As DR Congo turns 49 years-old in its current incarnation, I just wanted to post a photo of the boulevard which is named, "Boulevard 30 Juin" in honor of their independence from Belgium in 1960. This was taken at sunset on a very humid, yet lovely day in the capital.
Would it surprise you that 10% of all the data centers in Africa are on Mauritius? It shouldn't given that there are ten in total for the continent and of those, six are in Egypt. In Sub Saharan Africa, there are four data centers. Yes, four.
I found this out while poking around the net and coming across a site quite aptly called, Data Center Map. I'm not sure if it's 100% accurate, but it seems pretty good and has been around since 2007. For instance, they list 786 data centers in the US in comparison to the paltry four in Sub Saharan Africa on a continent of one billion people. But the US is always a bad comparison. To put this more in to perspective, Slovenia, a country of two million people and only 20,000 square km has five data centers.
So, basically, your choices amongst the few are Internet Solutions, RSA Web, and Teraco in South Africa or Bhumishq in Mauritius. Not that amazing, which is most likely why so many African sites are hosted in the US and Europe; Maneno included for the time being, although we're hoping to change that in the near future. If anyone has information on more data centers in Sub Saharan Africa, please chime in below.
With the East African cables coming online, one can only hope that we'll see more enterprising groups open up data centers in Kenya, Tanzania, or even Mozambique. Obviously, they aren't cheap to set up, but a lot of factors like power don't come in to play so much when building a data center due to their having a dedicated power system (usually their own generators) in some capacity due to how much they use. The only real issue is that solid terrestrial connection to the outside world. It will be interesting to see what happens in this space and I wouldn't be surprised if Google already has designs on plopping down at least one of their data containers. On that note, you should check out the article on Data Center Map about data center containers. It's a good comparison of all that's out there in this market which will be pretty critical to all the "cloud" talk that's hot these days.
Two friends, Shara Karasic and Katrina are now in Swaziland for BarCamp Swaziland which is happening on the 27th. Along the way, Shara managed to take a shot of the entertainment system during one leg of the flight (I'm assuming the Johannesburg Mbabane leg of it) and an ATM at the Joburg airport which I've included below.
While most inflight systems ATMs have a decent combination of English along with a couple of others like French, Spanish, Japanese, Russian, etc. this flight ATM had six languages that are all spoken in South Africa! Obviously English is there as well as Afrikaans, but take a look at the Sepedi, Xhosa (IsiXhosa), Zulu (IsiZulu), and Venda (Tshivenḓa). All I can say is wow. In the US you're lucky to even get two languages, despite the fact we actually have no official language.
Had to make a few corrections based on the the fact that is um... an ATM and not an inflight airline system.
No matter how heavy the accent, I'm always duly impressed by anyone who has learned English well. While it's my mother tongue, it is, for all purposes, a piece of crap language. As the confusing result of a collision between German and French 1,000 years ago, it is one of the most illogical, rule-breaking, non-nonsensical languages in the world. Naturally, I only realize this after working on learning two other languages which have quite strict rules and are indeed written as they are spoken. I think that most native English speakers see little problem with how inconsistent the language is, despite the fact they can't stick to these inconsistencies themselves.
All the bashing aside, there is one rather fortunate outcome in all of this: you can pretty much do whatever the hell you want with the language. This doing whatever you want often translates in to words and phrases that are adopted in to some "official" form of the language. I compare this to and even posit quite firmly that this makes English an open source language. Of course instead of software developers working on their chunk and committing it to the overall flow of the project, every single individual in the world who speaks English contributes to the constant evolution of the language. I mean, just only 50 years ago, "gay" had a very different meaning than it does today and words like, "internet" didn't even exist until 20 years ago. This is the double edged sword of it all in that, you can toss in whatever you want, but at the same time, there's no project manager making sure that it all checks out. I'm not sure if this equates to a good or bad thing, but as English has become the "world's language", I guess it hasn't stymied the spread of the language.
It's with African speakers of English where I find some of the coolest changes to the language though. There are many examples, but this is one that sticks out:
Today I visited one of my favorite spots in Nairobi. As I was leaving, the staffer said, "Don't get so lost." In America, that phrase would result in the other party saying, "Huh?!"What the other person meant was, "Don't wait so long before you return next time!"
It's more to the point and I feel works a great deal better than how an American would say it and if you think it's confusing, it's just because you're not used to it. If you were to hear it often, it wouldn't require any thought. I feel that it is an improvement to the language, contributed to the greater "source". Of course if you want more examples, go here where, being the recipient of countless ! emails (I usually turn off that column in Outlook), I really like, "Now now" to actually mean in the immediate now.
