications Fellow at the Shuttleworth Foundation^iv, Steve Song looks for ways to to lower the cost of communications infrastructure and raise awareness of the potential impact of affordable infrastructure on socio-economic growth. In his Tech4 Africa talk entitled “3 Pieces of Kit for Neighbourhood Network”, Steve introduced us to The Village Telco^v, a community based telephone network based on open source applications. Using a network of low-cost mini routers called the Mesh Potato, designed and developed by Steve and his team at The Village Telco, entrepreneurs can set up and operate community telephone networks that would anybody residents in the area to make free”local” calls to one another. The sustainable business opportunity lies in connecting the community network to the national telephone of mobile grid allowing subscribers to make calls outside of the community network using pay-as-you-go vouchers.

Affordable access to communication is encapsulated in the Millennium Development Goals because of the proven positive impact it has towards progress in national development. At the community level a networks like the Village Telco would have a positive social impact due to the ease with with communication across an area like township could become. For example, the Village Telco would enable people to consult with their local clinic over the phone if they needed to confirm the dosage for prescribed medicine or even receive diagnosis for ailments that wouldn't necessarily require the in-office consultation of doctor.

We all gave Steve a resounding round of applause after he was disturbed mid-speech by a phone call on his demonstration “Mesh Potato” connected handset from fellow Shuttleworth Foundation fellow, Steve Vosloo, who sat in the back row of the auditorium with a similar device. Steve and his team have chosen to grant their product open source licensing allowing anyone to reproduce or further develop their idea.

Impressed by it all, I couldn't help but wonder if this was a possible solution to our quest for rural connectivity. To view or download the presentation given by Steve Song visit http://www.slideshare.net/ssong/tech4africa-the-village-telco

Business for a Change

The keynote speech on the first day was delivered by Leila Chirayath Janah, CEO of Samasource. Samasource^vi is a not-for-profit startup who connect women, youth and refugees in communities at the bottom of the pyramid with an opportunity for income by utilising the internet and web-based technologies to outsource bulk data related tasks on behalf of major corporations on the other side of the digital divide. In beginning her speech, Leila observed that literacy levels in Africa were a lot higher than most of us assumed. The continent's challenge, however, lay in the fact that that opportunities to generate an income especially for women and young school leavers were scarce. Low employment rates are prevalent across the continent especially in territories ravaged by war and communities that host refugees. By setting up ICT centres with internet connectivity or using pre-existing centres like internet cafe's, Samasource eliminates the need for members of communities they work in to travel the long distance to the urban areas to look for work by training them to use the internet and then providing them with jobs that might involve data entry, book digitization, internet-based research, business listings verification, audio transcription, or video captioning. Stating that “the internet is not just an information superhighway, it's a work superhighway”, Leila further made a case for how the internet and various tools that can be built around it allow for outsourced work opportunities in areas that organisations have never imagined getting their work done in. This bodes well especially for organisations with social responsibility values since they are pleased to get involved with a project that yields both a financial and a social return on investment.

Inspired largely by the period she served in Nigeria as a teacher, Samasource is a wonderful example of one can use internet technology to address local employment problems. She still faces a challenge in convincing company's to give her work, however she says she is encouraged by the fact that she has proven that quality work can be done regardless of location.

Leila's keynote speech is available for view at http://tech4africa.com/blog/class-of-2010/presentations/

Technology Allows Us To Be Efficient and Innovative (especially in a crisis)

In between talks, I attended a couple of discussion panels on day one. I returned to Tech Track eventually to hear Erik Hersman's speak about “How they Built Ushahidi ...”. The story behind Ushahidi^vii, a crowd sourced crisis mapping tool, is amazing in so many ways. One spectacular thing that it does prove is that great work can be come from this continent even during the worst imaginable conditions. Ushahidi (kiSwahili for the word “Testimony”) was conceptualised, developed and launched in six days during the nightmare period of Kenya's 2008 post-election violence. It is a web based platform that shows dots on a map based on the location indicated in reports received by sms and email. The information received, which is usually messages for help, helps volunteer organisations to see which the most hard hit regions are and therefore enabling them to channel their relief efforts accordingly.

During his talk Erik walked us through the their time-line of successes and failures since they first built Ushahidi. He gave us insight into why they've chosen to structure themselves as a small team organisation capable of working together on Ushahidi regardless of where their physical location maybe. Ushahidi has been re-developed and used around the world to map the various other situations that could benefit from crowd-sourced data on map including crime in Atlanta, the USA swine flu epidemic, monitoring of the the Indian and Iran elections by Al Jazeera, the Haiti earthquake aftermath and most recently during the Kenyan constitutional referendum..

Erik is a spectacular speaker and I'd encourage you to look for his speeches mad at TED or other events. Among other interesting projects he also keeps a blog (http://www.afrigadget.com/) that discusses African innovation in technology. You can view slides from his Tech4Africa presentation at http://www.slideshare.net/whiteafrican/making-ushahidi-tech4africa-talk

Other Sessions

Other sessions that I sat in during the first day of Tech4Africa were expert panel discussions on “All You Need To Know About The Market”, “Mobile Content for Grownups ...” and a Q&A session with though leaders like Dustin Diaz (Twitter), John Resig ( jQuery creator), Jonathan Snook (Yahoo), Joe Stump (formerly of Digg now with SimpleGeo) and Andy Budd (a leading User Experience designer).

Links

i Tech4Africa – http://www.tech4africa.com

ii Gareth Knight – http://http://www.oneafrikan.com/

iii Samasource - http://www.samasource.org/

iv The Shuttleworth Foundation - http://www.shuttleworthfoundation.org/

v The Village Telco - http://www.villagetelco.org/

vi Samasource - http://www.samasource.org

vii Ushahidi – http://www.ushahidi.org

Still ...

2010-05-29T13:20:00.002+02:00

A couple of years ago, one Sunday, I walked into church only because it was the traditional thing to do. Having lost almost complete control of and watching my singular universe crash around me I sat at the back of the assembly hoping that I could escape from the realities of the mess as I was in for at least an hour or two.

I had arrived late into the middle of worship which Janine Price ever so capably led. Merely following her through the motions I lazily sang along until she began a song I had never heard before. The words to this song were pretty much all I had to say in prayer. It was the conversation I needed to have with God - I was spent from giving every bit I had in me in this fight. I think I may have whispered and sang the song on that morning and God did hear me ... He gave me with peace for the rest of the journey (another story for another day) in that very moment.

The lyrics are shared below ... I hope at least one of you finds blessing in them.

Artist - Hillsong United

Lyrics - Still

Still

Words and Music by Reuben Morgan

Verse 1:

Hide me now

Under your wings

Cover me

within your mighty hand

Chorus:

When the oceans rise and thunders roar

I will soar with you above the storm

Father you are king over the flood

I will be still and know you are God

Verse 2:

Find rest my soul

In Christ alone

Know his power

In quietness and trust

I love PACRO and vote Felix Mutati for !

2010-05-14T11:14:00.004+02:00

I admit that I'll normally be the first guy to throw rocks at Western media whenever they portray Africa in any light that I deem undeservedly negative. However, I have also come to realise that I am not helping to correct the situation when my tweets, facebook status updates and blog articles about government are usually written after a civil servant or minister has disturb me with their failure to deliver public service. There is nothing wrong with this kind of expression on my part except it would be good if I also shared the good experiences I have in government offices.

For example, when filing the registration of a company recently at the Patents and Company Registration Office (PACRO), I was shocked when they asked me to return the next day to pick up the certificate of incorporation. My plan to start the next stage of business normalisaton was brought forward six days because I had expected the process to take not less than a week. The good people (they better keep this up!) at PACRO have now reduced the time it takes to register a company in Zambia to a single day!

This is the kind of stuff I live for - good African news and I really should be ashamed for not having shared it earlier.

How did I come to remember though ... this morning a friend informed me that government no longer require you to declare a minimal capital of K5 million for your registration of a limited company that will operate in Zambia. This effectively means that many more people register amd legitimise their business ventures. The honourable (and I mean that sincerely) Minister of Commerce and Industry Mr Felix Mutati has announced that a whole bunch licenses that you may have also needed to apply for in order to get your business running will also been thrown into parliament's warm fire this winter.

Hon. Felix Mutati is my new hero and my inert African need to place crowns on everybody I think is doing their job well suggests that I should start a campaign to get the Hon. minister elected to high office ... if only he would join NAREP.

* The author is a non-partisan citizen

... of songs that may lead to death

2010-04-05T18:00:00.006+02:00

In 2007, some oke called Bok van Blerk penned a lekker tune in commemoration of South African Anlgo-Boer hero, General Koos de la Rey. In this song, he invoked the name of the late General seeking he might one day return to lead the boere folk ["“De la Rey, De la Rey, sal jy die boere kom lei?" - De la Rey, will you come to lead the Boers?]. It was an instant hit. Well, not for everyone else who wondered whether there was an imminent war for which the Afrikaaner needed their late hero to return to. In defence of the song van Blerk's supporters claimed that the General Koos de la Rey was a monumental figure from a noteworthy era in their history and South African freedom of expression afforded them the right to cherish his name in what ever they chose. Solid case - no further argument except the lingering question of why they needed him back.

