From the Hammock
4 July 10
Majukumu aka responsibility: Everything about him is irritating, he is smart and that’s okay but he also comes across as if he is ever driving the point home and proving a point to himself that indeed as advertised, he is smart.
I don’t like Majukumu sometimes but it is inevitable to recognize him. His turf stretches from Johannesburg, through East and West Africa. Others call him MTN, but I disagree, I think MTN is his poster face. MTN puts in the work and makes Majukumu’s money.
In fact MTN’s motto can be his logo; “everywhere you go,” and like many latecomers in the Citi, Majukumu has a mouth on him. Just think about it for a second, how many people used MTN to communicate this Sunday morning, and then consider the mouth doing the communication. How busy? How important?
After mouthing his way to bringing the World Cup to Africa he is now demouthing it away, dismissing it as big business, the usual suspects; Coca Cola, McDonalds (poor McDonalds,) the Jabulani, beer and even bigger countries.
And talking about Africa’s World Cup how come there is never been a European Cup or even American one?
Is it not because those countries are so diverse that one country cannot represent them? Is it not true that most of the Africans who played in the African teams Cameron, Nigeria, South Africa, Algeria, and Ivory Coast also have EU citizenships?
Many of the African players in the six African teams also played in the most prestigious leagues in Europe just like the players from Brazil, Argentina and Spain.
Of the Algeria’s 23 players at the 2010 World Cup, 17 had French citizenship and 6 had represented France at junior level. The Algerian Coach: was the only African coach in the world cup and even he exited in the preliminary rounds of the tournament.
African time my foot; it is a very good thing the world cup but it is not African time. And yet all the African teams failed miserably?
See the Nigerian president Jonathan Goodluck has more to his leadership than an appropriate name as he has suspended Nigeria’s football from international tournaments until the Nigerians find out; ”what’s up?” with their talent and mediocrity.
Majukumu is yet another lazy African elite.
Mtali: (he can speak for himself)
What’s up with these cities of the World Cup? Drakensburg, Johannesburg, Port Elizabeth, Cape Town, Pretoria, Durban, Rustenburg, Dutchburg, Franconstenburg, Englishburg(and those shrewd and crazy Bafokeng had to appear here also.) Do you remember them Bafokeng? They are the people that had a kingdom in South Africa throughout the time of colonialism and apartheid.
Somehow…
The kingdom was within the country of South Africa where apartheid and its predecessors had ensured black people and their kingdoms were irrelevant.
The Bafokeng had some smartness; they bought land from government and continued their kingdom under semi autonomous rule. At least the even crazier Boers believed in good old capitalism.
Therefore when the South African government banned gambling, the Bafokeng and some white South African types built Sun City. The Bafokeng were considered a separate nation in South Africa.
Today Sun City is known for a different spin. But the Bafokeng were still able to build this World Cup stadium from which England were chased out of the tournament by Germany? Totally a cool tribe that one.
And talking about tribes. Is it not odd that the only African ethnic group that has the same name as the mother continent is that of Afrikaans?
Of all Africans, these are white. Indeed the rainbow country.
The truest and closest to a rainbow nation I know of is Brazil and boy; are they having a wonderful time in African time? They make Argentina look indeed talented and lucky rather than efficient.
And what’s up with Africa, FOOTBALL and the World Cup? We are failing so bad that we’re accustomed to being the cute under dogs in everything.
It is not just football where we have a lot of promise and potential that we never fulfil. If you thought that making it into the big league, as a sportsman is almost impossible ask local musicians how they have developed their talents and you will be shocked.
Think about the relationship between football and politics. Politics is heated because it is the only avenue that one must take if ever they will achieve any meaningful accomplishments in life. The universally accepted ones at least, a family, a job and a home. Politicians rule in Africa.
We all bend to their whims, cruelty and violence.
Semi illiterate power brokers on the other hand manage sport; they operate with a mystery and they are mostly a hybrid between businessmen, witch doctors, politicians and peasants.
The day we demystify politics in Africa and demand of our leaders the same results as we demand of sportsmen then it will be our time.
African time.
Mtali: noise, noise, noise. That’s what you are all making all the time. Noise. Talking without speaking, hearing without listening. We’re fed up of people like you.
Ends
Wednesday, 7 July 2010
Friday, 2 July 2010
From the Hammock : Football not among “things of note” in EAC
BY GEORGE Kagame
But in consolation even reclusive North Korea finally opened up; albeit only briefly.
Misery is being subjected to the hooh hah of football and The World Cup when you don’t care what the hell it is about.
mean, what really? You wonder where the sentiment comes from. I once had friends who would swear their lifetime allegiance to Argentina and Arsenal.
Conte was a fanatic of Manchester United and Italy, but secretly he hoped Argentina was a better team. Conte’s real name was Tusiime Anthony and he was a staunch catholic too, he had never been to England or Argentina but hoped to someday make the trip; somehow!
East African sport is bizarre; when people from far off places hear that football is popular here they never realize that our interest in it is only limited to watching it on TV. And even that is watching the football played in Europe and not here Africa.
But Football is important because for many it is the only chance to see and watch television in their lives. When the World Cup happens, the anticipation it carries equals that of Christmas. In Kigali we have businesses starting out with a television set, a bunch of benches and a shack nearby a market. These in most cases provide the only real leisure time activity of many in the country.
A football match between Arsenal and Manchester United is much more anticipated than even the budget and Independence Day ceremonies combined. On FM radio stations Competitions are held, draws, raffles and picks, prizes, awards, airtime and “so much more.” Most Rwandans do not care who the minister of the environment or public service is but they know the entire line up of Arsenal and Barcelona.
There are very stark contrasts and fortunes between the football being watched and that being played around here.
I have met The lumpen, a self styled expert on English football. In the pub they call him Arsenal.
For those of you who are wondering what Arsenal, it is an English football club managed by a Frenchman who is an economist and I got those facts spewing from the lumpen in less than three minutes of acquaintance.
Maybe we love to watch the football quite a lot on television so much that we have no time to play the sport or go to the stadiums to support those who play it or we have despaired from the administrators of the sport that we don’t care what they do anymore.
When Tanzania hosted Brazil in a friendly in Dar Salaam before the Brazilians flew to South Africa for the 2010 World Cup, and lost the match by 5:1, the Tanzanian players were congratulated for the loss by all sundry in the country. They were expected to lose by a larger margin. And I won’t tell you about CECAFA as you will forget it by the end of this paragraph anyway.