I've heard that "roundabouts" are called "staylefties" in Tanzania, which for those in lefthand driving countries is just as good a word as "roundabout". It came about because Tanzanians assumed that was the word for them as "Stay Left" was shown before the entry to each one.
Another example from Kenya is here:
“He” or “She” = “This one…”, especially when referring to one’s friends. As in: “This one likes to eat ugali,” or “This one has cut his finger.” This is actually said by adults and kids alike, and I have found myself adopting the expression readily. The manager, Eunice, might tell us: “By the way, this one is very smart,” or “Oh yes, this one, he likes to cause trouble.”
While I have been long familiar with using genders in a language due to Spanish studies, it was only once I studied Croatian where I found out about the "neuter" gender in a language. It's really extremely useful as it allows you to specify a noun without adding gender. For instance, "baby" is "bebe" in Croatian, a neuter word, which makes sense because when you just look at a baby, it's often hard to tell the gender immediately. The above example is great and there is a reason that the author finds herself using it, because it works.
In Mali, I'm not sure how the original phrase is in Bambara, but I've often see, "It's for a long time..." as the greeting to an email. I assume that it must be along the lines for the "Don't get so lost." phrase. Again, it's something of a shortened version of "Haven't heard from you in awhile, what's up?"
My point is that instead of accepting these changes to English, we (as Americans anyways) mock the differences instead of seeing that something is a vastly superior change to the language. For instance saying, "y'all" or "you guys" is mocked because these phrases are from the South or the street respectively, when they are in fact an attempt to but back the second person plural that should have never, never, never been removed from English. These "mispronunciations" really aren't what people think a good deal of the time. They are in fact changes to the source of English that should be incorporated in, committed, and used.
I can't see it at the moment and apparently others can't either, but Facebook now has a language option for Swahili as was reported on the BBC.
Obviously, this is pretty great news and while one could ask, "Why is this necessary? English is a common language anywhere Swahili is spoken." it misses the point that having the ability to use a language spoken by 110 million people (Wikipedia differs on the amount) is most important. That's actually a lazy myth that everyone speaks English in addition to Swahili as not everyone does. Yes, it's common, but it isn't ubiquitous, thus this Facebook option (as well as Maneno's [shameless plug]) are crucial to removing linguistic barriers. Also language is a key part of culture and identity. If you don't believe this, then you probably live in the US...
That 110 million speakers figure is impressive, but given the generally paltry internet connectivity of Eastern African, that figure diminishes a great deal. Of course, this is changing. Whether Facebook realizes it or not, positioning themselves with language options such as Swahili and eventually Hausa/Zulu is going to have them at the ready for whenever higher speed internet does reach a greater part of population. I'm sure that they are very aware of this positioning though, just like a slew of other companies including Microsoft, Google, and Nokia who know that the one billion people of Africa are the last huge market left in the world. While I cringe at the forthcoming advertisements littered with spears, huts, and lions, at the same time lets keep our fingers crossed that we're on the verge of shifting from an Aid Africa to an Africa that is truly part of proper world trade.
By way of an update, all of this news is premature. After having it explained as to how you actually turn on this language version, I saw that it's about 80% complete. So in other words, once you find it and turn it on, your experience may be mixed. Hopefully all the publicity will get the version to 100%, but in the meantime, it's a lot like a new car that's missing its doors. Hopefully BBC will let us know when it's actually done.
There has been a good deal of buzz around the African undersea cable map that Steve Song has been steadily creating and posted on his great blog, Many Possibilities. It's cool and you should go check it out. Erik agrees.
This is all well and good for these main cables that exist or will exist. They're a bit easier to find as they're gigantic and massive backbones to the continent. But what happens when they connect to land and the connection needs to come in to the interior? That information is harder to find and there are a lot of projects that start, stop, and often never get attention. I felt lucky to come across the info for my previous article in DR Congo.
Steve is apparently not content to rest on his laurels and created a Google Map that anyone can edit to trace the routes of the African internet landlines. If you take a look at it, it's pretty scarce on info at the moment. I mapped what I know of the DR Congo line and with your help, more lines will slowly become known.
I know that Google Maps are not terribly friendly for those on low bandwidth, but if you're in a country and you know of the terrestrial fiber lines, add them to the map. I think it's a very cool project that could really be something down the line and help those in development to know where to focus if their work absolutely must have internet or if they want to work somewhere where it needs to be fostered.
News has come down that WHO is backing a rotavirus vaccine to be given as a regular vaccination to children. This is good news. A great many people die from this virus each year; apparently 85% of the half a million being in Africa and Asia.