In recent times, three years after van Blerk's De La Rey was first sang, the ANC Youth leagues president, Julius Malema, took to the stage with an anthem that contained the lyrics "kill the boer". Concerned at the reprisal of this liberation chant the boere cried foul (isn't pay back a female dog?) and Julius is called to stand before a judge who lets him state his case. Judge Calgryn bans the song believing that the song would incite violence against the Afrikaaner. What ever happened to freedom of speech and history related to noted eras in a group of peoples history? Not to forget that violence seems to only become a concern when songs are sung by one group of people (despite history's evidence to the contrary).

All this fuss over song seems inconsequential until somewhere else in the North of South Africa a farmer dies. OK, he was killed. In what is believed was a "wage dispute" with workers turned violent Eugene Terreblanche, the fascist leader of South Africa's neo-nazi party the AWB, was beaten and hacked to death by two of his workers. ET had also served time for assaulting a fuel attendant and attempted murder of a security guard.

Even before the his family could think of how to mourn their late husband and father - the mediasphere choked on the brain dead analysis that the murder was incited by Julius Malema singing a song. In a massive fail of logic (as racist paradigms tend to be), people put the two incidences together and got the AWB excited that they could finally load their guns and visit the local psychic to consult the services of General de la Rey for a quick discourse on how to open a can "revenge styled" whip ass on some Africans. I mean really - little red riding hood kills the big bad wolf and you blame it on the little pig that cried "wee, wee, wee" all the way home. Even your kindargarten attending kid tell that those are two different stories.

There is no evidence to suggest there are collectives of Africans singing "kill the boer" (normally we would call the a choir but ...) and sharpening their knives while they relish the idea that some Afrikaans farmer will lose his head at some hour during the night. There is no evidence either that the two farm workers marched militantly to ET's house after listening to Julius Malema's remix on repeat. There is evidence, however, that supports the fact that ET's death was a crime. A crime similar to many others that are committed simply because the perpetrator had the clear intention to cause harm.

South Africa has more serious problems that it needs to address - like the tarnishing rainbow incidences like this always reveal. If people really feel so sensitive that they need to over-analyse songs maybe they should seek the wise counsel of Mara Louw, Randall Abrahams and Gareth Cliff in the next season of Idols SA.

the last night of 34 years

2010-01-27T23:05:00.002+02:00

last night ishmail phiri, a (recently former) colleague committed suicide... i last saw him on friday as some colleagues and i made our way back to work after a round of mini-golf at the lusaka club. i spoke with him by phone on monday and now ... he is gone. i don't get it - it's just one of those things that's little too complicated for my kabwe mind.

tonights the my last night at the 34. in the morning (by God's grace) i'll be 35 and i'll be grateful.

today i compiled my report for sales contributing to the unit i work with. i didn't make much - but atleast i made something.
this morning somebody asked if i'd contemplate a career in politics. obviously not but i still appreciate the acknowledgement by someone that i could contribute positively to my nations leadership
i called a friend on his radio show and spoke the first time I fell in love with hiphop and how proud i am that he promotes african hiphop. i found out after the call that i am the first person to call live onto his internet radio station via skype.
clients i spoke with this morning love the web advertsing platform we've developed for them
my cousin told me he starts a new job on monday in a great position at a mobile telco. we also shared memories of leza mbone (my late grandfather's) farm in kafue
i spoke with mom this morning - today is her birthday. i'll see her again when she visits next week.
a friend asked me to help him with tv programme proposal. we'll do lunch tomorrow
i helped a friend put the music from his album back on his website - visit www.chilulemba.com. go to the music page if you want to listen to his album.
a friend showed me her picture on a website with some really funky t-shirts (http://www.sdesignsstore.com/). now, her picture's going to be on a billboard in Atlanta, USA
a friend and i chatted about love and how God is the total definition of it
i read the about the fuzzy economical stuff being discussed at the wef in davos
i remembered why i love lagos. yes, i do miss her.
i had dinner with my brother and sister.

I had an interesting final day in my 34th year and in 20 minutes i turn 35.

you know the rules - trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly ... faith, hope, love... that's how i'm going to live the next year too.

Something To Love About Linux...

2009-08-25T17:17:00.003+02:00

... being able to boot up a CD (or USB).

A colleague's laptop wouldn't boot up because the a file or two in system32/config was corrupt. The console message informing us of this failure was polite enough to inform us that running recovery from a bootable XP system disc could help us fix problem.

Windows XP could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM

Problem ...
We enthusiastically find an XP installation disc and boot up the laptop eager to press R when when prompted. However, we get another error message back informing that Recovery Console will not run because it can not find any drives on the machine. At this point I can't help but think "You silly OS ... you just told me that there is a corrupt file on the drive!" but then again it is Windows ... no surprises!

That brought to nix my dreams to execute these well detailed string of commands from MickeySoft ... http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545

The Rescue ...
Fortunately my colleague isn't your average girl who makes the office look cool while she rapidly taps fingers across the keyboard. Honestly ... how many girls do you know that carry around a copy of Ubuntu's Live CD in their hand bags? I bet you don't know any! Neither do I because my colleague carries a copy in her laptop bag. How cool is that!!!!!

Well ... with an Ubuntu Linux cd slipped into the drive we run a live session (run the OS off the CD without installing onto a hard drive), delete the offending system files and replace them with files from the last restore session.

Reboot ... and XP works again. The silly system doesn't even have the courtesy to beep a thank to linux ... hmmm ... ok ... I guess I'm expecting too much from MickeySoft - the matrix ain't here yet.

By the way, we followed the same steps from the our good old friends Microsoft ... except we ignored all the stuff that pertains to windows built in security checks.

And that my good friends is just one more thing you can do with Linux ... (rescue an ailing OS wannabe)

Can I really use a computer well?

2009-06-04T18:40:00.003+02:00

Image via Wikipedia

Africonnect, the company I work for, has recently become Zambia's first officially approved partner for the ICDL.

ICDL, which stands for International Computer Driver License, is a worldwide standard certification programme for end user computing. It covers essential IT concepts, file managements, word processing, spreadsheets, desktop database applications, presentation software and the internet. It is an ideal programmme for those who want learn the basics of computer use or to assess the efficiency with computers.

I know it may sound ridiculous to you, especially that you're reading this off the web but if you think about it, knowing how to swing an axe properly would save you time an energy in the task of cutting wood. It is for similar reasons that the ICDL has become a standard measure for good computer use in some corporations and learning institutions on the continent.

Next week, I will start preparing for the 7 tests I need to take to obtain certification. Two of my colleagues at work have been taking the tests and completed their certification process this morning. One of them scoring in a 100% in two of the modules.

There are a lot of things that can be done a lot more easily even in Microsoft Word that a lot of people do not know. For example, most people I encounter do not know that defining the headings in your document will give you a correctly (and updatable) table of contents or that spliting your document into sections will let you set the orientation of specific pages in the document so that you can fit in those tables and diagrams in the appropriate places.

I must sound pretty arrogant mentioning these things but the truth is even though I do could be considered an advanced computer user I never took the schooling for it. Most of you know that that the driver's who have never been to driving school are often the cause of risks we encounter on the road. Similarly, I hope I'll unlearn some long winding bad habits in the way I use my office software and maybe I'll blog more often after this.

So here we go ... I'll let you know how I fair.

If you want to know more abot the ICDL program visit http://www.icdl.org.zm

PS. I'm thinking of joining the local ToastMasters chapter - I'm going to learn to speak again!

The MMD is Dead!

2009-05-10T22:49:00.004+02:00

I think the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD), Zambia's national ruling party, is way past it's sell-by-date. It is not even a shadow of it's own ideals. Its continuing governance of Zambia has become a falsehood not too different from "The Emperor's New Clothes", a story told by Hans Christian Anderson. In our version however, we, the Zambian people, are the Emporer, the party is the great cloak we imagine exisits and our leaders - the wiley tailors that convince us that the invisible cloak is something too magnificencent for the naked, untrained eye to behold.

The MMD is an irrelevant body of members each with the personal ambition becoming President of our republic. They have long forgotten the basic tenets of democracy that they see nothing wrong in the fact that they bend their own constitutional conditions for party presidency at every turn not to make it more accesible but to glove fit it for single specific candidates.

They see nothing with the fact that senior party cadres (some appointed to the executive) threaten to physically attackthee press - a vital pillar of our democracy. They forget that the "chosen one" is not a deity. E Pluribus Unum - from among many one. From among many, us, one is set apart to serve us as torch bearer on the path towards the destiny we have chosen. He is from among us - finite in knowledge, power and presence.

The MMD is dead - it no longer stands for anything beyond the personal desires of those who stitch together it's non-existent garment. Sadly, however, so are the other parties in our republic.

Electrifying Acts of Theft

2009-05-03T13:44:00.005+02:00

On Tuesday, 28th April, while enjoying my self at the launch of LiF Media's flagship publication LiF Magazine I received an sms from my brother informing me that ZESCO, the electricity company, had turned off our electricity because of an outstanding bill.