There is no platform of success that East Africa is renown for in competitive football, the biggest export from the region so far is a certain Kenyan aptly known as Mariga;
“many sheep,” who plays for Inter Milan. Perhaps the West Africans have been much adventurous in football, but they also remain whipping boys when prestige stares them in the face.
Football really is an extension of our politics where the most powerful people in the game are also the same in any other sector of the economy. And if politicians in Africa are corrupt; as advertised; yet they are the rule makers, just imagine how far more corrupt the football administrators are. Many like the politicians above them in the pecking order of “people of note” have no or limited expertise, experience and skill.
And like other sectors of many economies in east Africa, it is a waste, pure carelessness. A mess.
But for its mess, football is an outlet. In the days of dictators and liberators in east Africa and indeed on the entire continent, The World Cup was the only event where east Africans got a chance to see a TV. Personally, as an eight year old in the early 90s, I watched Italia in the middle of Lake Victoria on an island known as Kibbanga.
On this island there was no telephone, no radio, health centre or even a road but somehow we were able to watch the World Cup. It was our only contact with the other world.
Also football enables fair competition and debate to take place, the kind that is unheard of in politics, business and legislature.
The good thing about being a journalist in Africa is that when there’s a mess in sport the coverage is freed of other restraints in the mainstream media about politics and its cousins. The mess is much more scrutinized than politics because it attracts less serious people.
“People OF note,” are too cool to be bothered by politics and crucially the donors are not interested in your sports, you may run, walk, sleep or kick about, as you want.
Donors are talking about serious things like human rights, world peace, saving endangered animals, climate change and capacity building. Football or sport IS way down the pecking order of “things of note.”
A sports reporter will therefore uncover details of a fraud scheme in football and they are quite aplenty and expose it without sanctions and limits from big brother.
As such, there are resignations in sports and some form of procedure is followed. In politics there’s limited scope of unearthing a fraud and corruption. News comes at its time.
In these circumstances of relative freedom to compete on the pitch, east African football administrators outdo each other in competing for attention, sympathy, success, prestige and good old bragging rights amongst human beings.
For its sheer fun, try watching a match between APR FC and Rayon Sport in Kigali; YOU will enjoy it immensely. If you happen not to be a football fan, at least the traffic dilemma in the city and Kwa’Rubangura that day will be less congested and so you will get home earlier.
But if east African football is misery, beyond misery is being a North Korean football fan or even worse national team player. In that country they have never watched a live World Cup match or any other live programme on their lone television station. So last week’s decision to show North Korea against Portugal was a blessing.
But it was a classical Case of Typical wrong timing.
North Koreans used to seeing only positive news about their country were shocked when their first opportunity to watch live television ended in disaster with Portugal humiliating the dear brother leader’s team seven nothing.
Television and the World Cup were immediately halted and positive news restored.
But in consolation even reclusive North Korea finally opened up; albeit only briefly.
Misery is being subjected to the hooh hah of football and The World Cup when you don’t care what the hell it is about.
mean, what really? You wonder where the sentiment comes from. I once had friends who would swear their lifetime allegiance to Argentina and Arsenal.
Conte was a fanatic of Manchester United and Italy, but secretly he hoped Argentina was a better team. Conte’s real name was Tusiime Anthony and he was a staunch catholic too, he had never been to England or Argentina but hoped to someday make the trip; somehow!
East African sport is bizarre; when people from far off places hear that football is popular here they never realize that our interest in it is only limited to watching it on TV. And even that is watching the football played in Europe and not here Africa.
But Football is important because for many it is the only chance to see and watch television in their lives. When the World Cup happens, the anticipation it carries equals that of Christmas. In Kigali we have businesses starting out with a television set, a bunch of benches and a shack nearby a market. These in most cases provide the only real leisure time activity of many in the country.
A football match between Arsenal and Manchester United is much more anticipated than even the budget and Independence Day ceremonies combined. On FM radio stations Competitions are held, draws, raffles and picks, prizes, awards, airtime and “so much more.” Most Rwandans do not care who the minister of the environment or public service is but they know the entire line up of Arsenal and Barcelona.
There are very stark contrasts and fortunes between the football being watched and that being played around here.
I have met The lumpen, a self styled expert on English football. In the pub they call him Arsenal.
For those of you who are wondering what Arsenal, it is an English football club managed by a Frenchman who is an economist and I got those facts spewing from the lumpen in less than three minutes of acquaintance.
Maybe we love to watch the football quite a lot on television so much that we have no time to play the sport or go to the stadiums to support those who play it or we have despaired from the administrators of the sport that we don’t care what they do anymore.
When Tanzania hosted Brazil in a friendly in Dar Salaam before the Brazilians flew to South Africa for the 2010 World Cup, and lost the match by 5:1, the Tanzanian players were congratulated for the loss by all sundry in the country. They were expected to lose by a larger margin. And I won’t tell you about CECAFA as you will forget it by the end of this paragraph anyway.
There is no platform of success that East Africa is renown for in competitive football, the biggest export from the region so far is a certain Kenyan aptly known as Mariga;
“many sheep,” who plays for Inter Milan. Perhaps the West Africans have been much adventurous in football, but they also remain whipping boys when prestige stares them in the face.
Football really is an extension of our politics where the most powerful people in the game are also the same in any other sector of the economy. And if politicians in Africa are corrupt; as advertised; yet they are the rule makers, just imagine how far more corrupt the football administrators are. Many like the politicians above them in the pecking order of “people of note” have no or limited expertise, experience and skill.
And like other sectors of many economies in east Africa, it is a waste, pure carelessness. A mess.
But for its mess, football is an outlet. In the days of dictators and liberators in east Africa and indeed on the entire continent, The World Cup was the only event where east Africans got a chance to see a TV. Personally, as an eight year old in the early 90s, I watched Italia in the middle of Lake Victoria on an island known as Kibbanga.
On this island there was no telephone, no radio, health centre or even a road but somehow we were able to watch the World Cup. It was our only contact with the other world.
Also football enables fair competition and debate to take place, the kind that is unheard of in politics, business and legislature.
The good thing about being a journalist in Africa is that when there’s a mess in sport the coverage is freed of other restraints in the mainstream media about politics and its cousins. The mess is much more scrutinized than politics because it attracts less serious people.
