"The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind" came out two days ago. The book is the story of William Kamkwamba, a young fellow from Malawi who built windmills based solely upon books that he read in a library. I had a chance to meet him and actually do a short interview at the Maker Faire Africa in August. Extremely nice, soft spoken guy who seems to be the complete antithesis to all the fame that has been showered upon him recently. Needless to say, I am anxious to read the book once I get my hands on it as well as to have others [mom] read it who may not completely understand the other sides to Africa.
While William is listed at the main author, the co-author of the book is Bryan Mealer. Mealer is a journalist who spent a good chunk of time in the Congo DRC covering the last wars that happened there. His book, All Things Must Fight to Live chronicles those times. I've just now finished the book and felt like sharing a couple of thoughts on it. First of all, it's definitely a good read if for nothing else than the fact that it's written by a journalist. The ones I've seen who write good books have a style that is succinct and direct, while in motion at all time. Mealer's book definitely falls in to this.
The book covers three large chunks of time: The hell that is war, The journey up the Congo River, and The journey by train in the south. Essentially, it follows a model of collapse, atonement, and rebirth. The first part will probably be the toughest for many readers. Mealer writes in extremely livid detail. If he were anyone else, I might say it's over the top, but he was indeed there. I was starting to get really put off by how graphic it was until I understood that he was setting up the reader for the second and third parts. The second part is more of an adventure. It's a return to normalcy. The third part is looking towards the future and bathes the reader in the plush era of bygone days that seem to be in reach again now that the absolute bottom has been reached.
If this is the first book that someone reads on the Congo, then it will be extremely informative. I've read I don't how many books on the country at this point and great swaths of this was all rehash. It forms one of my biggest criticisms of the book in that it was published in 2008 and all of this history is stuff you can read on Wikipedia, or in more amazing detail with a book like King Leopold's Ghost, which is as lush and approachable a history text as I've read in a long time. I get the feeling that some of this was not Mealer's doing though. Much like a bad producer will tell a film director that voice over is needed to explain the film to the audience, I get the feeling that the editor of the book told Bryan that this was needed for context of what he was writing because it goes a long way to slowing down his well paced narrative. But, it's there and if you know it, you can skip it and get on to the items that are from his perspective.
Overall, the book is not "In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz". That is a similar book, written by a journalist, but Michaela Wrong was and continues to be a master of text of which I am always in awe of when I get to read anything new she writes. Bryan Mealer is not bad though. In fact, he's quite good. It's just that he's young and I think he has a way to go before his writings that are longer than a news article get a more even tone to them. As it is, there are some wonderful, achingly enjoyable chunks of prose in the book, but they are spaced apart by other pieces that work more to function as bland connective tissue.
Bryan will get to a tighter point with his work, especially now that he managed to get out that first, breakthrough publication. This is all the more reason as to why I want to read the Kamkwamba book as I find second efforts of a person to be so much more telling of their talent than the first attempts.
A great deal of articles have been written about all the East African cables being deployed. Rightly so, given that connectivity is paltry and slow at the moment and about to get a good deal faster (hopefully.) But while this is all good, when you read about how fast the cable is laid out in the ocean (10+km a day), you realize that it's really the inland part that's tricky and there's a lot of inland land in Africa. Sure, you don't need a boat to make it happen and the ever-present media-spawned threat of pirates is less, but the issue of cutting across fields, farms, and most importantly, international borders on land is pretty daunting.
I suppose it's because they haven't broken ground on the project yet, or probably more to the point that the majority of coverage has been in French, but the Central African Backbone is starting to gain a bit of momentum. (Please add to the Wikipedia link if you know more as I had to create it when writing this article.)
A good deal of what I know came from this article on ZDNet in French which covers the basic layout of the cable and the fact that it will most likely start in Algeria and connect to Europe to the north and Sub-Saharan Africa to the south. While there was a little bit mentioned about this last February, it's the fact that Algeria has decided to really set forth and start laying the cable that has garnered more worthwhile attention lately. Their Information Minister is pushing it in the name of getting rid of the satellite connections and helping Algerians better connect to the internet. But in reality, anyone smart knows that this is going to be a major cash cow for Algeria once they punch through to the other countries including Chad, Cameroon, and CAR. All of that comprises Phase 1 of the project and I'm not exactly sure how they're planning to connect Chad with Algeria and not be connecting Niger which lies between the two. Apparently there is a bit of a "and then a miracle occurs" aspect to the planning currently.