Obviously, I'm in favor of such a vaccine. I just happen to be repulsed by the fact that on BBC News, they feature the article not only in their Health section (where it rightly belongs as it's a worldwide problem), but also in the Africa section and just the Africa section. Why? Why is it always Africa? And why when it is always Africa there has to be the requisite picture of poor African children to go along with the article. I assume that there must be endless libraries of these shots and they cost next to nothing to use.
At least if this had been in the Asia section as well, it would have been a bit less offensive. But as it is, having it be only Africa, it does nothing but perpetuate the stereotypes of Africa being the continent that is swimming in disease. I mean, the article even states that there are 130,000 cases in the UK each year. That's not a meaningless figure. That means that this problem is definitely an issue in the UK (as well as probably the rest of Europe and the US), but still it's Africa that is seen as the hot spot of disease. Big media needs to take note of what they're doing and try and get back in to just telling the facts in a balanced manner. Of course, my hopes in this are slim. Long live the blog.
It's really unfortunate how language spheres work to separate information on the net. While it's pretty well known that there are currently three deep sea internet cables being run up the east side of Africa, it seems that very few have heard about the new cable being deployed from the Atlantic Coast through DR Congo to the capital, Kinshasa. This is a 565km route that the cable has to take and while I realize that it's not as massive a distance as the sea cables going up East Africa, this is really good news.
I found out most of the information from this article in French. The course of the cable is going to start on the coast at Muanda, bounce through Matadi and then to Kinshasa. The trench is all being dug by hand with the laborers getting paid the equivalent of USD $1 a meter. To connect this cable, it will tie in to the WACS line, although the potential 150 gigabits from that line will be dropped to a mere 3.8 megabits. I was unclear if that was for an individual connection or for the entire pipe as that would be pretty scant speed if it were the case. Once folks on this connection get word of bitorrent, you can kiss that pipe goodbye!
The deployment of this cable actually even brought out the president, Kabila II to inaugurate it. Seeing as how this is the first land internet connection being deployed in DR Congo (a nation of 2.3 million square kilometers and 66 million people), it's understandable that this would be a big occasion. But there was another reason for this in that Kabila wanted to emphatically state that the fiber was not copper and thus had no value. While that isn't completely true and it may seem like a rather ridiculous thing to have to say, Congo is notorious for "Article 15" which is a remnant leftover from Mobutu times in which he basically decreed that it was "okay to steal just a little". Probably one of the most impressive examples of this was when 75km of power lines were stolen... in one night. So, one can understand that 565km of fiber would be a tempting target for thieves.
Of course, that's the big question in all of this. It simply boils down to the fact that the Chinese government is backing the entire project as they are with a great many projects in Congo currently. Sitting at the Dambisa Moyo talk in San Francisco last Friday, you would get the feeling that the Chinese are really the good guys in all of this. They see potential development in DR Congo and are working to make it happen. The only issue in this is that I have yet to see a single, massive world power do something just because they want to help out. The US and Russia proved that point again and again. It is the case that there is a great deal of coltan in the east of DR Congo, as well as a great many other minerals. The Chinese know very well that this region (Katanga) holds one of the biggest yields of minerals in the world.
Sure, time may show that the Chinese are doing this for the good of Congo, but I don't buy Moyo's argument and I don't think that a country who is manufacturing nearly all of the world's personal electronics is going to ignore a country where one of the most crucial materials for the manufacture of said products exists in great abundance. In the meantime, I hope that the Congolese will indeed get some speedier internet, at least in part of the country. I know very well how sorely lacking it is.
On June 27, 2009 in Mbabane, Swaziland the first technology BarCamp will take place. Being billed as, "the first technology unconference in the last monarchy in Africa" it promises to be an interesting event. Well, BarCamps are always interesting because they're an equal platform for all to share and learn with even the worst mix of folks bringing about an interesting result. But, where there is often a wifi base set up for the event so that everyone in attendance can twit, blog, and whatever else, this BarCamp will be conducted completely on the mobile.
This makes sense given the ubiquity of mobile handsets in Swaziland (penetration at around a whopping 90%!) and the fact that on this side of Africa, the fiber channels are still lacking, although that will change soon.
I personally have no idea how all of this is going to go down, although I hear that the data network in Swaziland is pretty good. But while I am very comfortable doing all kinds of activities within the confines of the QWERTY keyboard on my Blackberry, there are a number of things that my big ogre hands require the use of a laptop for--coding being one of them. So, I'm really quite interested to see how all of this will come about and how their Twitter coverage will go as that's going to get expensive, texting it from Swaziland.
The main group working to get this event going is Youth Assets. There is also the official website www.barcampswaziland.org, Twitter @barcampswaz, and even a Facebook page. It appears that the web front of this mobile event is well setup. I'm really quite bummed that I won't be able to be there, but I look forward to the coverage, especially embarrassing photos of the after party because oh yes, I know there will be an after party.