“People OF note,” are too cool to be bothered by politics and crucially the donors are not interested in your sports, you may run, walk, sleep or kick about, as you want.
Donors are talking about serious things like human rights, world peace, saving endangered animals, climate change and capacity building. Football or sport IS way down the pecking order of “things of note.”
A sports reporter will therefore uncover details of a fraud scheme in football and they are quite aplenty and expose it without sanctions and limits from big brother.
As such, there are resignations in sports and some form of procedure is followed. In politics there’s limited scope of unearthing a fraud and corruption. News comes at its time.
In these circumstances of relative freedom to compete on the pitch, east African football administrators outdo each other in competing for attention, sympathy, success, prestige and good old bragging rights amongst human beings.
For its sheer fun, try watching a match between APR FC and Rayon Sport in Kigali; YOU will enjoy it immensely. If you happen not to be a football fan, at least the traffic dilemma in the city and Kwa’Rubangura that day will be less congested and so you will get home earlier.
But if east African football is misery, beyond misery is being a North Korean football fan or even worse national team player. In that country they have never watched a live World Cup match or any other live programme on their lone television station. So last week’s decision to show North Korea against Portugal was a blessing.
But it was a classical Case of Typical wrong timing.
North Koreans used to seeing only positive news about their country were shocked when their first opportunity to watch live television ended in disaster with Portugal humiliating the dear brother leader’s team seven nothing.
Television and the World Cup were immediately halted and positive news restored.
Monday, 21 June 2010
badass day off.
Yes.
I have a day job, the kind of job that you have too. That you wake every morning and sometimes night and then attend to.
Like you i also attend the altar of earning the bread. And like you I worship every day. Well like you I have day offs from the altar. That is badass.
One should not have days off. All days must be days on.
Like they write on radio studios; "On Air." Just imagine having "off air" on your doorstep, or somewhere to brand you at any given time of the day.
Today I have a "Day Off" REALLY, that sounds like a copy edit for a trendy advert post, and then the opposite: "Day on."
Why should one then have a day off, a sort of an "off air day" placed in front the studio room of a radio station.. Imagine being off air. Thats also badass.
Really? I don't need a day off. All my days need to be day on. Not day off, not for me. It is forever 'Day On."
Because I am cool like that.
So I have a day off, really? DAY off on monday? But somedays off are very beautiful like the one for today. Imagine a day off that starts with a live World Cup MATCH on my bed. First thing in the morning. At 5 am. North America does things to you. Thats also badass.
watching a Live World Cup game at 5 am on a Monday morning taking place in Johannesburg is nice and right. But somting is wrong somewhere. It is geography I know, wait where is the map?
Yes, I see it is 10.00 PM here in Calgary, the sun is out and shining brightly. Seriously? the sun is out and shining brightly at 10.00 pm? In fact children are playing football in local school pitch. three boys, they are playing kick about, they exchange stints in goal posts.
The forth one runs, he makes very fast start and stop short sprints
10.00 pm? the sun is out?
There is a God. He is somewhere there. He is watching over everything at his time. Time to him is a trick. Seriously? sun is shining at 10.00 pm?
The of the kids doing said sprints is a good kid. He is 16 and plays football for Chinook United FC. He is training for a tournament in Seattle US. His origins are as far back as Ottomans, you know those badass people from sometime century. They were apparently great people according to wikipedia.
Now they pass off their days as China Turk. Otherwise how really will you remember some province that is controlled by China but somehow they are Turkish. Turkmen, Shinza men or whatever.
I think they are some country or province somewhere who are fighting for liberation and struggling for this spin or that. Are we not doing that our selves. Everyone of you that will ever get to read here are that place with a weird name. Having days off and days on.
When one gets their days on and off right in Rwanda they earn the title of "Msirie.: which it is much more fluent in its English translation; the serious one.
So If you don't get your days and hours right you don't get to qualify being be "the serious one" by Rwandan standards leave alone Calgary.
that is also badass.
Day offs must be abolished and the sun must shine until 10.00 pm everyday. That way God can look at us all he wants. Not checking upon on us his time as he does now. Johannesburg+5 am+World Cup+Vuvuzela+LA Lakers+sun+10.00 pm=
badass.
We must have day ON all the time.
Downtown, the train, the university, the library, the bus, the football pitch, The World Cup, the Ottoman. I saw a Vuvuzela live on TV today, it was being blown by fans of LA Lakers who were cheering their team in the victory parade of their 2010 NBA Championship in los angeles where they defeated the Boston Celtics.
Talk about patents!!!!!
I have a day job, the kind of job that you have too. That you wake every morning and sometimes night and then attend to.
Like you i also attend the altar of earning the bread. And like you I worship every day. Well like you I have day offs from the altar. That is badass.
One should not have days off. All days must be days on.
Like they write on radio studios; "On Air." Just imagine having "off air" on your doorstep, or somewhere to brand you at any given time of the day.
Today I have a "Day Off" REALLY, that sounds like a copy edit for a trendy advert post, and then the opposite: "Day on."
Why should one then have a day off, a sort of an "off air day" placed in front the studio room of a radio station.. Imagine being off air. Thats also badass.
Really? I don't need a day off. All my days need to be day on. Not day off, not for me. It is forever 'Day On."
Because I am cool like that.
So I have a day off, really? DAY off on monday? But somedays off are very beautiful like the one for today. Imagine a day off that starts with a live World Cup MATCH on my bed. First thing in the morning. At 5 am. North America does things to you. Thats also badass.
watching a Live World Cup game at 5 am on a Monday morning taking place in Johannesburg is nice and right. But somting is wrong somewhere. It is geography I know, wait where is the map?
Yes, I see it is 10.00 PM here in Calgary, the sun is out and shining brightly. Seriously? the sun is out and shining brightly at 10.00 pm? In fact children are playing football in local school pitch. three boys, they are playing kick about, they exchange stints in goal posts.
The forth one runs, he makes very fast start and stop short sprints
10.00 pm? the sun is out?
There is a God. He is somewhere there. He is watching over everything at his time. Time to him is a trick. Seriously? sun is shining at 10.00 pm?
The of the kids doing said sprints is a good kid. He is 16 and plays football for Chinook United FC. He is training for a tournament in Seattle US. His origins are as far back as Ottomans, you know those badass people from sometime century. They were apparently great people according to wikipedia.