This wasn't altogether a shock considering that we had not received a bill from Zesco since July last year. We had however contiued to pay them the average of our usual consumption each month so my guess was that we owed them the accumulated difference for each month which would not be more than what we paid in a month.

Now, imagine my shock (no pun intended) when I took a look at the statement in the morning to find that we owed them just under K2,000, 000. To owe them that amount of money would mean that we had not paid our rates for two whole years and more.

Conversations with the Electricity Supplier on Wednesday and Thursday indicate that the clowns ... pardon me ...I mean thieves ... have no idea how they came up with that figure.

I am aware that that Rodin Sisaala and his Execcutive have been making appeals for government to allow them to increase tarrifs but until they do (I now hope they don't) ... EASY DOES IT!!!!!

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button's Sister

2009-03-22T10:16:00.008+02:00

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

**** Spoiler Alert ****

You may want to skip this post if you have not seen "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" yet.

**********************

When Benjamin (Brad Pitt) returns to the United States as the sole survivor of the heroic and selfless attack on a enemy submarine by the tug boat he works on, we are introduced to his foster sister - the only child born to his adoptive mother (Taraji P. Henson).

The curious thing is ... we never see her again. She doesn't even make an appearance at her mother's funeral where we see family friends paying their respect and condolences to Benjamin and his girlfriend Daisy (Cate Blanchett). This began to bother me even more as the movie drew to a close because as you know Benjamin's life gets lonelier - so much so that when he is eventually brought back to the old people's home because he has been found living on his own and suffering from dementia, it is a recently widowed Dausy that returns to look after him.

It doesn't seem like Benjamin and his sister could have had an estranged relationship. At the funeral of his "real" father he reminds his adoptive mother that she is the only mother he has ever known and they do indeed have a close relationship.

What on earth happens to his sister? Why is she introduced to the story if she is of no consequence at all. Especially for a story that has relationships as it's plot basis?

I've Left The Watch Dog

2009-03-10T08:15:00.003+02:00

Beginning the 1st of March, 2009, I am no longer involved with the Zambian Watch Dog.

In September 2008 Lloyd Himaambo, proprietor and editor of the the Watch Dog media, approached me to join him in setting up an alternative online Zambian news source. This was just before the general elections held after the sad demise of the 3rd Republican President His Late Excellency LP Mwanawasa.

I am proud to live in a country that respects our right to free speech. Being a partner on The Watch Dog gave me the opportunity to offer others the right to practice this right through the free comment system that is allowed at the end of each article.

During the period of my involvement The Watch Dog has steadily grown to an average of 3000 visits in a week (Google Analytics report for 2-8 Mar, 2009). This success in 6 months is due, in no small way, to the hard work of the Lloyd Himaambo the Watch Dogs only writer.

My reasons for leaving are entirely personal. I am still involved in African online media.

With Friends Like These In Govt, Who Needs Thieves

2009-01-19T14:56:00.002+02:00

Last year I sold my car, a Volkswagen Mk III GS, to a close friend. The official transfer of ownership at the Governments Department of Transport (DOT) has not not been finalised yet because I have not been back to South Africa since February. Recently, however, the friend who I sold the car to found out that the ownership could still be processed in my absence if I filled out a couple of forms and provided certified copies of my identification.

My friend and I were glad to hear of this cost-effective alternative and by way of FEDEX I received the forms, filled them in and sent them back with copies of my identification certified by a notary of The South African High Commission in Zambia.

This week, however, my friend was informed by a civil servant at the Sandton office of the DOT that the transfer of ownership can not be completed because I am not in the South Africa. Apparently, I would have to be in the country to prove that my friend was not trying to steal the vehicle.

This "flip-flop" on the part of the "good" folks at the DOT for reasons of concern for my security literally became an insignificant matter in the next moment because the very same officer then proceeded to let my friend know that he could process the transfer for a small "fee".

I think we now have an idea of who the people with stolen cars may be talking to ...

Why I Blog About Africa?

2008-12-06T10:13:00.011+02:00

There is a meme picking up in the blogosphere in which the question is asked: "Why do You write about Africa?" I thought I would observe it from a distance until my friend, Mulumba Lwatula, asked me directly in his blog.

BH Magazine, an online lifestyle publication, was founded from a common desire between friends (Chilu Lemba, Lubinga Chinungo, Nachumi Yambala and Mupwaya Mutakwa) and I to share any popular news we received with regards to the popular urban lifestyle in Zambia. I lived in South Africa at the time and quicly grew tired of reading the same old ominous articles on Africa in international online news publications.

I'm a story teller. One who enjoys particularly to share good news - a trait I may have inherited from my paternal Grandfather who was a Reverand with the Lutheran Church of Central Africa. While I am not in denial of our need as continent to address the numerous social injustices that set us back, I do fervently believe that it would be a tragedy if we didn't acknowledge our successes or celebrate the unique circumstances that make Mother Africa the gracious benevolent lady that she is.

Where else do you get the opportunity to meet a legend like Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka in person and hear him explain first hand how he got out of his chauffeur driven car in the middle of heavy Lagos traffic to jump on an Okada (motorcycle taxi) only so that he could make it in time for the studio recording of a talk show interview? Where else do you get to meet celebrated people like the late Miriam "Mama Afrika" Makeba, Miss South Africa, Miss Zambia, TY Bello, D-Rex (I could go on name dropping shamelessly if you asked me to - lol!) and strike up conversations with each one of them without having to negotiate your way around burly body guards that surround the celebrities we see on the E! or MTV? (LOL!) Where else can you strike a match over coal to grill your meat while you down your favourite juice or brew without having to send out a memo to the neighbourhood six weeks in advance? Where else can you take a walk down the streets knowing that the $1 in your pocket could make a difference for the lady you hand it to? Only in Africa.

If I could borrow from the title of the late Steve Bantu Biko's collection of written work titled "I Write What I Like," I'd gladly let everyone know what to expect in mine since ...

... I love Africa!

It's my responsibility now to pick the next lot to continue this meme ...

It's Open Season on Malaria ...

2008-10-07T11:03:00.000+02:00

Last night I had a mosquito in my room. It was a big irritating one - I saw the cheeky insect this morning and killed it!

I have always wondered - how do mosquitoes know where your ears are? They always to seem to go straight for them in the middle of the night causing you to do this dance in bed - swinging your arms through the night.

Anyway ... if all things are for good then my nocturnal irritant got me thinking ... how can I get involved in getting mosquitoes, especially the female Anopheles, onto the sacred list of extinct animals.

A female Culiseta longiareolata

For selfish reasons of my own comfort (and health) I am now involved in the End Malaria campaign. I am particularly signing up for mass mosquito-cide activities.

Your donations of DDT are welcome!

Election 2008: The Music Reality Edition

2008-10-03T18:11:00.005+02:00

It all seems so surreal... it's a count down to the national Battle of the Bands finale and hardcore loud rapper Emcee Sata and his band the PF Thug Headz are making sure they remind every one of how things used to be back when he first recorded with the UNIP Vigilante. Emcee Sata, the only one of the four finalists to actually have his own song on disc right before the end of the competition has crowds screaming at the mention of his promise - "Thug Pimping Will Be Back!" The Thug It Out culture is visibly catching on as evidenced by signs of grafitti on the city bus stops and and walls calling on the nation of viewers to sms his name to the IEC on October the 30th. Keep a close watch on his crew who've been known to scream "Murder!" when Emcee Sata has not picked up an award at ceremonies.

RoB still fresh from his band's recent drink up at which he walked out with the Carbon Mic after a crazy round of "Who Want's To Be Lead Singer" has been having fun blazing around the world P. Diddy style thanks to his sponsors - GRZee. A minor uproar was caused when it was found out that initially his dance routine included the too sweet motion of making it rain like Lil' Wayne of Lolipop fame. Dubbed "the Sugar Daddy" for his candy coated affection towards the masses, RoB has come under heavy criticism from competition critic Fred "I Write What I Like" M. for his apparent failure to pitch a true note in his hey days as a backing vocalist for super cool guitar man Kenny. Rumours however state that the RoB may be taking vocal lessons with former Battle of The Bands winner One Hour Fred. Fred is still fondly remembered for his parting hit at the end of that season - "When Two Becomes Three!"

It looks like Double H, the unitiated conteneder of the four finalists, is still having a hard time seperating himself from rumours that he was once a member of West Africa's hip hop triumphant - The Tribesman. Supposedly a technical genius in the studio, we are yet to witness the kind of crowd swell we'd expect from an artist his camp claim to be the next Michael Jackson. A duet with Emcee Sata could have been the vital ingredient necessary for a cross-over chart banger but appranetly arguments over who should take the lead verses had Emcee Sata walking out of Super Cool Ken's studios with his mayback in tow. Genuine surprises are possible - we can still recall how sure we were his band had won the competition in 2001 - almost causing an sms recount.

Finally, the wildcard, General shocked everyone with is last minute entry ... a question we all have though is whether or not he is still singing "I'm Going back To My Roots"! Recent episodes of the The Amazing Journey have shown General to be missing from all activities making many wonder whether or not he had dropped out of the popular reality show. It looks like singing is something the sincere artist really holds close to his heart. Since he managed to get an entry he also squashed common rumours that his ever green group, The H Choir, had disbanded.

