Guaka! - geekcorps

Gangbare dag (in Bamako)

Guaka — Thu, 31 Mar 2005 03:55:24 +0000

29 maart

Oh, normale gangbare dag? Opstaan tussen 9 en 10. Vandaag dichter bij 10 dan bij 9. Tandenpoetsen, gezicht wassen. Bubu aan, laptop mee naar beneden. Plekje zoeken, airco hoger zetten zodat ik geen kou vat (brrr, 26 graden celsius). Paar websites bekijken. Amadu helpen met .php3 probleempje. Kijken of de Kunnafonix 0.1 bittorrent het al doet. Helaas niet. Bedenken wat ik voor 0.1.1 ga doen. In de tussentijd al 2 keer naar de plee gerend omdat ik gisteren dacht dat die rooie fles de ketchup was (was dus sauce de piment). Gisteren was geen normale dag. Vrij laat opgestaan (eergisteren was zeker geen normale dag :). Met de importeur van die sauce z'n auto rondgereden (richting Kati, 15 km van Bamako, en weer terug) en uiteindelijk ergens gaan wandelen in de heuvels rond Bamako. Uitzicht op Bamako. Ontzettend groene stad. En je vraagt je af waar, wanneer en waarom, afrogression. Waarom is het niet gewoon een stad waar het goed toeven is? Met een beetje minder stof, een beetje meer asfalt? Schijnbaar is het in Dakar (Senegal) wel redelijk in orde. En was het in Abidjan (Cote d'Ivoire) goed toeven, maar opeens niet meer dus, daro. Zoveel problemen hier. Maar sommige problemen zijn fundamenteler dan andere. Is het de cultuur? Is het de koloniale erfenis? Maar ok, ik zal wel wat meer alledaagse dingetjes typen. :)

30 maart

Tegen het eind van de middag kwam nog een Dolo langs. D'r zijn er vrij veel hier in Bamako. Allemaal Dogon. Studeert Engels en Duits. Samen gaan eten bij "Papa". Een restaurant - nou ja, eigenlijk is het gewoon een keet - waar ik normaal liever niet naartoe ga. Uitzicht op runderhart en de brandlucht van bakkend vlees zijn niet mijn favoriete omstandigheden om mijn kostje naar binnen te werken. Meestal eet ik salade met friet (meestal koud) en brood. Soms bonen i.p.v. friet. Zo'n maaltijd kost dan meestal niet meer dan 250 CFA (een halve dollar). Ik ontmoet zoveel mensen dat het moeilijk is om namen te onthouden. Namen zijn ook moeilijker te onthouden als je ze nog nooit gehoord (laat staan gezien/gelezen) hebt. Veel mensen hier in de buurt weten inmiddels wel hoe ik heet. Abubakar Keita. Ik dacht eerst "Guaka Keita", maar telkens als ik Guaka zei verstond met "Abubakar". Keita vanwege Salif Keita en het feit dat een Hospitality Club Peace Corps meisje waarmee ik gemaild heb voordat ik hier kwam ook zo heet. Vaak zijn er 's avonds straatfeesten, waarbij kinderen en jongeren dansen in een grote kring. Dankzij het vinnige buurmeisje hoorde ik opeens mijn naam over de installatie klinken. En moest ik dus ook die grote kring in. Ik was even bang dat ik daar in mijn eentje zou komen te staan, maar gelukkig kreeg ik al snel gezelschap. Veel gejuich. Naderhand kreeg ik te horen dat ik toch wel goed kon dansen voor een tubab. Daarna naar de Blabla straat gegaan met Issa Dolo, die het straatfeestje ook had gevonden. Jerome bleek intussen een nieuwe telefoon te hebben. Met hetzelfde oude nummer. Mazzel voor hem. Volgens hem zat er meer achter afgelopen zondag, bij de grote rellen die er hier in Bamako hebben plaatsgevonden, vanwege Mali - Togo. Mali was eigenlijk al kansloos voor plaatsing (voor iets belangrijks), maar het 1-2 verlies was toch reden voor massale plundering, brandstichting en blijkbaar zelfs moord. Ik heb al wekenlang geen krant gezien hier, en 't is eigenlijk wel jammer om er niet meer van te weten. Het schijnt vrij groot te zijn, en hetgeen ik vandaag bij Google News heb gevonden was niet erg informatief. Maar ja, blijkbaar is de politie dan toch nog ergens goed voor, af en toe, zo nu en dan. Het schijnt dat er grote onvrede is over de president "ATT", maar het vreemde is dan weer dat overheidsgebouwen niet geplunderd zijn, en dat vooral bars (met prostitutie en drank) het doelwit waren. Eden Park, waar ik vrijdagavond nog was, is platgebrand, en twee Chinezen (probeer maar eens een Chinees restaurant zonder hoeren te vinden hier...) zijn gelyncht.