Now they pass off their days as China Turk. Otherwise how really will you remember some province that is controlled by China but somehow they are Turkish. Turkmen, Shinza men or whatever.
I think they are some country or province somewhere who are fighting for liberation and struggling for this spin or that. Are we not doing that our selves. Everyone of you that will ever get to read here are that place with a weird name. Having days off and days on.
When one gets their days on and off right in Rwanda they earn the title of "Msirie.: which it is much more fluent in its English translation; the serious one.
So If you don't get your days and hours right you don't get to qualify being be "the serious one" by Rwandan standards leave alone Calgary.
that is also badass.
Day offs must be abolished and the sun must shine until 10.00 pm everyday. That way God can look at us all he wants. Not checking upon on us his time as he does now. Johannesburg+5 am+World Cup+Vuvuzela+LA Lakers+sun+10.00 pm=
badass.
We must have day ON all the time.
Downtown, the train, the university, the library, the bus, the football pitch, The World Cup, the Ottoman. I saw a Vuvuzela live on TV today, it was being blown by fans of LA Lakers who were cheering their team in the victory parade of their 2010 NBA Championship in los angeles where they defeated the Boston Celtics.
Talk about patents!!!!!
Sunday, 20 June 2010
A Vuvuzela inspired space programme for Africa
From the Hammock : Africa and our Vuvuzela inspired space programme
BY GEORGE KAGAME
With the World Cup in South Africa spinned as Africa’s time to showcase whatever we have here; the talking season is in frenzy.
Pundits, serious people, important people, people of note and even our fellow Citizens are talking. Albeit in drink filled mouthfuls and typical Third Street foul mouths; you can call it ranting.
Captured below are some of the things that concern our three favourite Citizens transcribed from a discourse taking place in that favourite of watering holes; The Ship&Anchor in downtown Citi.
Naturally this is a good time to be in Africa or to be African, it is the World Cup for Christ’s sake on our doorstep. A global feast of joy and happiness.
Don’t you reckon?
Africa is now welcome to the cheer party of the world. But like the script goes; if you come late to the party you try to make up for lost time. (Ask UN representatives of their opinions regarding Muamar Gadafi’s UN summit speech in New York recently.)
South Africans are late comers even to an African party but in a very short time they have successfully upset the established cheer party by their Vuvuzelas and this has many Citizens talking in space.
Bwana Mdogo: “It was a laughable idea a year ago when it was announced that the DR Congo government was planning on launching a space programme. And no; we are not talking about the space as in political space, media space, personal space, democracy space and space in whatever fashion it comes in but the space of mars, the sun, rockets and scientists.
DR Congo and a space programme really? You must be joking.
The project is still in incubation but not many people take it serious. This is due to the fact that despite many countries in Africa being more developed and more stable than DRC, we have not yet embraced the space thing.
The industry of satellites, rockets, and general space has simply not yet blossomed around here. Predictably, it is said that South Africa has nuclear technology, but not even they have space.
As such there’s a very limited presence of Africa(ns) in space, the only known African who ever made it there was Michael Shuttleworth, a young and wealthy white South African investor. And even he had to pay 20 million dollars to go there as a tourist.
While other people have been talking space, computers and satellites we are still stuck with the pre cold war technology of those poor miserable Russians and their notorious arms dealers.
So when DR Congo announced their space programme we remarked; “seriously Congo?” we knew that a solution to our space conundrum would have to come from South Africa. And indeed our answers were answered recently in Africa’s creative hub; Johannesburg.
Our first encounter with space was not ideal. It comes across as irritating; like someone you cannot stand in a staring contest. See? We have been left behind in the space race for so long yet we also need a presence there and if noble means won’t take us there we have no choice but to creep upon space with our noise.
Episode one started on 11 June 2010 with a plastic horn. The now famous Vuvuzela, blown by South African crowds thronging football stadiums to watch The World Cup, apparently the sound produced by these horns has reached the science space.
Never mind that many visitors have complained about its noise; upon which FIFA President Sepp Blatter has responded; “Seriously, this is Africa!”
Maama nani: Perhaps they brought the World Cup to a wrong place, somewhere really bad, a place with a lot of crime and violence, rape, muggings, and HIV/Aids.
And since it will take a little bit longer to see those other things, the poor Vuvuzela has been catapulted into a serious talking point of Africa’s World Cup. It might as well be the everlasting image and memory of the 2010 World Cup.
I have an idea for a Vuvuzela moment; I suggest we build a statue in memory of this horn and how it made us heard in space. Caption it with a statement like; “we made contact with space minus the drama and the cold war.”
We are good at this kind of thing, we build statues everywhere in Africa, and in fact recently we just got a cathedral of statues, the mother of them statues across the world.
This one was even a prophesy of Kenya’s Ngugi Wa Thiongo in his book; “The Wizard of the Crow.” The cathedral of African statues built by Senegal’s Abdoulaye Wade in Dakar cost more than 28 million dollars.
But in fairness to Wade, the statue is that of a guy with abs, a marvellous woman by his side and they are even carrying a cute child. The African Renaissance project as it is known could have been worse, just imagine it being the face of Wade himself while at the same time he earns a fortune from it from tourists.
Indeed Africa, space and sports are good topics for future generations to interest themselves.
Mtu Mzima: Take away your craze!
Take away your Africa and its World Cup spin. I will watch football even if the World Cup was held in Tonga, Fiji or Samoa.
Please don’t tell me about apartheid, crime, violence, HIV/Aids, spin this spin that. I have known about these issues for a very long time; very eloquently told through the lives of Lucky Dube and Brenda Fasie. And don’t even tell me about your Vuvuzela. This is sport.
South Africa is not different from Germany or Bhutan. I don’t care who hosts the thing. It is not the place I feel attached to. It is the play, the competition and the story of those countries that are competing. Save me the drama not connected to the sport.
BY GEORGE KAGAME
With the World Cup in South Africa spinned as Africa’s time to showcase whatever we have here; the talking season is in frenzy.
Pundits, serious people, important people, people of note and even our fellow Citizens are talking. Albeit in drink filled mouthfuls and typical Third Street foul mouths; you can call it ranting.
Captured below are some of the things that concern our three favourite Citizens transcribed from a discourse taking place in that favourite of watering holes; The Ship&Anchor in downtown Citi.
Naturally this is a good time to be in Africa or to be African, it is the World Cup for Christ’s sake on our doorstep. A global feast of joy and happiness.
Don’t you reckon?