Side notes:
Mike Em - "Sugar Daddy" RoB's manager has been lodging complaints of payola ever since the competitin started. A media house that may have also taken it's name a little too seriously in trying to launch it self out of the flames again is rumored to have some association with Mike Em in tehir recent scorching incident.

Money Mad Dancers - RoB's dancing crew have been causing major drama off stage. One incident has a crew member ordering sweet rain suppliers to get in step with their choreography which is clealry against the competition rules.

PF Thug Headz - if you've never been scared. Get scared. They've promised a showdown reminiscent of the West Cost - East Coast rap battles if Emcee Sata is not corwned National Head Banger. Somebody scream "Vigilante!!!" It's a well known fact that Emcee Sata has been a major backing vocalist for all but the last competition winners - even causeing a major band split during the recording of One Hour Fred's "When Two Becomes Three".

This weeks playlist

2008-09-24T14:18:00.005+02:00

Here is a list of the 10 most abused songs on my pod this week:

Kini Big Deal - U Know My P, Naeto C
Tomorrow - Never Say Never, Brandy
Hero - Untitled, Nas
Umsindo - The Ventilation Mixtape Vol. II, Slickour
Bakalalila - Bakalalila, Mozegeta
Dream - The Book of Proverb, Proverb
What's A Man To Do - Here I stand, Usher
Kumvela Nimvela - So Lucky, Exile
Majesty (Here I Am) - Unified:Praise, Hillsong + Delirious?
What About Your Friends - Ooooooooh ... On The TLC Tip, TLC

Recently deleted -

1. Tha Carter III - Lil Wayne because I still can't get what he is talking about. Is he actually saying anything?

2. FutureSex/LoveSounds - Justin Timberlake. It was constantly on Fast Forward. Ipreferred Justin when he was asking Britney to cry him a river. LOL.

Back To The Basics of Business

2008-07-19T18:18:00.001+02:00

David Heinemeier Hansson at Startup School 08 | Omnisio

My friend "killed" the President

2008-07-03T14:00:00.004+02:00

It has been a crazy but solemn morning in Zambia.

Last night a rumour started going around in the US that HE Levy P Mwanawasa SC, President of the Republic of Zambia, had passed away. His Excellency was admitted to a military hospital in Paris on Monday after he had a stroke in Egypt last weekend.

As no news had been officially announced yet by a Government spokesperson or the national broadcaster, we took the story with a pinch of salt allowing our lives to go on until ... the BBC announced that HE LPM was confirmed dead. From that moment on, it was no longer a rumour. At least that was what we though all morning through until the Zambian High Commission in South Africa made an announcement.

Following the story on the internet it looks like most news sources were following a report made made on popular Johannesburg talk radio station 702. Reuters, IOL and other news publishers credit their source as a spokesperson from the Zambian High Commision to South Africa. The High Commisison this after noon released the following statement:

Mrs Lishomwa (Deputy High Commissioner) currently acting High Commissioner wishes to report that:

1. There is no official notice of the President's death
2. Dude X does not work for the Zambian Government in South Africa.

My guess is that Dude X, a friend of mine, called 702 in the morning. 702 is a talk radio station with a lot of people calling in to gripe about stuff especially in the morning. I have no idea waht he said but from that point forth it was assumed that he was a spokesperson for the High Commission. International News sources assumed this was scoop and went forth to break the news through their media outlets. The result effect is country got tense wondering what was going to happen next, I had a quick lesson on the constitutional process as to what should happen and now I hear that the ruling party almost tore it self to pieces because everybody wants to be the President (Hmmm ... "why does every Indian want to bethe chief?" - Lost Ones, The Miseducation of Laury Hill, Lauryn Hill)

Talk about Dude X using his freedom of expression!!!!

This Weeks Playlist

2008-07-01T11:53:00.003+02:00

This week I've had the following songs on repeat (in no particular order):

Lungu's Anthem - Chilu Lemba, Sound legacy
Greenland (The Entire Album)- TY Bello, Green Land
Moving Mountains - Usher, Here I Stand
Gong Aso - 9ice, Gong Aso
I Did It For You - Lacrae, Jesus Muzik
525 600 Minutes - Tuks Senganga, Mafoko A Me
Whad Up - Conscious, A.S.H. Risen
I Love You Back - Tuks Senganga, Mafoko A Me

Can Wholesome Lyrics Be Appealing?

2008-06-27T11:41:00.003+02:00

"Hip-hop is a God inspired art form
Correction's my delivery, giving proper credit with no edit to the chivalry" from "Ima Showem", Grammatical revolution, GRitS

I'm working from an office* in the Lusaka Show grounds and a something that takes is getting used to is the human traffic that occasionally uses the Show grounds facilities for their various events.

Last week, for example, we had droves school kids in and out of the place because a Career Expo was in session. During this week I had a "wake-up" moment that I hope to address in future blog but anyway ... Most of the activity doesn't bother me since the office I operate from is not on any of the main roads of the show grounds campus. I also tend to sit at my desk almost all day (when I am not visiting a client) with my headphones on.

I don't know what event is going on this week but I've seen some school kids around again ... It's just hit me that the Lusaka Show Grounds could be a cool hang out for kids playing truant ... I think it could be a sporting a event of since kind as I could hear some sort of rally crying and fan fare. However one of the choruses that came streaming through the open window made me stop whatever I was doing for a moment.

I can't vouch for the exact words the kids were singing (they were definitely kids) but I know the song quite well.

"Move b.... get out the way, get out the way, get out the way,

Move b.... get out the way, get out the way, get out the way"

Some of you may recognise the chorus from "Move B...." by Ludacris. The B... word censored for obvious reasons.

While I have notion that they could be singing 'teacher-friendly' version of the song, the incident has got me thinking ... Why aren't songs with wholesome lyrics popular enough to be chanted or sang with appeal by kids when they are having fun?

I'm not questioning the art of rap music! I love rap music. I just want to know why I don't hear kids screaming the chorus of an African rap song or even better something not as offensive as "Move B...." I know it has been done before. For example, one of my favourite rap songs "Ima Showem" by GRitS was once a stadium anthem for the American Football team Tennesse Titans (then known as the Nashville Titans).

The questions remains "Are clean mouthed artists boring?" What do you think?

*[A shout out to Trio Consult for accommodating a noisy, anti-social hack like me :) ].

Feedback: Anti-Xenophobia March

2008-05-28T18:15:00.003+02:00

On Saturday the 24th of May, 2008, a great many South Africans gathered in central Johannesburg to show their love and compassion for the foreign nationals living in their country after a fortnight of shocking xenophobic attacks.

My friend, Mqondisi Gumede, marched along with them. He wrote to me to tell me of the march. He wrote the following:

In the midst of ongoing reports about the dire situation in situation in South Africa with all of the newspapers carrying news of spreading violence, I thought it would be good to share some images of a march held against Xenophobia and against the government’s slow response to the crisis.

I unfortunately don’t have camera that works but I have attached some of the images and video clips I could get my hands on.

The most moving scenes of the day came from the interaction with many foreign nationals in the high rise buildings that flank the route chosen down to the Gauteng Legislature in town (where the memorandum was handed over). In the midst of all the negative reports of the past week there was much reassurance for them to see a long train of people marching against Xenophobia, many of whom have been afraid to move around freely because of the current state of affairs, shouted encouragements, gratitude, shout of unity, of hope and that this would be overcome. Many blew vuvuzelas from their balconies and held out the flags of their native lands and white sheets for peace.

One particular person sent the marchers into a state of optimistic euphoria by releasing 6 flags of African countries from his balcony into the crowd. A majestic scene seeing each flag wafting downwards form some (I estimate) 8 stories up and the reaction of the marchers and the surrounding onlookers from the surrounding buildings into a frenzied reaction at what was seen as a picture of the unity to which we all aspire.

I was also extremely heartened by the attendance of many of SA’s celebrities I saw Bad Boy T and Unathi, David Kau, HHP, Thandiswa Mazwai, Kabelo from Channel O, Penny Lebyane, Lebo Mashile, Somizi Mhlongo, Eric Myeni and joined in the march by Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi (Minister of Public Service and Administration).

There is still much to be done, and it is sad that depsite a full 40 journalists in attendance at the march, no editor seems to see it fit to report the event, in and amongst the other horrible and regrettable events, nor the increasing mementum with which the South African private sector is mobilising itself to fill the gaping void left by government’s very Katrina speed response. Everyday opportunities are identified to help more and more people in more and more practical and manageable ways such as 10 loaves of sliced and buttered bread per citizen delivered to a certain point daily, providing women’s underwear and sanitary towels since washing is an issue at the camps, clean drinking water etc. etc.

Very thankfully, Mbeki and his loyal officials have been pressured into deploying the army and it is my hope that we will start speaking about this in past tense soon.

It's Our Responsibility To End Xenophobia

2008-05-22T13:43:00.000+02:00

What has happened in South Africa recently is a tragedy - regardless of your stand point.