31 maart

's Ochtends sta ik op, om gelijk te beginnen met werken. En dan ga ik meestal tegen een uur elf, half twaalf op zoek naar eten. Meestal brood met omelet of brood met friet en komkommer. En koffie. Sinds 2 weken is er een nieuwe keet, en deze keet heeft dus echte, lekkere koffie. Niet de Nescafe die gebruikelijk is hier. Het gebruik van merknamen voor generieke produkten is trouwens erg gebruikelijk, zoals Lipton voor thee en Kleenex voor snotpapier. Hoe heet dat ook alweer? ik merk toch dat ik af en toe een beetje moeite heb met de Nederlandse taal... En nu heb ik volgende week wel een nieuwe collega waarmee (of eigenlijk -tegen) ik Nederlands kan spreken, maar dan kan ik niet veel meer dan gebroken Duitserlands terugverwachten. Sebastian komt uit Berlijn. Waarschijnlijk hebben we elkaar wel eens gezien, op een van de twee hackerconfs in Berlijn waar we allebei waren (hetgeen natuurlijk niet al te toevallig is :)

shensche: ich hoffe, dass du wirklich mit mir niederlaendisch sprechen kannst. ich merke doch immer wieder, dass mir diverse niederlaendische vokabeln nicht gelaeufig sind. :)

Ich glaub' dass wird schon klappen. Sonst kan ik ook een beetje mischen :) Guaka 02:20, 4 Apr 2005 (CEST)

Josh is ziek sinds een paar dagen. Ik heb het vermoeden dat dat vanwege de nieuwe airco's in de kantoorruimtes is. Hij zit vlak d'ronder. Laura is al tijden niet meer echt aanwezig. Armoede. Een meisje, jaar of 4, hier voor het huis, zoekend naar wat dan ook in de verbrandvuilnisbak. Ik geef haar de koekjes die ik net gekocht heb. De "woningen", vol met mensen. De stank. Schuldgevoel. Is het gek dat iedereen hier weg wil? Uit deze hel op aarde. Verdonk: "Deze mensen kiezen er zelf voor de uitspraak in Nederland af te wachten. Maar het beleid is gericht op terugkeer. Opvang geeft verkeerde signalen en valse hoop naar betrokkenen" [1]. Ik probeer me in te denken, onmogelijk, maar wat zou ik doen als Mali-er. Wakker liggend in stank, lawaai, op het harde beton. Niet eens in staat de inschrijving van de bibliotheek te betalen. Honger. Geen uitzicht op verandering. En wat doe ik? Ik ben hier 2 maanden. En blijf hier nog 2 maanden. Ik doe mijn ding. Het project is oke, maar wat het nou echt wezenlijk verandert hier. Geen idee. Het verbeteren van informatie en communicatie zorgt er niet opeens voor dat mensen minder honger hebben. Honger. Geen idee wat dat is. Ik dacht dat ik in India een idee had gekregen van wat armoede is, maar India is rijk ten opzichte van Mali. Indi-ers hebben veel meer mogelijkheden, zo lijkt het. Zelfs als ze in de laagste kaste zijn geboren bestaan er tegenwoordig goede mogelijkheden om "iets te berijken". Boeken zijn goedkoop, communicatie is niet zo duur als hier. India heeft kust, spoorwegen, straten. Mali heeft woestijn en 1000 km verharde weg met gaten.

Crowd surfing in Bamako

Guaka — Mon, 21 Mar 2005 03:50:25 +0000

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It's the beginning of what people call spring in colder areas of the world, 2:30am and I'm crowd surfing in the streets of Bamako. About 6 men are trying to lift me into a black van. One of them tries to grab both of my arms, so I decide to give him my left arm and he attaches it to the van using handcuffs, leaving my right arm free to make a phone call. Off we go, on a ride that seemed to last for ages... It was the first time I felt cold in Bamako.

So, these men are policemen. The police, man's best friend. It's probably not the worst thing that can happen to people in Bamako, but given that it was the third time I was stopped in 3 weeks or so, it's definitely one of the more prevalent evils.

Two weeks before

So I haven't written yet, that two weeks ago I was walking on the Bla Bla / Sky Bar street with Awa, when suddenly two motorbikes stop. The policemen are asking for our IDs, which we're showing them. The cop sees 1996 on my shabby-looking paper and is complaining. So I have to explain that Dutch driving licenses are valid 10 years and show him the 2006 that's not written on the "main part". No problem. Awa's ID card, however, needs some more inspectation and the guys start asking me for 3000 CFA. Apparently some kind of seal was missing. Since it's a ridiculous demand I refuse to give them money. They decide it's time to drive away, with Awa's ID, me running after them and stopping them. Apparently their fangatigi is only 100 meters away. Awa is very reluctant to go there, but I wasn't going to get away with the ID just like that. After five minutes of silence and discussion the chef decides to take a look at the papers and starts his bike. (I haven't told much about prostitutes yet, but the crowd seemed a mix of whores and cops...) Fortunately someone offers him a torch and he checks it for about 5 seconds, and we're off.

