Blogs from Africa - page 3335

Hola Muchachos me alegra que todas las cosas estén bien, he recibido e-mail de varios de ustedes cosa que me alegra para que me mantengan informado de chismes!!!! aquí hay otras experiencia!!!!! Bueno cada semana me encuentro cosas nuevas, se acuerdan que en un mensaje yo les había contado que aquí cada vez que una persona muere, o cumple anos de haber muerto se celebra una fiesta? pues si esta semana estuve en otra fiesta, pero a diferencia de la otra pude tener mas interacción y pude estar desde el comienzo, bueno les voy a relatar algunas cositas, la fiesta se prepara con días de anticipación se reúnen todos los miembros de la familia, y se deciden varias cosas que se va comer, donde se va hacer, como se van a vestir, preparan los bailes etc, ... read more

Bueno les cuento que esta semana estuve en una ciudad que se llama Bue y es el comite local de Jean Louis, La ciudad es bien diferente a las otras es muy calmada no tiene el desorden ni el despelote de las otras ciudades, es súper limpia con calles bien organizadas nada de rotos, la ciudad es Anglo, no hablan nada de francés, y la gente es muy pero muy educada, Bue es todo lo contrario de Douala, bueno en Bue me encontre con otros extranjeros, una de India que se llama Sandeep, otra pelada de Uk, Germán Pastor de Belize, para los que no saben Belize es un país que queda en centro de América al lado de Guatemala, es muy pequeno y no tiene muchos habitantes, yo me entere que existía porque el me ... read more

Tambacounda, is where I'm staying for the night. This town is a major crossroads between Senegal, Mali, Guinea, Gambia, and for the Niokola Koba National Park. Niokola Koba Park, is Senegal's major national park - its residents include elephants, lions, leopards, hippos, crocodiles, water buck, bush buck, kob, baboons, buffaloes, monkeys, warthogs, antelopes and hartbeest. I haven't decided yet if I'm going to visit the park or make my way to Guinea - I'll decide that in the morning. I'll go into more detail now about recent events: TUESDAY 25 JANUARY I left the relative comfort of the Hotel in Ziguinchor to make my way towards the Guinea border. The taxi driver that took me to the garage told me that I needed to go to Kolda first and then catch a connecting bus to Tambacounda. ... read more

This weekend was the big holiday: Aid Al-Kebir, La Grande Fete, The Big Celebration. All last week the streets were full of bleeting sheep, and all last weekend they smelled of roasting sheep-meat. Aid Al-Kebir is Islam's biggest holiday. I think I mistakenly reported in a previous entry that the party after Ramadaan was the biggest, but I was wrong. For the holiday, to honor Abraham's sacrifice of his son Isaac to show his faith in god, every family buys a live sheep and kills it and eats the meat all weekend. Issac was spared the knife by god who replaced him with a sheep at the last moment, but the sheep, like the several million sheep sacrificed in Morocco on Friday, knew no such mercy. I celebrated with Abd Al-Ali (AKA Abdul) and his family ... read more

As with Rwanda, Uganda is a suprising country. I'm fairly sure that, ever since a young age, I have not believed greatly in democracy, preferring the idea of a benign dictator as the most preferable form of government. Clearly in the real world this is as unrealistic as socialism or communism, except perhaps in rare cases. Now I'm completely out of my depth here, having learned most of what I know of Ugandan politics from guide books and a dodgy daily rag that would make the Sunday Sport editors blush. It seems that Musaveni, the Ugandan president for the last 20 (?) years, comes pretty close to fullfilling the benign dictator roll successfully. I'm sure his human rights record is as bad as any western government one would care to mention, and Uganda has huge problems ... read more