Phase 2 of CAB is even more in the Wild West portion of planning as a great number of countries have been tossed around in the mix to connect. While Nigeria might be there, the most probable candidates are Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, São Tomé, and Congo-Brazzaville. Congo-Kinshasa is also on the list to possibly be connected. Of course, Kinshasa could be very well have its own link very soon, so it's not quite as crucial for that area. What would be more impressive is if Northern Congo-Kin could get in on the link coming in to CAR assuming that they would naturally run any fiber link to Bangui, the capital, which sits against the border with Congo. If only Mobutu would have lived to see the day when Mad Men could be live streamed at Gbadolite...
Unlike the Globacom cable, this initiative is indeed being financed be foreigners, namely the World Bank. You can view a brief overview of the loan, here. They quote Phase 1 as being $30 million USD. The ZDNet article quotes it as being €17 million, so I don't really know which figure is for certain. Phase 2 is set to cost in the neighborhood of $160 million, so obviously due to the amount and the number of countries involved, it can be understood as to why it's so undecided at this point.
However the pieces fall, once the links start getting put in to place from Algeria, there will be a world of change for the interior of Africa which usually relies solely on VSAT connections that are obviously better than nothing, but still suck. As to speed for CAB, I couldn't find any hard figures. It is said that Cameroon will have 12 optical fibers and Chad will have six, which doesn't make a lot of sense, nor does it really say much about speed. I guess once things actually start happening over the next year, we'll get a better sense of all this.
I read the Google Africa blog whenever there is new content, which honestly, isn't that often. For some reason, the fact that their Google Translate can now translate between all its current languages as well as Swahili and Afrikaans hasn't been mentioned there. I mean, this is huge! This is great! This is... reported on an unofficial Google blog?
I assume that a bigger announcement must be coming soon and they're just checking to make sure that all the conditionals are closed in the code before letting everyone know. For instance, three days ago, before the Afrikaans option was in there, I actually had to translate something from Afrikaans to English. I used Dutch for the source language option and magically, it translated fine, which it shouldn't have given the dialectic drift from Dutch at Afrikaans. I can only assume that Google Translate auto-detected the language as Afrikaans, which was lurking somewhere in the background.
There are implications with this that go above and beyond a simple announcement, specifically for Swahili. A year ago, I talked with some of the guys who work on Google's linguistic endeavors and they told me that the required corpus for Swahili machine translation was at 40% of what was needed and that was the highest for any African language. This means that in the last year, there was either a huge batch of pages in Swahili which Google had missed or there was a 250% increase in the amount of Swahili text available on the web. I'm guessing it's some combination of both as well as Google paying something get a dictionary in there because Google really wants to get established in Africa.
Whatever the case, it's quite excellent news for languages in Africa as these are the first two African languages to be included in this system. If you create the tools, you grow the language. Here's to more and soon, although I don't know what this is going to mean to the Kamusi Project...
And now apparently the Google Africa Blog has decided to write about this over a week after the fact. I feel so incredibly ahead of things right now.
There is much (or perhaps little) that can be said about US Secretary of State Clinton's visit to Congo DRC this week. For starters, I'm guessing that the US government heard about the 9/11 attacks in 2003 since there appears to be a two year delay on fresh information. Either that or reporters are hashing together the same "blah blah blah rape. blah blah blah tool of war" that they've been saying for the last god knows how many years. And this does not shed light on the situation. Anyone who actually cares knows about it. How about someone such as... I don't know, a US Secretary of State actually do something about the problem there, like working to shore up a broken government and stop the cause of the rape problem. Eve Ensler's "rape is an epidemic" line does nothing to solve the core of the problem although it does keep her employed.
Okay, sorry, that was my counter-diatribe. I'm rather tired of the situation and those who constantly "shed light" on it as opposed to letting the Congolese speak for themselves. But what I'm not tired of is the fact that under the Obama administration, the embrace of new technologies is wide open. Case in point, the Embassy in Kinshasa has a Twitter which was apparently spurred by Clinton's visit. I assume that it's legitimate, but it definitely comes as a shock given that I've seen the inside of that extremely fortified building and it really doesn't seem like the kind of group that would hop on Twitter. Of course, with a new president probably came a new way of thinking. It will be interesting to see how this evolves.