I lived in South Africa for 12 years and never imagined that it would get this bad. Especially not so soon. The truth is Xenophobia existed for the whole period that I lived there. In recent years though, I was convinced that it was dying out and probably on a sentiment expressed in the manner that the Bantu Botatwe and Barotse people in Zambia make jokes about each other. It looks like I was wrong.

The other side to this tragedy is that the rest of Africa (and the rest of the world) are now saying South Africans are xenophobic. South African's are NOT xenophobic. A couple (even one is too many) of ignorant idiots with South African identity books are xenophobic. These are the people that are messing up things for everyone else. I will even go so far as to plead that this not become a tribal issue as i have already read in some quarters. It has nothing to do with Zulu people disliking everybody else.

This is simply an evil that we must rise up against. If you live in Johannesburg, please join Mqondisi at Marks Park, Empire Rd near Hillbrow on Saturday the 24th of March at 9am. Let everybody know that Africa - the true ideal of it - will not have any of this nonsense.

Close Encounters of the Boyfriend Kind

2008-04-10T12:10:00.006+02:00

Trevor and his wife often laugh at me for how I tend to end up becoming acquaintances with the boyfriends of girls I've liked. It has never been intentional and it is weird in a funny way. In one particular case I've even become better acquainted (actually, we're friends now) with one guy than I am with his ex-girlfriend who introduced me to him.

To give some pretext to the situations, I prefer not to date women that are already involved with someone else. So generally what has happened is that I've either found out a little later in the development phase of what I think could become an exclusive relationship or in most cases the lady gets tired of waiting for me to make my intentions clear and guy B (may he should be A since he gets the girl) sweeps her away with his charm.

The funny thing with these incidences usually comes about when I eventually meet "The Man". I'll stop rambling now and give you a couple of scenarios with the hope that you'll enjoy laughing at them. I've changed the settings but close friends may recoginse the characters.

Story A
At the turn of the century (Hehehe ... that sounds like it was so, so long ago) I met Girl A. We chatted for a while by phone before eventually deciding we'd go out. Sadly, however, on the night proposed I had a calamity popular to Jozi befall me. I got mugged on my way to picking up the lady. Traumatised I still made it to meet my date and asked if she didn't mind me cancelling our date so that I could go home. She was sweet, understanding and a friend of hers lent me his phone to contact the relevant authorities. He even helped me hail a cab ride home.

The very next day I sent her a bouquet of flowers to apologise for cancelling on her at the very last minute with a proposal for a future date. The flowers were delievered to her at her work place. The previous night I had forgotten my ID book at her residence with the security officer on duty I went back there, missed her but ended up bumping into the friend that had assisted me the night before. We made small talk and I made my way home.

I eventually did meet the girl for many dates soon after and I thought things were going fine. Many weeks later I went to the movies (on my own) and met her friend. The conversation went something like this ...

Friend of Girl (FOG): Hi
Me: Hi , It's been a while.
FOG: How have you been? You look a lot better.
Me: I've been well. Thank God, I survived that traumatic incidence.
FOG: have you been seeing Girl A? Those flowers you sent were her were lovely. Wheer did you get them?

At this point something clicked in my hand. I can't say what but there was deifintely something about the way he said that.

Me: Oh! Somewhere close to home. What movie are you seeing?

FOG mentions some movie title. It's the one I want to see.

Me: I'm seeing . I hope you enjoy your movie.

I then proceed to make sure he bought his movie ticket. I bought mine and then walked out of the cinemaplex.

Later on I found out that FOG was her boyfriend and sadly one who used to beat her up. I met him a couple of times courtesy of the Johannesburg Popular Public Transport System (mini buses). About a year later he got my number from her and asked me to go into business with him. I declined and haven't seen him since.

Story B

I'd met Girl B in church. We went on a couple of dates but ended up becoming good friends in the process. Some where along the way I think she forgot to mention that she had a boyfriend until we met at a function.

Girl B: Hey Simunza, Thank you for coming. Meet my boyfriend, BF.

Me: (With a big grin, trying not to show I'm shocked) Oh cool, BF. It's a pleasure meeting you.

Girl B: Can I leave you two together whilst I chat to those guys over there.

BF: Sure

Me: Sure

BF and I chit chat and about everything from work to the how corny ads can be (OK. It's all work related somehow). A friend to BF (FTBF) joins us later whilst we're chatting.

BF: (In his deep baritone voice) Hey FTBF! How are you doing?

FTBF: I'm cool, bro. How are you?

BF: I'm good. By the way, meet Simunza. He is a friend to Girl B. I still don't know how they met.

Me: (Choking on my drink and my voice almost gone.) We met in church ... (In the back of my mind I hoped he wouldn't ask much more.)

Story C

I was having drinks with a lady when a man walks in. He and the girl I'm with (Girl D) greet each and then ...

Girl D: Meet Simunza.

Man: Hi Simunza. Girl C mentioned you were around.

Me: Hi. That's nice of her. (I think I look slightly puzzled)

Girl D: is my Uncle. He is the boyfriend to Girl C.

Me: Oh yeah. Girl C mentioned the name. (Sadly, I'm lying.) Pleausure to finally put a name to the face.

Man and Girl D continue to chat and he eventually says bye.

Girl C: How do you know Girl D?

Me: We're friends from way back.

I was trying not to say "I used to have crush on your Uncle's girlfriend." Besides Girl C never ever mentioned she was seeing someone.

You've got to love this life!

Zimbabwe: Caught Between a Rock and a Hard Place

2008-04-10T11:24:00.003+02:00

I have supported the need for change in the Zimbabwean executive for a long while now. Honestly, not as long as most but at least since "Operation Murambatsvina" when Uncle Gabriel and cohorts jumped on the poor inner city folk without offering an alternative.

I would have preffred that Uncle Gabriel leaving sooner that except for the fact that it has always seemed that the most popular alternative to his leadership was Morgan Tsvangirai of the MDC. Over the years Morgan Tsvangirai has impressed me with his tenacity to fight what has more and more recently looked like an impossible fight - attempting to legitimately replace a government that is very willing to misuse any control they have over all their agencies including the supposed to be independent Electoral Commission. (By the way, only in Africa do you get an incumbent government complaining that the votes could have been rigged!!!!)

So what don't I like about Morgan Tsvangirai ... not much really, he just reminds me of Fredrick Titus Jacob Chiluba, Zambia's second national President. There is something about him that reeks of I'll speak of the people for as long as it gets me to Plot 1.

Anyway ... I think he now genuinely has a chance to prove my conceptions of him wrong but it doesn't help that I've found an article that compares him to Helen Zille, leader of South Africa's main (read ONLY) opposition (read WHINING) party.

Take some to to read "Morgan Tsvangirai - A Successful Failure" - http://www.africanliberty.org/node/155 .

Living La Vida Naija

2008-01-24T09:18:00.000+02:00

On Friday, 11th January, I traveled to Lagos from Johannesburg as part of a team that is working on the Pan-African talk show "Moment's with Mo". "Moment's with Mo" is hosted by the lovely Mo Abudu for her company Inspire Africa .

The trip was safe with only a couple of occasions of mild turbulence. I takes 6 hours to fly to Lagos from Johannesburg. We flew Virgin Nigeria which has a very friendly team of stewardesses and stwards.

I fell asleep 10 minutes in to the first in-flight movie, "Daddy Day Camp". John Legend's "Once Again" album was playing on one of the in-flight channels and I think I listened to that one and half times through before I actually felt fed up of sitting in the same seat and having an air conditioner blowing into my face. and I sat next to a friend and at least we kept a conversation going.

We arrived in Lagos at a quarter to five. The time zone here is an hour behind meaning we we were actually here at a quarter to 4 local time. Immigration and customs were a breeze except for a friends piece of luggage with his clothes had remained behind in Johannesburg. We are hoping that it will be brought in on Sunday.

The first thing that hit me when I got out of the plane at Lagos International Airport is weather. I can remember the pilot explaining that the weather would be cloudy and the temperature 28 degrees Celsius. It is hot and humid here. Every single place and car you're in runs air conditioning. My cousin, Edwin, came to greet me at the airport. We chatted for a while until our driver came to pick us up.

On the way to our hotel I was awe struck but simply how many people there are in Lagos.Having grown up in Kabwe, a town, city populations still get to me. I've hear that there are approximately 45 million people living in Lagos alone. I that is true then 4 times the population of my country, Zambia, lives in in one city here.

Lagos is a huge city and it doesn't help that there is always traffic. We left the airport at about half past five and only got to the hotel at a half past eight. We had spent three hours getting here and we were driving against the flow of home-going traffic!

Happy New Year - belated!

2008-01-12T14:29:00.000+02:00

Happy New Year!

It's 12 days late - I'm sorry.

I moved back to Zambia on the 26th of December, 2006. I took the evening flight out. Looking down at the city that has been my home for the last 10 years I was only sad that because I couldn't say bye to all my friends. My phone was stolen from me two days before on the 24th and with it the numbers for all my friends.

Lusaka is my new home. I have never lived in Lusaka before. At least not since 1984.

I'll be writing more often this year. Greetings from Lagos! (I'll explain).

Are Atheists Racist?