Africa is now welcome to the cheer party of the world. But like the script goes; if you come late to the party you try to make up for lost time. (Ask UN representatives of their opinions regarding Muamar Gadafi’s UN summit speech in New York recently.)
South Africans are late comers even to an African party but in a very short time they have successfully upset the established cheer party by their Vuvuzelas and this has many Citizens talking in space.
Bwana Mdogo: “It was a laughable idea a year ago when it was announced that the DR Congo government was planning on launching a space programme. And no; we are not talking about the space as in political space, media space, personal space, democracy space and space in whatever fashion it comes in but the space of mars, the sun, rockets and scientists.
DR Congo and a space programme really? You must be joking.
The project is still in incubation but not many people take it serious. This is due to the fact that despite many countries in Africa being more developed and more stable than DRC, we have not yet embraced the space thing.
The industry of satellites, rockets, and general space has simply not yet blossomed around here. Predictably, it is said that South Africa has nuclear technology, but not even they have space.
As such there’s a very limited presence of Africa(ns) in space, the only known African who ever made it there was Michael Shuttleworth, a young and wealthy white South African investor. And even he had to pay 20 million dollars to go there as a tourist.
While other people have been talking space, computers and satellites we are still stuck with the pre cold war technology of those poor miserable Russians and their notorious arms dealers.
So when DR Congo announced their space programme we remarked; “seriously Congo?” we knew that a solution to our space conundrum would have to come from South Africa. And indeed our answers were answered recently in Africa’s creative hub; Johannesburg.
Our first encounter with space was not ideal. It comes across as irritating; like someone you cannot stand in a staring contest. See? We have been left behind in the space race for so long yet we also need a presence there and if noble means won’t take us there we have no choice but to creep upon space with our noise.
Episode one started on 11 June 2010 with a plastic horn. The now famous Vuvuzela, blown by South African crowds thronging football stadiums to watch The World Cup, apparently the sound produced by these horns has reached the science space.
Never mind that many visitors have complained about its noise; upon which FIFA President Sepp Blatter has responded; “Seriously, this is Africa!”
Maama nani: Perhaps they brought the World Cup to a wrong place, somewhere really bad, a place with a lot of crime and violence, rape, muggings, and HIV/Aids.
And since it will take a little bit longer to see those other things, the poor Vuvuzela has been catapulted into a serious talking point of Africa’s World Cup. It might as well be the everlasting image and memory of the 2010 World Cup.
I have an idea for a Vuvuzela moment; I suggest we build a statue in memory of this horn and how it made us heard in space. Caption it with a statement like; “we made contact with space minus the drama and the cold war.”
We are good at this kind of thing, we build statues everywhere in Africa, and in fact recently we just got a cathedral of statues, the mother of them statues across the world.
This one was even a prophesy of Kenya’s Ngugi Wa Thiongo in his book; “The Wizard of the Crow.” The cathedral of African statues built by Senegal’s Abdoulaye Wade in Dakar cost more than 28 million dollars.
But in fairness to Wade, the statue is that of a guy with abs, a marvellous woman by his side and they are even carrying a cute child. The African Renaissance project as it is known could have been worse, just imagine it being the face of Wade himself while at the same time he earns a fortune from it from tourists.
Indeed Africa, space and sports are good topics for future generations to interest themselves.
Mtu Mzima: Take away your craze!
Take away your Africa and its World Cup spin. I will watch football even if the World Cup was held in Tonga, Fiji or Samoa.
Please don’t tell me about apartheid, crime, violence, HIV/Aids, spin this spin that. I have known about these issues for a very long time; very eloquently told through the lives of Lucky Dube and Brenda Fasie. And don’t even tell me about your Vuvuzela. This is sport.
South Africa is not different from Germany or Bhutan. I don’t care who hosts the thing. It is not the place I feel attached to. It is the play, the competition and the story of those countries that are competing. Save me the drama not connected to the sport.
Tuesday, 8 June 2010
The 2010 Marathon
I have no particular reason why I entered the thing in the first place. Oh I remember, I read that the winner would be rewarded with 1000 dollars. I calculated that At an investment of 90 dollars as the sign on fee I’d make a profit of 900 dollars. Yes, I’m that dumb.
This was Feb 2010 and I had just paid membership fees at the downtown Eau Claire YMCA gym at a subsidized fee for people with low incomes. All they required was a bank statement and a pay stub to show that one worked and that they earned below the average pay check in the province that is 21 dollars per hour.
So after paying for three months the question arose as to what would motivate me to come everyday to the gym, normally payment was enough motivation as the fee I had paid even after subsidizing is still disturbing in itself.
So I listed for the marathon such that I’d use the membership to the gym productively. The 1000 dollars prize therefore became secondary incentive for I knew to win the thing I needed to be without a job and concentrate exclusively on training.
I started training in Feb, running on average 25 km four times a week and by the start of May the body had got sick. The knees were hurting and I walked about with a rattle and a wobble. I irritated even myself a lot.
From Feb through to April I run in along the riverbanks of the Bow river in downtown Calgary starting at Eau Claire and running all the way to Canada Olympic park in the northwest and back to Eau Claire. This would take an average of three hours and 30 k. In the gym I stretched out, looked/ stared at the belles doing their work outs and chatted with Jesus Fikr a friend I met there who originally came from Eriteria.
He worked in the gym and occasionally gave me hints on developing strength in the hips and legs such that I could build endurance in the run. Fikr is also an ardent soccer fan and he supports Chelsea. We talked a lot about sport and women. Most times I looked forward going to the gym just to chat with Fikr.
But the marathon was too overwhelming. The thought of running 42.2km in two hours and a half-which was my initial target made my stomach cringe.
I used to be an athlete in Kako Secondary School from 1997 to 1998 and even qualified for the All Africa post-primary Championships in Abuja Nigeria 1997. I had also competed and won in the Buganda King’s birthday athletics meet held in MAsaka in 1997 in the 10000 metres slot as well as running in the Uganda national athletics championships held in Jinja in 1997.
Come marathon race day with the right knee in pain but generally feeling fit I went to bed at 1 am after drinking two beers, a late night walk and general procrastination involving mostly reading soccernet.com stories.
These are absolutely wrong things to do while preparing for the longest run of your life. First according to the greatest runner of all time Haile Gabre Selassie one needs to train for a maximum of three hours, run on average 30 k and then eat healthy foods. On race one need to get to bed early, say if you are running on Sunday, Saturday must be set aside for rest and if possible massage. And the meal prior to the race must be eaten two hours before the race starts.