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.
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.
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.
Since setting up the Translation Assistant on this site, I've been chomping at the bit for more Google functions in more African languages as the Assistant only functions in the Colonial languages of Africa. That bums me out, man. According to folks at the 'Plex, the only one that's close is Swahili and the body of text needed for full-blown machine translation is only at around 40% completed or so. That's with a pretty decent blogging scene in Swahili as well as a Wikipedia in Swahili with about 11,000+ entries. So, you can just imagine how it is with other languages on the continent... That also bums me out, man, but there is hope.
Today Google announced one small step in the right direction to get more Swahili functionality on Google's systems. This is just the "search suggestion" tool and all told, it's a small thing. But, this is only the second African language to get this functionality; the first being Amharic at the start of this year. Yeah, I know, it's not machine translation, but it's something and as I'm working with two translators on a full-blown Lingala and Fula version of Maneno, it's nice to know that a big, mighty company such as Google is putting forth even the tiniest bit of effort to show that they are interested in such things. It's these such things that might help them win against the encroaching big blue monster.
One small side note in that folks should notice that in addition to the standard French translation that appears after the English, there is also a translation in Swahili. I've been really curious to know if the French and Swahili are just machine generated versions or done by someone who actually speaks the language. Anybody have feedback on that?
Word around the way has come to me that the US Department of Homeland Security, is specifically seeking out translators for Kinyarwanda, an official language of Rwanda as well as one that is spoken in Uganda and DR Congo. From all accounts, I've heard that this is a rather difficult language to learn. For those who don't know, it is extremely different from other languages in the region, so someone who speaks Swahili or Luganda can't just pick it up as easily as say someone who speaks Spanish learning Italian.
The fact that DHS is looking for translators isn't really a shock. They employ a great many translators of African languages as they apparently place importance in understanding what people in Africa are saying. I'm not sure whether to take it as a good sign that they are now more interested in African languages because they place for importance in Africa due to a new, more enlightened administration or a bad sign that they are now more interested because in having failed at every military incursion in the Middle East, they are going to say that Africa is a new "hotbed of terrorist extremists". I guess time will tell in the matter and let's hope it's not that later assumption.
Like I said, it's not strange that they're looking for translators. At the talk I gave two nights ago, an attendee there mentioned that a friend worked for DHS translating Akan if I remember correctly. What is weird about all of this is that DHS specifically asked Amnesty International if they knew of anyone. The implications of this are just bizarre. I suppose in one sense, DHS just assumes that AI would know of some folks because they have operated in Rwanda. In another sense, I'm wondering if DHS is just pitching this out to a great many NGOs that work in Africa because they went and tried Craigslist or some other ad website only to get no response. Whatever the case, it has to be one of the more bizarre hiring methods I've seen by a governmental agency in the US.
As the BBC reported, the country of Benin now has the dubious distinction in joining the EU no fly list. I say the country because every single airline has been banned from flying in to the EU on account of safety issues. This is not the first time this has happened to an entire country in Africa unfortunately:
The list also imposes a total ban on airlines based in Equatorial Guinea, Kyrgyzstan, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Swaziland, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Gabon - save for Gabon Airlines and Afrijet, which have exemptions for a small number of aircraft.
You'll notice Kyrgyzstan in that list and Kazakhstan has also had most of its airlines banned. So, it's not like the regulators are singling out the continent of Africa, it just so happens that they majority of their list is based there. It also happens that there are a greater number of European-based flights to Africa than to Central Asia and lemme tell ya, they ain't cheap.
Is this list justified? Probably to some extent. As shown with accidents on this one from Angola will probably never make you want to fly again. But, the US and Europe aren't without their accidents. Percentage-wise, they definitely have less than Africa as a whole and if given the choice, I would rather not fly on most African airlines with the exceptions of Kenya Airways or South African Airways.
It does make me wonder if it's just a wee bit profit driven because if the only airline that can fly from Benin to Europe is Air France it does make it easy for them to charge whatever they want as there is next to no competition. Such is life I suppose and to be honest, the only serious crash in Benin I can find on the interweb was back in 2003 which was a Lebanese charter flight. Maybe the Benin airlines are indeed problematic. Maybe it's a money grab. Whatever the case, it's a rather severe limiting of options for the people of Benin to connect with the rest of the world.