2007-12-11T22:07:00.000+02:00

OK. So the proper title to Charles Darwin's most famous piece of work, "The Origin of Species", is actually "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life". A very lengthy title. You would need one if you're wrote a set piece book on a theory of how we all came to being.

I do not care for evolution but the second part of the title did catch my eye. Now I'm eager to find out who the "favoured races" are supposed to be and how they may have been preserved.

A more important question for me though is - if this book is a primary book for atheists then it means atheists do not believe all races are equal.

Oh my God!!!!

A Dark Day in Kabwe ...

2007-12-03T08:25:00.000+02:00

My sincere condolences go out to the family of Kabwe Warriors Coach, Arnold Mtonga. Arnold Mtonga died yesterday, 2 December 2007, in a head on collision with a truck.

Congratulations Abey!

2007-11-30T10:42:00.000+02:00

Kudos to Abey Mokgwatsane who has been appointed Group CEO of the VWV Group.

I think the Media industry and not just the company are indeed a whole lot better with guys like Abey steering ships like VWV through unchartered territory.

To read up on Abey and is recent appointment see Bizcommunity.

Welcome To Lusaka

2007-11-09T00:05:00.000+02:00

The Lusaka Intercontinental Hotel has commissioned a beautiful video inviting people to visit Lusaka.

I saw the elephant in the opening sequence and wondered how on earth anyone would have found an elephant in or remotely anywhere close to Lusaka. However, Shula in the video introduces "Phoenix" the elephant to us. Phoenix is a resident at the Munda Wanga Zoo and Botanical Gardens near Chilanga. How could I have forgotten Munda Wanga? I've been outside Zambia way too long!!!

Nuff respect to Leonard Nelson for placing the video on his blog.

New Kirk Franklin Album Out December 2007

2007-11-08T23:06:00.000+02:00

I can't wait ... I just can't wait any more.

Kirk Franklin's next studio project, "The Fight Of My Life", comes out on the 18th of December, 2007.

Mbanandi, my youngest brother, has been going on about how great his latest single,"Declaration (This Is It)" , is for a while now but I've been avoiding going to his website to listen to it. Until today ...

Kirk is one of those artists that makes me hold my breath whenever he goes back into the studio to work on a full album. My fear being whether or not he still has it in him to put a phenomenal album out especially given that he is one of the few recording artists that can out sell his/her last effort, experiment with new sounds and still remain relevant. His last album "Hero" which also went multi-platinum got me through the most depressing period I've been through in my life.

"Declaration" is an awesome song. It is simply amazing and I can't wait to listen to the rest of the album. If you're a fan or merely want to sample "Declaration" head over now to his oficial website - Kirk Yeah, yeah, yeah ...

Happy 43rd Anniversary!

2007-10-24T10:52:00.001+02:00

"Praise be To God
Bless our great nation
Free men we stand under the flag of our land
Zambia, praise to thee
All one - strong Free"
- from The Zambian National Anthem

Ngamwalinjebele - Jonto feat Monique

2007-10-10T20:58:00.001+02:00

I was watching a Director's reel of Zambian music earlier in the evening and got stuck on this one.

It tells an emotional story of a relationship that can no longer be simply because the two people in love are closely related. I can not recall a word for cousin in Bemba and thus assume that is their discovery - Monique sings that she has found out that Jonto is her brother.

It's a twisted tale but something that can happen - sadly!

... of Africa and NGOs

2007-10-05T16:36:00.001+02:00

If you've met me, you will know what I think of NGO's in Africa. Temba Nolutshungu is a director of the Free Market Foundation. Here he writes an interesting piece on the supposed help we get that actually kills us.
Statist NGOs wreak havoc in Africa
Temba Nolutshungu

Ever since the 19th century territorial scramble for Africa, Africans have become used to Western intervention in their affairs. Decolonisation and independence was supposed to mark the end of this, and to a large extent, Africans govern their countries in a sovereign way. But long after the pith helmets and starched uniforms of the colonisers have left Africa, a new breed of colonialist is emerging. These are the statist NGO campaigners who hope to save Africa from everything from GM food to globalisation.

These NGOs consist of ‘consumer’ and humanitarian groups and ‘development’ charities. They are united in the belief that modern industrial civilisation, profit and competition are unethical. In their view, people, particularly those in developing countries, would be better served by the existence of strong, comprehensive regulations and state intervention that put ‘equity’ and the redistribution of wealth ahead of the economic dynamism that has made the West and eastern countries like Japan, Taiwan, Singapore and South Korea wealthy.

But despite their claims to represent the interests of the poor, only a few hundred of the several thousand NGOs registered at the UN come from developing countries. The vast majority are from the United States.

These groups have an influence that stretches way beyond their size and funding. Many poorer countries do not have the technical capacity to formulate their own policies around the provision of social services such as health, so they subcontract to bodies such as the WHO, whose mandate it is to provide impartial, scientific advice to member states.

WHO has been colonised by these NGOs that now act as de facto policy consultants and play a big part in formulating the technical and policy advice WHO gives to its member states. But despite their elevation to the policy establishment, the NGOs consistently get things wrong.

Take the example of AIDS. Health experts recognise that the best way to tackle the disease is to prioritise prevention, thereby stopping the total number of infections from increasing every year. Of course treatment is essential, but not to the exclusion of spending on prevention. The NGOs, however, pushed hard for the majority of public monies to be spent on drug treatment programmes for the already infected – even though the most affected countries don’t have the doctors and clinics required to administer the drugs. WHO bowed to this pressure: infections continue to rise, and treatment is delivered in a haphazard and therefore medically questionable manner.

A similar thing happened with malaria. For many years, countries from India to South Africa successfully controlled malaria by spraying the inside of houses with DDT, the insecticide that enabled developed countries to rid themselves of the malaria-carrying mosquito. Environmentalists and NGOs played up scientifically unsound scare stories to demonise the pesticide and pushed for WHO to stop recommending its use, which it did from the 1990s. Malaria cases soared globally. Recently SA unilaterally reintroduced DDT spraying and cases plummeted.

Western NGOs have successfully scared European consumers from buying GM crops grown in Africa, making it very difficult for farmers exporting to the EU to make a living. Now they are adding to these problems by claiming that flying fresh produce from Africa to Europe contributes to climate change.

NGOs have begun to operate at the national level, feeding statist policy advice direct to African governments. The latest frontier for this invasion of policy space is the relationship between intellectual property and public health.

Activists have for many years argued that because very few drugs have been developed for a handful of tropical diseases that occur in the poorest countries, intellectual property is inherently unjust. These activists have been using this claim to push for a health research and development treaty in which bureaucrats rather than markets determine what diseases are researched. They hope that if profit is removed from the R&D equation, we will be ushered into a magical new age in which inexpensive new blockbuster medicines will become freely available to the poor – never mind the fact that market-led R&D has produced the vast majority of all treatments currently available in both high and low income countries at no cost to the taxpayer, and that cancer and heart disease are now among the biggest killers in poor countries. Similarly, activists downplay the fact that the terrible health problems faced by most poor countries are a direct result of decrepit and corrupt state health monopolies and terrible living conditions, and have very little to do with intellectual property.

NGOs have now managed to initiate the beginnings of a global treaty on health R&D, which would see intellectual property standards diluted and more research done by governments. They achieved this by lobbying African governments at WHO: the similarities between the NGOs’ campaign literature and the position papers of Kenya, the leading proponent of this scheme, are too many to be a coincidence. Many African countries have signed up to Kenya’s proposals.

The Kenyan government is not credulous, and has its own reasons for promoting this scheme. It may be that it wishes to protect the interests of its own domestic pharmaceutical industry, or it may be a politically useful way of transferring the blame for its own failures in healthcare provision to external bodies such as multinational pharmaceutical companies.

Statist NGOs have enormous influence on public opinion, the UN, and now, it seems, on African governments, even though, time and again, their proposals have been shown not to work. But before we take their medicine, we must carefully read the label. If we do not, we are likely to suffer serious and unpleasant side effects.

Author: Temba A Nolutshungu is a director of the Free Market Foundation. This article may be republished without prior consent but with acknowledgement to the author. The views expressed in the article are the author’s and are not necessarily shared by the members of the Foundation.

Lusaka Feature on Africa Within

2007-09-13T12:36:00.001+02:00

This is another part of the Africa Within feature on Zambia. a good number of the shots in the opening scene are taken from the South End of Lusaka with the camera positioned (I guess) on the flyover bridge. It isn't and can not be the best place to take a shot of Lusaka especially for an opening scen in a life style program. One can only wonder what the editor was up to.

Interviewed in this insert is Miss. Mulenga Kapwepwe from the National Arts Council. The family resemblance with her niece, Chola Lungu, is very strong - they even talk, joke and sound alike.

Nice one Chilu! Keep the flame burning ... (not the UNIP one).

Jane Osbourne

2007-09-13T12:03:00.001+02:00

Chilu recently went to Zambia to shoot footage for Africa Within a program he presents on SABC Africa with the beautiful Claire Mawisa.

In this episode Chilu chats with Jane Osbourne, a popular Zambian vocal artiste who has re-invented herself over time into a formidable fashion designer, restauranteer and (of course) business woman.