I was up at 4am took a shower and Mike my housemate drove me to the starting line at Bridgeland and Memorial just next to the city train stop. For my breakfast I drank a bottle of powerade cake, banana and two sausages. It was bad as I had to endure four toilet stops during the race and it reduced my time almost 15 minutes.
At the start line I met Doug Driedger a fellow with whom I go Bethel Baptist Church. Driedger is 52 and a graphics designer in some big company in the city, we had not spoken with him before that meeting other than the usual after service chit chats. But He is a seasoned runner. He has already done three marathons on top of the mother of them all, the Boston marathon. I think he was diagnosed with some disease a few years back and as a result he decided to dedicate his body and free time in raising awareness to the disease.
Doug was to be indeed helpful.
He set the starting pace early in the race and gave me some insights on strategy, all I knew was that I was going to need to run 2hours non stop at a pace of four minutes per kilometer and after I’d need some divine intervention to complete the remaining time and distance to reach the finish line.
We started out with Doug and when he stopped for water a sped past and never run with him again. He over took me towards the end of the race when I had outrun my body, my wits and perseverance. I was at the time relying on divine power. Doug beat me by 6 minutes.
I had on my Nokia phone working as an mp3 player. The music paying on it was what I had used during training. A 2005 collection of reggae as well as a 1990s hip hop mixtape. Those two would lift me up for two hours and twenty minutes. After that I had some songs of Damien Marley, Israel Vibration, Rex Mundi, Tupac, Sizzla, Eagles, Cocoa T, Richie Spice, Wyclef Jean and Bob Marley.
I started powerfully and kept to the four minute pace up to the one and a half hours mark by which time I had run almost 26 kilometres.
But that is even going to far.
This was Feb 2010 and I had just paid membership fees at the downtown Eau Claire YMCA gym at a subsidized fee for people with low incomes. All they required was a bank statement and a pay stub to show that one worked and that they earned below the average pay check in the province that is 21 dollars per hour.
So after paying for three months the question arose as to what would motivate me to come everyday to the gym, normally payment was enough motivation as the fee I had paid even after subsidizing is still disturbing in itself.
So I listed for the marathon such that I’d use the membership to the gym productively. The 1000 dollars prize therefore became secondary incentive for I knew to win the thing I needed to be without a job and concentrate exclusively on training.
I started training in Feb, running on average 25 km four times a week and by the start of May the body had got sick. The knees were hurting and I walked about with a rattle and a wobble. I irritated even myself a lot.
From Feb through to April I run in along the riverbanks of the Bow river in downtown Calgary starting at Eau Claire and running all the way to Canada Olympic park in the northwest and back to Eau Claire. This would take an average of three hours and 30 k. In the gym I stretched out, looked/ stared at the belles doing their work outs and chatted with Jesus Fikr a friend I met there who originally came from Eriteria.
He worked in the gym and occasionally gave me hints on developing strength in the hips and legs such that I could build endurance in the run. Fikr is also an ardent soccer fan and he supports Chelsea. We talked a lot about sport and women. Most times I looked forward going to the gym just to chat with Fikr.
But the marathon was too overwhelming. The thought of running 42.2km in two hours and a half-which was my initial target made my stomach cringe.
I used to be an athlete in Kako Secondary School from 1997 to 1998 and even qualified for the All Africa post-primary Championships in Abuja Nigeria 1997. I had also competed and won in the Buganda King’s birthday athletics meet held in MAsaka in 1997 in the 10000 metres slot as well as running in the Uganda national athletics championships held in Jinja in 1997.
Come marathon race day with the right knee in pain but generally feeling fit I went to bed at 1 am after drinking two beers, a late night walk and general procrastination involving mostly reading soccernet.com stories.
These are absolutely wrong things to do while preparing for the longest run of your life. First according to the greatest runner of all time Haile Gabre Selassie one needs to train for a maximum of three hours, run on average 30 k and then eat healthy foods. On race one need to get to bed early, say if you are running on Sunday, Saturday must be set aside for rest and if possible massage. And the meal prior to the race must be eaten two hours before the race starts.
I was up at 4am took a shower and Mike my housemate drove me to the starting line at Bridgeland and Memorial just next to the city train stop. For my breakfast I drank a bottle of powerade cake, banana and two sausages. It was bad as I had to endure four toilet stops during the race and it reduced my time almost 15 minutes.
At the start line I met Doug Driedger a fellow with whom I go Bethel Baptist Church. Driedger is 52 and a graphics designer in some big company in the city, we had not spoken with him before that meeting other than the usual after service chit chats. But He is a seasoned runner. He has already done three marathons on top of the mother of them all, the Boston marathon. I think he was diagnosed with some disease a few years back and as a result he decided to dedicate his body and free time in raising awareness to the disease.
Doug was to be indeed helpful.
He set the starting pace early in the race and gave me some insights on strategy, all I knew was that I was going to need to run 2hours non stop at a pace of four minutes per kilometer and after I’d need some divine intervention to complete the remaining time and distance to reach the finish line.
We started out with Doug and when he stopped for water a sped past and never run with him again. He over took me towards the end of the race when I had outrun my body, my wits and perseverance. I was at the time relying on divine power. Doug beat me by 6 minutes.
I had on my Nokia phone working as an mp3 player. The music paying on it was what I had used during training. A 2005 collection of reggae as well as a 1990s hip hop mixtape. Those two would lift me up for two hours and twenty minutes. After that I had some songs of Damien Marley, Israel Vibration, Rex Mundi, Tupac, Sizzla, Eagles, Cocoa T, Richie Spice, Wyclef Jean and Bob Marley.
I started powerfully and kept to the four minute pace up to the one and a half hours mark by which time I had run almost 26 kilometres.
But that is even going to far.
The HIV/Aids wagon in Africa follows economic growth
1996 Uganda was a boom. It was boom boom time everywhere, or so it seemed.
The economy was doing very well; international coffee prices were still favourable to Ugandans who grew some of the best coffee in the world at the time.
fish exports from Lake Victoria were also beginning to grow. Most importantly, the Indians, and their expulsion from Uganda earlier , remember them? The ones that brought you the Last King of Scotland!