One week before

Evasion Jazz Club is an amazing place. It is has a fabulous atmosphere. And it has Adama. He's a great musician. He plays guitar and sings. It's not really Jazz, but it's a thing not to miss. I've probably already recorded 2 hours of this stuff (in pieces of 3 minutes; Canon did a great job with the Ixus, but I hate the fact that they put this stupid restriction when filming; time for free software cameras?). I hope I get his permission to put it online under a Creative Commons license, so that you can enjoy a tiny bit of it as well, and so that he'll be able to get gigs in Europe... We're driving back and suddenly I see we're approaching a car full of policemen. A cop comes over and asks us for our ID's. I show my driving license, no problem, Josh shows his ID, and the cop starts nagging that one should always carry an ID. Josh starts being aggressive, getting his mobile and saying he's gonna call the Canadian embassy. I don't feel like the guy taking another peek at my license, so I try to chill Josh and take over the conversation, saying that from now on we'll always carry ID, and sorry for the inconvenience, bla bla bla. The cop seems to be happy with the respect shown and lets us continue our path.

Last week

. (http://www.industree.org/guaka/gallery/Bamako-3/img_3127)

Three o'clock in the afternoon Josh comes over and tells me Amadu, our beloved Dogon guard, is taken by the police. It's hard for me to believe that a person so nice could do anything that would cause the police to come over and take him into custody. The story becomes even more ridiculous when later that day they come to arrest Issa Yat, Geekcorps' driver, as well. Later that night it appears that it has something to do with a stolen mobile phone. Amadu and Issa don't return that night. Fortunately they return during the next day. Apparently, here in Mali, the police actually arrests people, while they're working, lets them sit in jail for the night, on the suspicion of making the mistake of buying a stolen phone. (Oh, if your old dust collecting phone is still working, please send it to Mali instead of throwing it away. It has the power to keep people out of jail...)

Last night

What happened? Do I know? I was going out with Issa Dolo and Mame and it was getting a bit late. We're walking around through the streets of Korofina (area in Bamako), looking for a cab. Right in front of Bla Bla Bar the cab stops and a bunch of cops show up at our windows. Well, no problem. I get my driving license to show it. Well, problem. They're not happy with my driving license and ask me to get out of the car. I'm like, WTF is this? I'm not getting out of the car, and tell them my passport is at home, if they want we go there so I can show it - hoping that they'll leave it at that. But, no, in Mali one is to carry an ID at all times. If not, one is to go to the bureau and pay a fine. I ask them if it's just money they want. No, they say, they don't take money. I am to go to the bureau. Three cops are standing next to the car, ready to drag me out of it. I figure that it's probably a better idea not to let them. The moment I step out of the car they start pushing me towards the van, and naturally I'm saying things that one shouldn't say to coppers - even if you think they don't even know what it means. And suddenly I'm crowd surfing, again. Last time must be more than 6 years ago. Back then the crowd was huge, happy and partying. This time it was a flock of underpaid uniforms.

In the van

I'm sitting in the van, my left arm is attached to the back of the bench. The wind is blowing through my hair. My company consists of (probably) 4 policemen, one with a big rifle, 7 other people who were unfortunate enough not to have ID on them. And then there's 3 more cops in the front of the van. I start to talk with the cop next to me. He's not unfriendly and I don't really remember what we talked about - but it must have been about the Malian police. I find out we're headed for the bureau du sixième arrondissement. Always good to know. Armed with this knowledge I tried to take a chance with my free right arm. I called Josh, Laura, Ian, no response. Of course not, people are supposed to sleep at such unholy times. Then I remembered that Laura might actually be close to another phone and I managed to speak to her, which was a great relieve. Ian called me back some time later. Cold. People on the side of the street wonder what a tubab is doing in a police car and I wave at them with my left hand, which is responded with a seemingly warm waves. It's amazing, what thoughts enter one's mind in such situations. And mine was still pretty good. I was thinking about the other people in the van, who don't have a mobile phone, don't have an embassy to call, don't have colleagues who are able to come by to pick them up in the middle of the night, who probably don't have a job or money to buy more than the bare essential. I was thinking of people all over the world, taken away by police, army, militias. Brought somewhere. Anywhere.

And I thought of 5 months ago, when I was summoned to a police station in France, to my great disbelief. For tapping on a window for just a tiny bit too long. Back then my world seemed annihilated - and I thought it was me, the great annihilator. Later I found out that act of destructive madness was actually the best thing I had done in at least the last 3 years.

Is it funny when people grabbed from the street are entering your office?, I asked the laughing policemen. Not very prudent. But it might have shown them that it's not me who's the dog. I set down next to the other delinquents. Observing. Listening. Bambara. Finally it was my turn. They asked me for my name and instinctively I asked them if they wanted to know my Malian name. The same time I realize that that might have been a very stupid question. However, it seems to break the ice, and they ask me if I speak Bambara. Awo, I say, n'be bamanankan fo doni doni, which is probably smart, as long as one only understands doni doni. If you only speak a little bit people realize I might actually be able understand what they're concocting, so they won't try. I tell them we're I'm from, what I'm doing, and one of them even asks me why I don't want to "informatiser la police malienne". I don't speak out what's on the tip of my tongue (something along the lines of "over my dead body") and politely say that Geekcorps doesn't have the capacity right now, and that it might happen if there is some money to actually do that in the future. So I had made clear that I wasn't going to pay any "fine", that I was told a driving license was sufficient, both by the embassy (a lie) as well as by my chef (true) and that I was friendly - enough. Enough to melt the ice. The fangatigi told me they'd drop me at home the next shift... Relief. Snoring policemen.