The CBU Summer of '93

2007-08-20T12:59:00.001+02:00

I spent most of 1993 studying at the Copperbelt University (CBU)in Kitwe, Zambia.

Ted Riley's New Jack Swing was the rhythm of the day and you could here a new song by a new group almost every other month - Men at Large, UNV, Jade, SWV, Boyz II Men, Silk, Xscape, etc.

My favourite song in '93 was performed by a group called Portrait. They weren't my favourite group but nothing else out there came close to the uptempo "Here We Go".

I haven't heard it since that one year at the CBU until this morning when I did a chance search on YouTube.

Ladies and Gentleman, I offer you - Here We Go (Again)! by Portrait.

A Short Note to The President

2007-08-16T00:28:00.000+02:00

Your Honorable Excellency Mr. President,

I have a little concern thats been grating me for a while now and I really think it's time we got to discuss it since it concerns you, I and everybody else at home.

A couple of months ago whilst I was fooling around in the kitchen I heard your voice on the ZNBC News. I rarely get to hear you speak, Your Excellency, so I readied myself to hear you say something profound on National Development or something of the sort. You won't believe how shocked I was to find out you were welcoming those Chinese fellas who claim are so desperate for our mineral resources that they have no longer have a problem showing that they have absolutely (yes, I know what that big word means) regard for human life. This was really a big concern for me - first and foremost because I don't like seeing my people abused but equally also because you claim to have a regard for human life.

Now let's forget about your Minister of Health that I saw dancing to Rhumba with the very same fellas as he welcomed some of them to our hospitals. Pardon my digression but do Chinese doctors take the Hippocratic Oath? Before we get back to the matter at hand - kindly remind baMinister of Health that Rhumba is not an indigenous Zambian sound or should I assume that it would have been alright for me to play Eminem's 8 Mile theme song "Lose Yourself" if I were in his place? I'm just throwing it out there. You how we do ...

Back to our pertinent discussion, just the other day you pardoned a couple of guys from death row because of your humanitarian stance on the issue of death penalty. I applaud you for that. However, if we go back to the speech that i mentioned in the first paragraph - I heard you welcome the Chinese fellas. What I didn't hear you say was that you would be kicking their pale butts back home if they didn't comply with the laws of our land especially those that recognise the lives and rights of my people (I know they are your people too). Come on now, Your Excellency, what was that all about? Are you telling me that you will respect the life of a killer over the life of an honest hard-working Zambian citizen?

Lets watch a video Your Excellency - click here

What do you think? If you tell me that you don't know about these things happening I suggest that you fire the other fellas in the red brick building. Oops, you house is a red brick building too ... I didn't mean your house! I swear!!! I meant them OP dudes. If they tell you the video was edited by Uncle Ronnie - trust me - you will then need to fire them and appoint them again as
ward orderlies at Chainama Hills Hospital.

I can go on for too long because this is meant to be a note ... I think am fast approaching that point where this becomes a letter. Like Stan said to Eminem in the song "Stan" featuring Dido - "We Should get together sometime".

By the way congratulations on your appointment as Chairman for SADCC - chicks dig it!!!

28.07.07

2007-07-18T23:55:00.000+02:00

So what happened to BH Magazine?

I'm sorry. This was never meant to happen but ...

A couple of months ago I started taking measures to ensure BH Magazine was going to be "safe" during my re-location to and first couple of months in Zambia. Since it's inception BH Magazine has been hosted by Altonet who did a really recommendable job until some time last year... when their service levels just tanked. I didn't mind most of the time but when their Technical Director and I spurred on what really should have been a quick fix (15 minutes at the most on their side) for one of my clients I got fed up and decided to pull all accounts I had with them including those referred to them.

In my angered state of emotion I put in a months notification for the stopping BH Magazine on their side pending its transfer to a new host. During my search for hosting space a friend offered to host the site. Overjoyed with this outcome I procrastinated on requesting the transfer. The resulting effect being that when the month was up BH Magazine no longer had a plot call it's own in cyberspace.

Upon discovering that the site was down, my friend and I pushed in transfer request and started the communication between the two service providers - his hosting solution providers and Altonet who I had burnt bridges with. The process took longer than either of us had anticipated. What should have ideally taken up to 4 days took us a couple of weeks. A fristrating experience especially that now every one had noticed that they couldn't get to BHMagazine anymore.

With the transfer done - the remaining job was to get the most recent back up copied and running on the new host service which I've just done today.

Let's raise our glasses on the 28.07.07 when BH Magazine returns.

Finally, The Long Drive Home ...

2007-06-11T23:14:00.000+02:00

I've finally decided on the 20th of August as my departure date heading back home to Zambia.

I can't wait ...

Very Sad ...

2007-04-17T13:01:00.000+02:00

My condolences go out to the family, friends and fellow students of the 33 students and lecturers that died at the hands of a fellow student at Virginia Tech. University in the USA this morning.

The double standards of music lovers ...

2007-04-12T10:28:00.000+02:00

Madonna's "Let Me Tell You a Secret" is on television as I am working. It is a documentary with "behind the scenes" footage from her Re-Invention tour.

Madonna is a tremendously gifted artiste. I can remember first noticing her when "Holiday" was a big hit in Zambia circa '87.

Since then I've also followed, in the media, her continued search fr a faith that gives her an inner peace. Currently Madonna is a Kabbalah Jew. From a scene "Let me Tell You a Secret" she makes no secret (no pun intended) that she would like to inspire her audience through her art to find a similar place in their faith/lives. From what I can see, everybody is cool with it.

What i don't understand is why do people then have a problem when Kabelo (a South African kwaito artiste) expresses his Christian faith on stage?

Be Still ...

2007-02-14T12:30:00.000+02:00

"When the oceans rise and thunders roar
I will soar with you above the storm
Father you are king over the flood
I will be still and know you are God"

From the song Still written by Reuben Morgan

The Creativity of Man

2007-01-12T00:40:00.000+02:00

It is not only Christians who can paint with beauty, nor for that matter only Christians who can love or who have creative stirrings. Even though the image is now contorted, people are made in the image of God. This is who people are, whether or not they know or acknowledge it. God is the great Creator, and part of the unique mannishness of man, as made in Godís image, is creativity. Thus, man as man paints, shows creativity in science and engineering, and so on. Such activity does not require a special impulse from God, and it does not mean that people are not alienated from God and do not need the work of Christ to return to God. It does mean that man as man, in contrast to non-man, is creative.
(Francis A. Schaeffer, How Should We Then Live?, Ch. 4)

Compliments of The Season

2006-12-22T16:34:00.000+02:00

It's 4:00pm down here and I've just remembered that the holiday we celebrate for Christmas is on the very next Monday which means most of you will very likely not see this until the day is gone.

Regardless of when you do get to read it, I pray that you have an awesome festive week. May you enjoy reflecting on the good things that have happened through the year and gain inspiration and hope for much, much more in the next year.

In parting I could fill this message with many admirable quips and quotes that I've picked from each and everyone of you but allow me the indulgence of ending it with my favourite two word phrase - have fun!

Peace, love and prayers,

This one is for the soldiers!

2006-09-02T01:44:00.000+02:00

The first war movie I can recall seeing was "Saving Private Ryan". I had seen the ususal unbelievable Ameriacn hype stuff like Missing In Action and Death Wish before. I don't know how but I did manage to miss all three Rambo movies.

"Saving Private Ryan" was hectic eye opener for me. For the first time, I think I understood how wild it can get at war. The realism depcited in first half an hour or so made me sympathetic towards soldiers where preciously I had always thought of them as crazy power abusive and uneductaed fools.

This morning Billy me lent me his DVD set of a "Band of Brothers". A "Band of Brothers" is a television series executive produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks after they worked together on "Saving Private Ryan". I've only gone through the first four episodes so far and that sympathetic feeling is back.

I take a lot of granted. This liberty that enjoy of being an African born in one of the most peaceful countries in the world with the oportunity to rant and rave about how systems are going wrong on the continent is protected by people who are committed to going out there to battle enemies that would be opposed to it (my liberty).

I salute the gentlemen and ladies of the Zambian Armed Forces. I pray that they never have to actually go out to war. There is nothing nice about getting shot nor about having the person next to you go down mid-conversation.

To the strong and brave among the proud and free I give my love!

2006-09-01T18:58:00.000+02:00

Yesterday (Remix) Video Featuring Mainza

Not unlike Chilu, He's dropped two music videos at about the same time. This has got to make up for the music video that should have come out in December.

What is very cool is that it's not only nostalgic but an old friends like Mainza and Hinkwale is in it too.

That's not name dropping - it's not name dropping when you've grown up with boys in Kabwe - hehehe!

2006-08-29T10:25:00.000+02:00

Let Me Hold You Now (Music Video)

Take a look at Chilu's video for "Let Me Hold You Now" off his album "Sound Legacy".

There are rumours that there is someone wholooks like me in the video. I'm still trying to see him ;)

Christian Karma?

2006-07-25T11:41:00.000+02:00

In the May 2006 issue of Blink magazine Lesley Sedibe, Director of Legal and Business Affairs at EMI Music, is asked to list 5 of his favourite things. At no.1 he conspicuously mentions "My Relationship with God". It is not the first times I have had Lesley pronounce his faith in public and he says sincerely in the article.