By the mid 1990s they were returning back after being invited by the Ugandan reigning president Yoweri Kaguta Museveni. The president also ordered for the Indians property and land that had been confiscated by Idd Amin Dada to be returned to the rightful owners. The returning Indians, and their cousins from Pakistan. It did not matter, they were the Indians.
The Indians had come to Uganda upon the invitation of the British to construct the famous Uganda Railway.
When the Indians initially known as the Coolies had finished building the railroad and the British Empire long gone after the collapse of colonialism, the Indians refused to go back to their country. They stayed forever.
The British left the economy of Uganda in Indians hands and the politics to the Ugandans, the relationship between the Indians and the Ugandans after the departure of the British was well captured in the movie; The Last King of Scotland
Museveni came as the ultimate good character against in the said movie. He stabilized Uganda.
By 1996 Uganda was indeed a pearl.
The Ugandan shilling was exchanging fairly well against the US dollar. As a result many Ugandans were able to go Dubai to trade, many even went to Japan and started motor vehicle import businesses across East Africa. Dubai was the first adventure for many hustling Africans to achieve success.
When Museveni invited back the Indians the economy went BOOM. Ugandan seriously challenged Kenya’s position as the economic powerhouse of the region, most of the Indians that fuelled this new birth of Uganda had settled in Kenya earlier when Amin expelled them.
They fired up Uganda.
Along With the economic success of Uganda came other less fortunate things. First among them was HIV/Aids. Long before the disease made serious headlines elsewhere in the world; Uganda was suffering the worst of the disease. Major commercial lines and corridors were at the centre of an epidemic, which nobody at the time was even able to comprehend.
In the simple analysis of many Ugandans it was a curse from the witchcrafts, wizards and magicians.
The witchdoctors, traditional healers smelled a rat. They increased their services. Sometimes advertising their services in their neighbourhoods. Listing the number of curses, diseases, demons and punishments the magicians were capable of commanding.
It became normal to see roadside adverts for traditional healers, yet in contrast, witchcrafts were a of particular interest amongst Ugandans. Many suspected people of witchcraft were burnt in public in some places.
Buyikwe and Bukunja in Mukono district were highly respected in matters witchcraft.
Aids was simply a matter of witchcraft.
One of the first public victims of HIV/Aids in Uganda was a superstar musician known as Philly Bongole Lutaya. Lutaya had done a first for his generation on the continent. He had successfully created himself a career in the music industry of Sweden. Of all places, seriously?
He also became the first person to serious start a discussion about the stigma of the disease. The prevalence rates of HIV/Aids in the country was as high as 17 percent of the population.
Jinja on the shores of Lake Victoria, Rakai district on the trade corridor linking Rwanda, DR Congo and Burundi, Kampala the capital and also on the shores of lake Victoria as well as Busia on the boarder with Kenya were all battling with a disease which left disaster and desert in those communities. They were also the trade hubs in the region.
Museveni was the first leader whose face became synonymous with the fight against HIV/Aids in the world and success or strategy stories the face told. The coinage of a new breed of African leaders was fully inscribed on his image. Ugandan became the go to place for all the world do gooders. Museveni then cemented his place as a statesman.
Rwakitura and the triangle that it created from Lyantonde to Masaka was the Mecca for all the visitors and people of note in the country as well as many who had an interest in fighting HIV/Aids. Yet the place was also among the most severely attacked b the disease. The soldiers guarding the presidential home as well as the intelligence network they held were the chief medium through which the entire trade hub was spread with the deadly disease.
There was also a contradiction of a president fighting a strange disease everywhere and his soldiers spreading the same disease amongst the local people.
In 1997 my Mother Jane Mbabazi was working for President Museveni and his wife Janet at the headquarters of the above-mentioned hub of HIV/Aids and trade. Museveni’s home in Rwakitura unlike others spread across the country was a mini commercial and social centre in itself. It covered the triangle of Lyantonde, Rushere and Mbarara. Rwakitura with the soldiers guarding the presidential compound, the large household staff and other supporting agencies was a hub. My mother headed this hub which had its own school known as Karo Karungi a Runyankore name appropriately loosely translated as ‘a good village’.
This school never had an examination centre because it was populated by privileged kids in the neighbourhood of Museveni's country home, they were not academically disciplined and they were racists. I attended the school for only three weeks.
On holiday from boarding school I visited with my mother and since The nearest and biggest commercial centre to Rwakitura was Lyantonde I made frequent trips there, for family errands as well as ‘a night out on the town.’
Lyantonde was a town besieged with HIV/Aids but since nobody or just a few people at the time knew the disease in the way we know it today everyone called it an invention of witchcraft.
For those of us in our early teenage years we were told that most people in Lyantonde were agents of witchcrafts, magicians and wizards. We were told not to even dare eat the food in the town. We carried everything we needed around us. We were even warned not to go in washrooms in Lyantonde. Any contact with a person from Lyantonde meant contact with the magicians, witches and wizards. We were even warned not to look in their eyes. We were told tales that some men and boys who went with a woman from Lyantonde after a night in the clubs would wake up wrapped around by a snake or the would turn out to have a goats hooves in the morning.
Unfortunately this became the misery of People Living with HIV/Aids in the country, the stigma around patients was so huge. A person that contacted the disease was immediately fired from their jobs, with no income the women resorted to prostitution and the number of victims multiplied.
I996 was just two years after the South Africans had gotten rid of Apartheid, the embargoes and sanctions that had bedeviled the country during the white supremacy rule were loosened and South Africa became the giant of Africa. Their economy was expanding; they started the first mobile telecommunication industry on the continent and spread the industry across Africa. They started with Uganda first in 1998. I had the pleasure to work in the construction company that built the MTN switchboard in Bugolobi at the time. I was aged 16.
South Africans had been under the yoke for so long the end of apartheid granted them freedoms never before dreamed of, they took this freedom with both hands. And that was about the time that HIV/Aids attacked them with vigour. By the end of 2000 prevalence rates in the country were 12 percent.
Unlike in Uganda were the disease concentrated its wings in this landlocked country and mainly never affected neighbours like Rwanda, DR Congo, Tanzania and Kenya; in South Africa the epidemic spread across to Botswana and currently the two leading economies of Africa are threatened with the HIV/Aids.
The economy was doing very well; international coffee prices were still favourable to Ugandans who grew some of the best coffee in the world at the time.
fish exports from Lake Victoria were also beginning to grow. Most importantly, the Indians, and their expulsion from Uganda earlier , remember them? The ones that brought you the Last King of Scotland!