And African music TV. Lots of music from Angola. Is that the Portuguese influence? Thoughts of Juliana then cross my mind, radiant and blind, a girl from Angola - today I received her "groetjes" through Joris.

A while later I feel my phone shaking and I realize in all my bewilderment I've forgotten to make some phone calls to people who are probably slightly worried about my situation, for which I am sorry. Ian was ready to come over to get me out of my situation, and I tell him it's fine. Everything under control.

Issa

. (http://www.industree.org/guaka/gallery/Bamako-4/img_3498)

The policemen had also asked me whom I was with, which I told them - one good friend and one friend I've seen a couple of times. I was not mistaken. While watching TV with the policemen involved in heavy discussions about women, mafia, Issa suddenly came walking in, accompanied by the police. I told him I was fine. I wasn't really sure how my situation was, so I decided to go with the flow, sit down, don't say more than necessary and just wait. After another ride in the van, this time not handcuffed, at 5:30h I was home again, finally. Fortunately for the person who thought the police was after him they dropped us off right in front of Geekcorps HQ. The signed letter with Geekcorps and USAID logos I found on my pedestal cupboard will stay in my wallet for the rest of my stay in Africa. And this night I will not easy forget.

Today

Ok, I haven't yet printed the copy of my passport. But I did add the emergency number of the Dutch embassy to my phone - please, people, do the same before you go to a country where you'd rather not bump into the police. Oh, sorry, that could be any country these days, especially if you're skin's just not white enough

Two weeks (in Bamako)

Guaka — Mon, 28 Feb 2005 03:45:18 +0000

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A ni sogoma!

Well, two weeks of no blog writing. That means I’ve either been working hard, or I’ve been having a lot of fun... Or... it simply means both! I’ve been having a great time here in Bamako. And I’ve gotten some work done as well.

I have a new haircut now. For 500 CFA (1 US$) I had a pleasant conversation and a lot of my hair cut off. I think the guy did a good job - which was being confirmed by people around me. Probably there will be some pictures of my new coupe on the gallery some time in the future :) The funny thing is, that when the coiffeur was done cutting - which was basically done with machines - he tried to give me some Jehovah booklets. So even though he did a great job, I don’t want to offend people (by telling them to fuck off with their crap or something one would actually want to say, but doesn’t out of politeness), so I’d rather not go there again.

Religion is important here. So what to say if people ask about mine? I don’t believe there’s a supreme being, ... ruler or creator of, and/or immanent within, the universe. I don’t believe there is a better world, where you go if you’ve been a good person when you die. To me, that sounds like crap. That doesn’t mean I don’t respect people believing that. It’s everyone’s best right to believe whatever one wants, as long as no people (or animals) get hurt in the process. I just don’t want to be bothered with it. It’s fine if people tell me about their practices, and I even greatly enjoy listening to that. I even would like to go to the mosque, and follow all the customs as they are to be followed - as I did a bit in India, or in the Netherlands, for that matter. I don’t like it, however, when someone seriously tries to convert me, telling me detailed stories about the bible. I’ve been there. I do recall a hike from Paris to the Netherlands, last summer or so, where a guy was telling about sufi-ism. Now, that, I really enjoyed. It gave me a totally fresh view about Islam. And they make great music as well. Reminded me of Mongolian buddhist sounds, and Indian ragas.

To pick up the thread, I do believe a better world is possible. I do believe in some basic capacity of mankind to be good - though it’s not showing most of the time. I do believe it’s bad to eat animals, as long as there are healthy alternatives. And I’m the living proof it doesn’t really hurt to not eat meat for the most part of your life.

I do believe sharing is good. Especially if the one sharing doesn’t lose anything, like with information, or.. hitchhiking. I also think it’s good to cooperate, to work, to create in a non-hierarchical way. Hence I have a certain affinity for anarchism, which is like a religion, but anti-religious at the same time. It is utopian, but it at least show it does work for information. I don’t really think it’s totally feasible as an (anti-)political and economical system, for the moment. But why not try to have some parts of it at present? Eben Moglen wrote - eloquently as always - about this in his Anarchism Triumphant. There might be a link to a translation into your mother tongue on his homepage, though if you’re mother tongue is Dutch you’ll have to wait a while... :)

So, if people ask about my religion, could I say I’m a practising veggy eco-info-anarchist? Sounds funny, but here in Africa, probably not. Anarchism has the negative connotation of chaos and disorder - much like in the rest of the world. But in Africa there has been so much of it in recent times. With funny side effects sometimes. Like in Somalia, which has the cheapest and best communication of entire Africa, simply because there’s no government to regulate and prohibit, or to pay taxes to. But, I can talk about what I do as a practising veggy eco-info-anarchist. And I find that some people very much enjoy to discuss stuff like that. They eat meat, but are interested in not eating meat. They dig the stuff about sharing information, about free communication (as in beer, but also as in speech). And they come up with objections, possible problems.