”My relationship with God is one of the most important relationships in my life as I'm a better person because of it. Fortunately I wasn't brought up to believe in the "horror gospel" but to believe in a God that is giving, loving and a God that has great plans for me; that gives me hope for the future. My favourite verse in the Bible in (sp) Jeremiah 1:5;6 (sp) I believe that through faith I'm able to tap into spirituality and understand that the life I live is a gift from God; this grounding then puts me in a better position to relate to everything around me. I also believe strongly in karma- you always get what you put in." (emphasis mine)

Like Lesley, I too believe in faith, the Christian faith to be particular and was only too glad to read the profession of a fellow believer until I hit the final sentence. The conflict in faith statements gave me a scary jolt. Lesley believes in God (as defined by biblical scripture) and he also believes in something called Karma. A very amusing and yet conflicting place to be. I have a problem with Karma. I've actually never believed in it. The belief that "what goes around will come around". I think it is a soothing ideology for the victim of a perpetration but when analysed closely I feel it fail to hold espeially when juxtaposed to Judaeo-Christian Scripture.

Simply speaking Karma is supposed to a form of "cause and effect". What ever you do now sets in motion other forces that eventually work for or against you. This being the case the opposite then also becomes true. What is happening to you now is the resultant effect of something you did in the past. If you are in a good place, you did good things in the past. If you are in a bad place, you were bad. You and you alone are responsible for what happens to you in your life. Not a bad idea, right? After all, we could all do with a little bit of responsibility in our lives. Well then, I do wonder thhough what on earth have murdered foetuses done wrong to deserve such brutal and premature death? Should we pin them down for their stupid and selfish timing in disturbing the fun times of human beings who are ill-prepared to become parents?

But yet still, maybe the lil' unborn kiddies do deserve it? Well at least not in the present sense of time. You see, to believe in Karma you need to also buy into a nifty lil' clause provided called "re-incarnation" - the continued re-birth of the human soul. In cool terms, that fella who stole your promotion and bought the Porsche is indeed gonna get his. Maybe not while you are alive and ready to witness long-overdue vindictive justice but maybe in his next life. So, as for aborted kids, maybe they were gangsters and hoodlums in their past life who are finally getting the "Death Penalty" they manged to skip.

Back to the mater at hand, this possibility that our children could have been Mother Theresa, Hitler or the Lozi Litunga in their past lives is the point of conflict - biblical teaching fails to support the notion of a soul that regenerates time on end! "There is indeed appointed one day of death and there after judgement ... " and other verses in the good book that state that we have this one life to live. Besides other factors come into play like grace, the Christian's battle with forces of darkness and the all controlling nature of an omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient God and so much more that requires much more dialogue. All together causing a failure in united stand between the two belief systems - karma of eastern mysticism and Judaeo-Christian faith.

I've never met Lesley. I've heard him speak on radio before and I think he is an admirable person worthy of profile. I dig and support his desire to live a Godly life and profess his faith boldly but I would definitely advise my brother to avoid the seemingly cool spiritual trends like karma. Faux pas bro, faux pas!

An interesting observation on today's black man

2006-05-22T10:33:00.000+02:00

In his article, "Comedy of Virtue", for the EUR Joseph C Phillips makes the following observation:

It is only today, when we sneer at notions of virtue, when we capitulate to notions that men are weak, slaves to their passions, ruled by their flaws; That men are in effect victims, incapable of changing their circumstances or making an impression upon the world, that men can celebrate music that disrespects their women, father children and not provide them with homes, shoot each other in the street with abandon, kill babies in utero, label academic success inauthentic and blame it on “forces we can’t control.”

I agree with him.

To read the rest of the article - The Comedy of Virtue

What the f...!

2006-05-17T15:58:00.000+02:00

A friend of mine was raped on Monday night ... She called me this morning to let me know. I didn't know what to say or do. My mind is still in a state or paralysis.

Yesterday, I woke up teemed with an all out optimistic view on life and today's news has simply knocked me back couple. This isn't the story of two (un)popular people airing their nasty stunk laundry in the national press for political gain. This is my friend, a single mother doing her best to get by.

What hapened to true African manhood that values and secures the unprotected? Oh! But I forget this is NOT Africa!!! The tables are turning and I pity South African men but then maybe, just maybe our women will still be full of grace, mercy and forgiveness. They do have heart.

I'm coming home, M ... This country sucks!!!

The Archangel

2006-05-08T11:19:00.000+02:00

The Archangel is a friend of mine with an interesting view of on issues that arise in South African press.

Take a look at his blog - Archangel

Bye Black Butterfly

2006-02-28T15:04:00.000+02:00

On Monday the 28th of February, 2005, my heart broke twice. Once for the family of Tsikane “TK” Mhinga and the second time for our continent that lost it’s only truly talented cross-genre R&B artist.

Fans of Southern African hip-hop will recall first hearing her sultry soulful voice on Mizchif’s debut album “Life from all Angles” in 1999. The song she featured on, “Place for a Wife”, will be remembered for many years to come for its ground breaking work. It embodied radio friendly quality production, clear delivery and a beautiful music video to match.

Her beautiful place in the mixed up area of music genres was also her career curse and not because she couldn’t deliver. Unfortunately for here we continue to struggle with music struggle with issue of categorization in Africa. For some silly reason, in my opinion, we’re happy to buy foreign artistes in categories like R&B and Hip-hop but will not recognise our very own artists with they apply themselves to these genres simply because the music is not “African.” Regardless of this however, her own country recognised her talent, awarding her with atleast four South African Music Awards (three in consecutive years).

Like most who heard her voices across many genres (R&B, Hip-hop, House and Kwaito), TK, will be missed. certainly for who she had become at the tender age of 27 but even more for who she could have become – a legend.

Looking for a song

2006-02-22T16:54:00.000+02:00

I am looking for the original to Ice MC’s “Easy To Remember”.

I have only heard the remix and would really love to hear the original song too. If you know where to get it please let me know.

By the way, I first heard the song in 1990, I think.

Things That Make You Go Hmmm...

2006-02-16T16:03:00.000+02:00

During a recent interview I was asked whether or not it is possible for someone to be single and happy.

My answer I gave during the interview was yes but I have sine then continued to wonder why there could be an assumption that people can not be happy while they are single the two states are really not mutually exclusive and being in a relationship doesn’t necessarily make one happy.  Evidence of this can be seen in the many sad relationships that around us.

I do, however, still believe in love and do look forward to being in and enjoy being in a fulfilling love relationship.

Since I do get asked why I’m not currently involved with anyone every once In a while I thought I’d list a couple of the questions I get....

"... with so many beautiful women around, how can you still be single?"

This is the funniest of them all because the statement assumes that the choice of a partner t love is as simple as a lucky pick among the many attractive women out there. Hmmm... maybe it is?

"Are you waiting for the one?"

No and only because I do not believe in the general 'romantic' notion that there is only one in six billion people suitable for me to partner with in a relationship. Because, I believe relationships should develop through the natural stages from acquaintance to whatever level we allow them to get to, it means that anyone of friendships with single females could develop intimately - if we both wanted it to. By the way, should one develop, I plan to have a monogamous relationship with the ONE lady that I will have leaned to love and cherish.

"... don't you love her?" [usually after a first date]

I like a lot of the people that I make acquaintances with. I'll be the first to admit that I am not a great judge of character and hence it takes a while for me to really settle and say I'm into someone.  Mae no mistake though, I will notice a beautiful woman at the drop of a hat. I guess ... I have just never bought into "love at first sight" since I believe love grows!

My ideal kid of woman!
Like most guys I get asked this a lot and I've never been able to confidently give a straight shot from the hip kind answer for it. I admire the guys who can rattle of five to fifteen well defined criterions for suitable partners. I do know what I want and lately my best and most sincere answer to date is - I would love to fall in love with a friend. Hopefully we will have been real with each other, learned to communicate with each other, share with one another, count on one another, support each other, build together and guide each other through trials and fun times.

“What if she doesn't exist?”
That's impossible! If even half the world were female and a half of those were married, that would leave one and a half billion single women on earth!!! Okay my statistics suck ... (blame my Stats lecturer at Wits Varsity!)In any case, I am blessed with very beautiful single female friends.
Have fun ... till my next incoherent ramble!

Welcome to my little space!

2006-02-08T16:03:00.000+02:00

Hi,

I've been thinking about doing a blog for ages and have eventually decided to take a step towards keeping one.

Why am I doing this?
Every now and again I get an idea that I never - ever follow up on. A close friend of mine onece said that I rumble a lot (another says that I mumble) . This blog will be filled with a lot of my rumbling. A lot of it may seem incoherent but - hey - I really do want to do this.

Surprisingly though - the event that has finally got me to follow up on this desire to share my writing is John Legends' "Ordinary People" music video. I think the photography and direction in it is simple and yet so beautful! Watching it 10 or so minutes ago reminded me of some photos I had taken for this blog and how I've always wanted them in black and white. (I may remember to put up the pictures some time.)

As always - have fun!