By the mid 1990s they were returning back after being invited by the Ugandan reigning president Yoweri Kaguta Museveni. The president also ordered for the Indians property and land that had been confiscated by Idd Amin Dada to be returned to the rightful owners. The returning Indians, and their cousins from Pakistan. It did not matter, they were the Indians.
The Indians had come to Uganda upon the invitation of the British to construct the famous Uganda Railway.
When the Indians initially known as the Coolies had finished building the railroad and the British Empire long gone after the collapse of colonialism, the Indians refused to go back to their country. They stayed forever.
The British left the economy of Uganda in Indians hands and the politics to the Ugandans, the relationship between the Indians and the Ugandans after the departure of the British was well captured in the movie; The Last King of Scotland
Museveni came as the ultimate good character against in the said movie. He stabilized Uganda.
By 1996 Uganda was indeed a pearl.
The Ugandan shilling was exchanging fairly well against the US dollar. As a result many Ugandans were able to go Dubai to trade, many even went to Japan and started motor vehicle import businesses across East Africa. Dubai was the first adventure for many hustling Africans to achieve success.
When Museveni invited back the Indians the economy went BOOM. Ugandan seriously challenged Kenya’s position as the economic powerhouse of the region, most of the Indians that fuelled this new birth of Uganda had settled in Kenya earlier when Amin expelled them.
They fired up Uganda.
Along With the economic success of Uganda came other less fortunate things. First among them was HIV/Aids. Long before the disease made serious headlines elsewhere in the world; Uganda was suffering the worst of the disease. Major commercial lines and corridors were at the centre of an epidemic, which nobody at the time was even able to comprehend.
In the simple analysis of many Ugandans it was a curse from the witchcrafts, wizards and magicians.
The witchdoctors, traditional healers smelled a rat. They increased their services. Sometimes advertising their services in their neighbourhoods. Listing the number of curses, diseases, demons and punishments the magicians were capable of commanding.
It became normal to see roadside adverts for traditional healers, yet in contrast, witchcrafts were a of particular interest amongst Ugandans. Many suspected people of witchcraft were burnt in public in some places.
Buyikwe and Bukunja in Mukono district were highly respected in matters witchcraft.
Aids was simply a matter of witchcraft.
One of the first public victims of HIV/Aids in Uganda was a superstar musician known as Philly Bongole Lutaya. Lutaya had done a first for his generation on the continent. He had successfully created himself a career in the music industry of Sweden. Of all places, seriously?
He also became the first person to serious start a discussion about the stigma of the disease. The prevalence rates of HIV/Aids in the country was as high as 17 percent of the population.
Jinja on the shores of Lake Victoria, Rakai district on the trade corridor linking Rwanda, DR Congo and Burundi, Kampala the capital and also on the shores of lake Victoria as well as Busia on the boarder with Kenya were all battling with a disease which left disaster and desert in those communities. They were also the trade hubs in the region.
Museveni was the first leader whose face became synonymous with the fight against HIV/Aids in the world and success or strategy stories the face told. The coinage of a new breed of African leaders was fully inscribed on his image. Ugandan became the go to place for all the world do gooders. Museveni then cemented his place as a statesman.
Rwakitura and the triangle that it created from Lyantonde to Masaka was the Mecca for all the visitors and people of note in the country as well as many who had an interest in fighting HIV/Aids. Yet the place was also among the most severely attacked b the disease. The soldiers guarding the presidential home as well as the intelligence network they held were the chief medium through which the entire trade hub was spread with the deadly disease.
There was also a contradiction of a president fighting a strange disease everywhere and his soldiers spreading the same disease amongst the local people.
In 1997 my Mother Jane Mbabazi was working for President Museveni and his wife Janet at the headquarters of the above-mentioned hub of HIV/Aids and trade. Museveni’s home in Rwakitura unlike others spread across the country was a mini commercial and social centre in itself. It covered the triangle of Lyantonde, Rushere and Mbarara. Rwakitura with the soldiers guarding the presidential compound, the large household staff and other supporting agencies was a hub. My mother headed this hub which had its own school known as Karo Karungi a Runyankore name appropriately loosely translated as ‘a good village’.
This school never had an examination centre because it was populated by privileged kids in the neighbourhood of Museveni's country home, they were not academically disciplined and they were racists. I attended the school for only three weeks.
On holiday from boarding school I visited with my mother and since The nearest and biggest commercial centre to Rwakitura was Lyantonde I made frequent trips there, for family errands as well as ‘a night out on the town.’
Lyantonde was a town besieged with HIV/Aids but since nobody or just a few people at the time knew the disease in the way we know it today everyone called it an invention of witchcraft.
For those of us in our early teenage years we were told that most people in Lyantonde were agents of witchcrafts, magicians and wizards. We were told not to even dare eat the food in the town. We carried everything we needed around us. We were even warned not to go in washrooms in Lyantonde. Any contact with a person from Lyantonde meant contact with the magicians, witches and wizards. We were even warned not to look in their eyes. We were told tales that some men and boys who went with a woman from Lyantonde after a night in the clubs would wake up wrapped around by a snake or the would turn out to have a goats hooves in the morning.
Unfortunately this became the misery of People Living with HIV/Aids in the country, the stigma around patients was so huge. A person that contacted the disease was immediately fired from their jobs, with no income the women resorted to prostitution and the number of victims multiplied.
I996 was just two years after the South Africans had gotten rid of Apartheid, the embargoes and sanctions that had bedeviled the country during the white supremacy rule were loosened and South Africa became the giant of Africa. Their economy was expanding; they started the first mobile telecommunication industry on the continent and spread the industry across Africa. They started with Uganda first in 1998. I had the pleasure to work in the construction company that built the MTN switchboard in Bugolobi at the time. I was aged 16.
South Africans had been under the yoke for so long the end of apartheid granted them freedoms never before dreamed of, they took this freedom with both hands. And that was about the time that HIV/Aids attacked them with vigour. By the end of 2000 prevalence rates in the country were 12 percent.
Unlike in Uganda were the disease concentrated its wings in this landlocked country and mainly never affected neighbours like Rwanda, DR Congo, Tanzania and Kenya; in South Africa the epidemic spread across to Botswana and currently the two leading economies of Africa are threatened with the HIV/Aids.
Thursday, 3 June 2010
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