Although I gave up on my regular lessons, my Bambara is going quite well. I can do very basic smalltalk and drop some lines once in a while when speaking French. It’s great fun. And the lessons weren’t. I just can’t stand it, sit there and repeat one after the other some lines which I don’t care for right now. I want to learn what I like to learn. It should not become boring. That way I take pleasure in opening my book every two, three days, and learn something new. That’s also the reason I open up the Arabic book I found here, once in a while. I want to learn the script and some basic words, so I can try to decipher the signs I see here. And, as a bonus, whenever I will be in the Arab world I will be able to pick it up much quicker. But I’ll probably first try to go and do cool stuff in Brazil. I very much enjoy Portuguese, especially Brazilian Portuguese, and the country seems the place to be for software livre, informação livre, cultura livre, moças maravilhosas e musica sublima...

from Remixing Culture: An Interview with Lawrence Lessig

Lawrence Lessig: I was at the World Social Forum, but much of what was going on at the World Social Forum was related to Brazil’s leadership in spreading free software and free culture. So the free software movement has exploded in Brazil, led in part by the government, which is increasingly using free software in its own work and requiring it for much of the government’s coding work. The free culture movement is being pushed in Brazil largely because of the culture minister, Gilberto Gil, who envisions a future where an increasingly large proportion of the content in Brazil is made available to the world via Creative Commons licenses.

Now the strategy in both cases is to increase wealth in Brazil. The view of free software is that it’s far better for Brazil if the technology industry is trained in the skills needed to build and modify and extend free software than if they’re trained in the skills of how to implement a patch for the latest Windows virus. That’s about technology self-sufficiency.

And in the free culture context, Brazil is eager to have their music spread broadly to increase the demand for Brazilian musicians. They have a project to create a huge archive of Brazilian music licensed under Creative Commons licenses, which will encourage people to get access to it and share it for noncommercial purposes and remix it. And the bet is that once that’s implemented, it will actually increase the ultimate benefit to Brazilian musicians--relative to this world where there are just a handful of Brazilian musicians who are able to get their work heard outside of Brazil.

Saturday last week I’ve met Nicolas and Issa again. We met at the bars close to Sky Bar (I don’t bother to remember the real names..), and Nico’s deux chevaux took us to un truc "de jeunes" (there are several, but this one was close to a pyramid-kinda thing). It was slightly boring over there, so we hit the road again - of which I took some great videos, with some nice dub muzak - to arrive at Evasion, a tiny jazz club, hidden away somewhere in Bamako’s alleys. It appeared that the musicians needed so time to warm up. But... As soon as the heat (and the cheap beer) popped in, they were fucking amazing! It was one of the most intense concerts I’ve ever seen (and I’ve seen quite a few...). I also took some videos of that, and I hope to get permission from these magnificent artists to put it online under a Creative Commons license. Even the audio tracks from that (taken with my Canon Ixus) sound great. Lo-fi, but so much fun to listen to. Next time I won’t forget my little MP3 recorder. And my tripod, so I can actually put the camera somewhere and let it go with the flow.

Yesterday (kunun) Nico had a party at Rafael’s place (a three-story building, which is rare in Bamako), at the occasion of his 30th birthday, which will be tomorrow (sini). It’s funny, he told a Peacecorps girl came over to him the day before yesterday (kununsini) in Koulikoro and asked "hein Gaspard, ca va?", so he responded "ca va bien, mais moi je suis pas Gaspard". At the party one girl came over to congratulate me... And a woman asked if we were brothers. But well, we are, I guess. Although I have seen him only a couple of times, it’s been really great to hang out with him. He works 6 days a week though...

Then I decided to leave the party - which was kind of dying out except for some fun moments where a Belgian guy forgot about his age and try to date a girl 10 years younger than his children. Which sounds much more horrible than it actually is if you’ve been here a while... I then took a cab to a club, Monte Cristo (700 CFA, slightly more than 1 euro), where I met with my colleagues, and, boss! It’s extragavant to pay 5000 CFA (10 US$) to get in (+1 free drink, yay!), but I even start to enjoy dancing to African and crappy European music... And, African women are so ..different, I guess...

Today I had a slight hangover. Party at N’s place and then went to the club. Too much partying (and too much whiskey) last night. Oh, ho, stop, sorry, this starts to sound too much like my friend’s blog. Oh well, whatever, nevermind.

Last Friday I finally had beans. Great beans. And I just found out I can get beans very close by. That’ll be sooo much fun for my colleagues. Just like the camera I’m always carrying. But, well, I do know they’ll love to see the pictures I’m taking some time in the future. Oh, and some new ones should be up right now on my gallery.

Another reason I’m glad I’m in Mali. If I were in Europe I’d probably be sick as a dog right now. :) Here I only have to endure a bit of heat and dust. Which isn’t that bad after all, if you’re a toubab living and working in a house with a swimming pool at the side. I kind of legitimize the use of it by saying myself that I’m not wasting water showering. That’s right, I hardly ever take showers. Or wash my freshly cut hair.

I know I just wrote a pile of crap rantings. But hey... screw you if you don’t like it, go read Slashdot, or some classic. No sorry, I shouldn’t write foul language like that. I love you! I love all of you! I really do. Love is all!

kanbe!
Publié le Monday 28th February 2005 by Guaka Keita

"There’s plenty of evidence that time is running backwards"

Guaka — Sun, 13 Feb 2005 03:29:11 +0000

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You know, I really love this place! It’s dusty all the time, the food is crap most of the time, mosquitos are having me for dinner, and I hate aircos in cars. They’ve made me sick before, and I just don’t get why people need to get this ice cold air into their face. I even prefer the leaded dust right into my eyes. But maybe that’s because it was my first time on a scooter, in Bamako today. Yesterday night we went out to the Blabla Club, at the other side of the Niger. Way too expensive. But le plus singe Josh managed to get us - the usual bunch plus our dear colleagues Moussa, Amadou and the lovely Maimouna - a VIP spot with a bottle of wodka and some juice. But, the bottle was too small, according to Josh. So he had to try and get a bigger bottle. To our great relief he settled down after half an hour of discussion... so we could finally drink the wodka. There are many Lebanese here. They make great humus and baba ganouche. And they own Le Biblos, the club I went to two weeks ago. That probably explains why it is so much more western than the Blabla Club, where they play much more African-style stuff. Unfortunately the guy at the Lebanese restaurant around the corner doesn’t feel like preparing falaffel. But, I now know how to make some myself. At the Miniprix (owned by, you guessed it right, Lebanese folks) they sell fallafel powder. Add half a cup of lukewarm water, form some balls, bake them, et voila! Du fallafel excellent! Maybe I should buy a bag of humus at the Lebanese... Yesterday I bought a little bag of peanut butter. And at the egg-sandwich joint around the corner I just saw them selling a little bag of spaghetti (they didn’t add mayonnaise this time). I really don’t give a rat’s ass about learning all the salutations by heart. It is part of culture, but it is not me. I don’t like to pull off a show every time I meet someone, uttering some magical incantations I don’t understand. But, I still feel that my Bambara is going quite well. I haven’t find any real book in Bambara yet (and I forgot about finding a bilingual French-Bambara book), but I’ve found a nice Bambara course which is great to carry along, say out loud some phrases, make people smile, and corrrect my pronunciation. And, as I wrote yesterday, I actually started writing Bambara myself, still very basic, but it’s directly on the Bambara Wikipedia. Still have to wait for other people to join the effort. But that worked out very well for the Limburgish Wikipedia. I hardly ever write anything myself, but there is now 1 very active (several articles a day!) and some active contributors, and the - to my knowledge - first encyclopedia in Limburgish is approaching 200 articles, written in less then 3 months! Oh, and from the French-Bambara dictionary I learned that Kunafonix (the Malian GNU/Linux LiveCD/InstallCD) should probably be written Kunnafonix... Here in Mali I’m refinding, and redefining myself. It’s a great experience, socially, culturally, intellectually, emotionally. Yesterday I joined Laura on a visit to her Malian family. In Africa it’s very common to be adopted, or rather, be accepted as a member of the ’extended family’. African families are so totally different than Western families. Many many people live in one house, share their lives, their food, their money. Her Malian mother was in a very bad shape. She has diabetics, and would be in trouble even if she were in the West. I hope she’ll recover... On the way there we met Anna, and Rusty, an American living who’s living in the same building as her. He gave me Markus’ phone number, a German saxophone player who ’s allegedly in for some experimentation, and who knows quite some open minded Malian musicians. So that’ll be fun! :)

And now for something completely different...

While writing this I’m concurrently reading this amazingly interesting article, about a "Princeton University project, run by a group of scientists who respect the scientific method, who are trying to do their best at sounding humble while making extraordinary claims". It might be bullocks, but the article is fun to read, and the implications of this stuff being true are - literally - mind-boggling.

During the late 1970s, Prof Jahn decided to investigate whether the power of human thought alone could interfere in some way with the machine’s usual readings. He hauled strangers off the street and asked them to concentrate their minds on his number generator. In effect, he was asking them to try to make it flip more heads than tails. It was a preposterous idea at the time. The results, however, were stunning and have never been satisfactorily explained.

Again and again, entirely ordinary people proved that their minds could influence the machine and produce significant fluctuations on the graph, ’forcing it’ to produce unequal numbers of ’heads’ or ’tails’. I might have told somebody, once, seemingly ages ago, about a yellow Russian schoolbus with weird writings, I dreamt of that night... Sweet dreams!

Dust dust dust... and spaghetti with mayonnaise

Guaka — Sat, 12 Feb 2005 03:43:11 +0000

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Some morning last week, Slashdot: prostoalex wrote "MSNBC points to the court cases spawned by virtual worlds. Recently, Tom Loftus notes, a virtual island in one of the MMORPGs sold for $30,000, enough to attract commercial attention. Apparently, some businesses create third-world sweatshops, where low-wage laborers are being paid to play and accumulate enough virtual merchandise, so that an eBay sale of it makes the operation profitable. ’One such business, Blacksnow Interactive, actually sued a virtual world’s creator in 2002 for attempting to crack down on the practice. The first of its kind to center on virtual goods, the case was eventually dropped,’ MSNBC says." I hope stuff like this won’t be prevalent in the digitized third world that we’re helping to create here... I was told that my English is actually so totally not North-American at all. Fine. Well, yes. I’m here, mixed in two cultures. It seems that people have the tendency to ghetto-ize. French with French, Murcans with Murcans. I’m in a weird country with a weird culture, and I’m living with people with a totally different culture again. And honestly, I have to tell you: it’s fun! Last Saturday some of the most extreme ones on the one side offering me drinks... And the next day I had dinner with an African family. As I promised myself, I went to the market Saturday last week. Great fun. Ignoring irritating bastards. Well, I was doing that. Peter however walked along with some of them, so I was kind of forced to join the motley crew and look at very nice but overpriced Dogon fabric. Did you ever have spaghetti with mayonnaise? Honestly, I probably did, but then again, I’ve been a student for quite a while. So, at the egg-sandwich restaurant around the corner, where they put petrol on the counter to get rid of the flies, they not only serve egg-sandwich, they also eat spaghetti with mayonnaise there! Me I just had a plain egg-sandwich with some fries, but I did have tea with vinegar... Here’s a must-read for both geeks as well as the non-initiated, to grasp a bit more about why people are actually sharing knowledge without any monetary incentives, such as working on free software, sharing their music using peer-to-peer networks and writing a free encyclopedia: The economics of sharing, (This site delves a bit deeper into the matter.) I would like to add to it though, that people are starting some initiatives, allbeit still a bit tiny compared to the scale of say eMule or Wikipedia, using the given possibilities of IT to share goods and services beyond IT, such as Hospitality Club or online give-away shops, or even without using IT, such as the real-life give-away shops. Als ik in Nederland was zou ik vanavond naar een feest van mijn oom en tante gaan waar ik heel veel familieleden zou zien die ik al jaren niet meer heb gezien. ..snif.. :( Maja, hopelijk is er nog zo’n feestje over een half jaar of zo :) The dust, and a couple of cigarettes... they made me sick. I had a real sore throat last week. So I promised myself not to smoke any cigarettes anymore. I’ve done that before, but then I didn’t taste the dust every time I inhaled "clean air". (Would you call the air clean a 100 metres away from Europe’s busiest highway?) So again, I’m going to the market. Finding a guitar, or some other musical instrument, a more decent mosquitonet (yeah, these beasts, they’re eating me alive, even more so when I’m actually under the klamboe). But before I’ll join Laura to have lunch with her Malian family. If she hasn’t left already... bye bye!

And then there was Kunnafonix

Guaka — Thu, 03 Feb 2005 03:34:50 +0000

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I expected that, as a white guy from the west, you would also pay accordingly. It happens to be, however, that in Mali people actually don’t try to rip you off all the time. In India anyone would try to get some extra cash from us poor westerners. But here, up to now I only paid too much to a cab driver. I actually knew that I was way overcharged for my cab ride to the Hellen Keller Institute, but what the heck. 2000 CFA instead of the 750 CFA we paid to get back. It was hot, and I didn’t feel like stressing myself. I just told the guy that I knew he was bullshitting me. For food and the like prices asked were always correct. I bought some dates (dadels, Dattels, dattes) and the 1000 CFA I paid were just fine, according to Issa, our driver. He actually speaks not only French and Bambara, but also Arabic and his mother tongue. As do many other people here, in this francophone muslim country with 12 or so national languages... The InstallCD (and we get a LiveCD for free, in the process) is rapidly progressing. Based on Morphix, and meant to make it easy to put lots of useful free software and free information on computers people in the west are dumping. Amadou, my percipient Malian colleague, proposed to name it Kunafonix, after kunafoni (which is Bambara for information). So within a week or so we’ll probably be able to put out a beta version with lots of cool stuff that can be used at radios and schools in Francophone Africa (or any Francophone country for that matter). It is funny, you can buy oranges at about every second street corner, but the orange juice people drink here actually comes from Spain or France. At least, the people who can afford to buy orange juice. It seems that 50.000 CFA (69 EUR) a month is actually a decent wage here. That’s about 42 litres. So most people eat rice and beans (rice, beans, beans, rice, beans, rice, rice). I’ve read somewhere that the CFA is way overvalued due its fixed rate with the euro, with the consequence that rich people can get western products for relatively low prices, but that the goods of the poor people involved in farming and fishing (about 80% of the population) are too expensive to compete on the world market. So, we volunteers could actually buy 5 times as much orange juice a month. We’re fucking rich here, to local standards. Which is hard. How to explain that my digital camera wasn’t expensive while it could have meant food for an entire family for a month or so? What to do? Spend the money on the pool and the housemaid? "Well, yeah, isn’t that gonna feed families just as well as giving away would do?" could one ask himself to soothe those thoughts. The courses at HKI, given by my geeky colleagues (although I’m probably the ubergeek of our group) were a big success. By Friday night the radio stations will be equipped with a website, which they can easily manage themselves It’s good that I dropped by, not only to give a techy helping hand here and there, but, more important, to meet the people I will work with later on, when I’ll be visiting other places here in Mali. Yesterday evening I found out that the Citroen 2CV is actually one of the best cars to ride in this city, much more comfortable than the Geekcorps 4WD. Its suspension and open roof are just sooo convenient in this hot and dusty city, where unpaved roads contain many deep holes, and there aren’t that many paved roads. Although I haven’t seen much of the city, I haven’t seen any traffic lights yet. I neither went out to shop for clothes, books or musical instruments. I will on Saturday. And I’ll probably get ripped of then. ’Cause it seems that for stuff like that you are supposed to hassle. Isn’t it so nice to wake up (at times I would consider brutal just a while ago) and hear that "...with a healthy, growing economy, with more Americans going back to work, with our nation an active force for good in the world -- the state of our union is confident and strong."? And realising that you’re a part of that? Well, am I? No, what? Well, I am more or less paid by this clique of well-respected criminals to improve their image. So well, fuck it! I’m doing stuff I like, "helping create a better way of life for Malians in one small way, providing radio stations with better access to information. It’s intended that they will use that access to spread relevant info to the people - weather reports, law changes, etc - that will help them grow more crops, do better business, and raise the overall standard of living." A k'an be!

My first days in Africa

Guaka — Sun, 30 Jan 2005 03:39:39 +0000

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So I broke my promise to write every day. But maybe I can start to fix this now. I just woke up, and my head feels a bit achy. First I actually like have to warn you that like my English is probably like, so much more Northern American now. My fourth day in Africa. Apart from my hangover I’m really feeling good. No need for culture shock absorbers. No extreme heat - yet. Only a a bit dusty now and then. Yesterday I woke up at 5:30 to drive to Yanfolilla with the Geekcorps 4WD. While on the road I found out about the sandstorm caused by such a big car driving in sandy environments, which confirmed the story a bit that the Carribean coral riffs are being destroyed by 4x4s driving through the Sahara. After some hours on paved road and an hour on unpaved road we arrived at our destination... Now, the reason that we were going to Yanfolilla was the recent connection of Wassoulou radio to the internet: a launch party! We joined the toubabs and local officials on the stage and together with a huge crowd of children we watched dancers and musicians and triggerhappy men carrying huge rifles - fortunately noone got hurt. We were treated to ernsthaft speeches in French and their subsequent translations into Bambara. There was talk of connecting Yanfolilla’s high school to the internet as well, which is actually a great thing. Ten years ago, in high school in the Netherlands, there was no internet connection... So even if there’s no paved road within 80 kilometres, the possibilities for the local youth in terms of information and communication are very promising. I also talked to the plumber, who appeared to much more knowledge hungry than the average western craftsman. He was very much interested in Wikipedia and in sharing of knowledge and information. By the time the talks were finished it was noon and time to see the technology. No actual demonstration was given, people glimpsed and stared at the computers and the satelite dishes, which were probably very alien to most of them. Being a vegetarian in Mali is not superconvenient, but it’s probably just about the same as in France or Barcelona - herbivores need to be prudent and not too picky. So I was happy to see the veggy (!) salad, followed by rice and vegetables with the fishy stuff seperated in a another big bowl. During and after the ride back to Bamako I tried to sleep a bit - in vain - and headed for some Chinese food. Most customers of Chinese restaurants are actually not coming for the food, instead they head upstairs for a private room... Interesting cultural experience. Then Laura was pressed to go to a Canadian place nearby, where there was a surprise goodbye party! Many NGO folks, but not only - there were some muscled American guys who looked like they didn’t vote Kerry the 2nd of November. They appeared to be marine corps who are stationed here in Bamako. I started to get really tired after some drinking and dancing, but since it’s my first week I couldn’t resist joining folks to the Golden Hippo. The band had already stopped playing so the place was pretty empty apart from some Malians and a bunch of older French expats. We decided to go to Biblo’s, which is an extravagant place for the better off - 7500 CFA entry fee, which we didn’t pay because there was a Lebanese guy with us who knew someone of the staff, and soft drinks for the crazy sum of 3000 CFA, which is like 4.5 EUR - just as expensivo as in Paris! On top of that there was Western music, better sound system than I’m used to hear in Europe and a fancy dancefloor... Not really a place I would like to hang out every weekend - and I probably won’t... So now I’m typing this with a slight hangover, after having enjoyed the pool. A+!