Dr Mosi's Kraal

Why blog about Africa?

2008-12-05T22:46:00.005Z

Lova tagged me to produce a magnum opus on why I blog about Africa..... naah just kidding, he was hoping I'd go twitterific on him and use just 140 characters :)

1. I am African. Well... not officially... I spent 6 years in Zambia growing up... then left to study... then came back to help with the HIV situation... so I feel African even though I'm here as a guest of Mr Banda's government. The old saying applies here, "You can take the man out of the bush but you can never take the bush out of the man."

2. Before I met my amazing son and my incredible wife (yes, in that order,) my concept of "home" was tied to Lusaka. Of course, when in Lusaka, home magically changed to New Delhi. When in New Delhi, home changed to Kerala. Now it's a bit more complicated, I have to add, home is where the wife and son are.

3. Non-Africans still don't know that Africa is not a country. Seriously... it's a continent, with many countries, and it has the greatest amount of genetic diversity between people. Zambia, which has a land area about the same size as South Carolina in the USA, has about 80 tribes with as many languages. So there's this knowledge gap about Africa that bloggers such as myself try to fill.

4. I love the natural parks here where an existence without much human intervention is still possible. It's great to see things almost the way they were before people started enforcing their dominance. The Mosi-o-Tunya (the smoke that thunders, also known as Victoria Falls) is spectacular, with or without water. On the Zambian side you can see it almost as David Livingstone did back in the day. Now they've added some 'viewing areas' and such... but it's still fairly untouched. Zambia - the real Africa.

5. Now that I've gushed on about the beauty here, I'm going to do a shameless plug for my photo site where there are lots of photos from Zambia. (Reload this page to see different photos).

6. Ubuntu... not just my favourite computer operating system... you can see the spirit of ubuntu here - people believe "I am, because you are." No conversation starts off without enquiring about the other's health and well being and people are very polite. Incidents of mass violence are non-existent. The last time I remember something like this is back in 1991 or 1992 when there was no food in the provinces, people were literally starving, so they stood by the side of the road and threw stones at cars. There was a government change very quickly and things settled down. Even during the previous two elections, when one major leader was using an anti-foriegner platform to garner votes, there was no violence after the results were out. Congratulations, Zambia!

I'm not sure if this is a manifestation of ubuntu, but random people will come up and ask for sums of money for a particular purpose... "I need 2 pin for talk time," is a common one I've heard... of course the classic "how about my weekend" or "what about christmas" is ever popular. My policy is that if they've helped me I pay up but otherwise I say I'm broke (which I usually am... postdoc after all). I haven't yet tried to go up to somebody and ask them for money for something... maybe I should.

7. The region is reeling under the effect of HIV. Thanks to President Bush and the USA, there's a lot of money being pumped in to provide free antiretroviral therapy to anybody who needs it. Based on what I've seen here, the epidemic is spreading by going from husbands to wives and wives to children. Women's empowerment is the only way to stop the spread. They have to be able to say "no" to their husbands. Because that is going to take a long time, other options such as anti-HIV creams are being tested. Hopefully something will come in time.

What will happen if the USA decides to pull out the money it's spending on healthcare for Africans? As far as I know, the people who are on therapy now will stop getting medication and the whole system will fall apart. Governments here have to find some way of financing treatment and / or increase effective prevention mechanisms. So far I haven't seen any government initiative to address this important question. After all, especially with the financial troubles now, how long are US citizens going to let governments fund the health of people abroad in countries that they probably can't even place on a map?

Well... so if you feel like taking up the tag, consider yourself tagged... if you don't blog about Africa, then just answer the question, "Why blog about the place where you live?"

Birthday 2008

2008-08-24T07:11:00.003Z

There's a tradition on this blog that every year on my birthday I post a silly picture of myself to remind people that I'm only getting younger. (For those just catching up, here's Birthday 2006 and Birthday 2007).

This photo was taken by Imei - who blogs at BooBoo, Ginga and the world of dogs and at Imei lounge... and just about sums up what I try to do on this blog.

OK... since the public humiliation is out of the way, I remembered that I had a tag that I never got around to doing... from way back in Feb (thanks Freespirit).

Rules of the tag are:

Post 5 links to 5 of your previously written posts. The posts have to relate to the 5 key words given (family, friend, yourself, your love, anything you like). Tag 5 other friends to do this meme. Try to tag at least 2 new acquaintances (if not, your current blog buddies will do) so that you get to know them each a little bit better.

I'm going to ignore the part about tagging other people. If this post moves you, then consider yourself tagged. Actually maybe I should start a tag that people should post a silly picture of themselves on their birthday.

Family:
I try to keep my human family off the blog for security reasons - naah just kidding - I'm too lazy (and too cheap) to call them up and ask for permission individually... but I assume that the doggie family is cool with that. They know more than I do, for sure. So here's a post of the first Dog Conference arranged in Lafayette. There's some sad news, Rudy's passed away due to heart failure and Sophie has passed away due to cancer (they are No. 7 and No. 8 on that blog post).

Friend:
Here I have a blog post about Lova aka Mr Lova Lova the Malagasy dwarf hippo. Don't worry, there's no weeping or crying when you read the post. It's just about a trip to Chicago to watch Russell Peters and how Lova got on TV.

Myself:
Well... you can access me through my writing and through my photos. I'm on everywhere as mosilager. Right now the photography side of my brain is more active than the 'fun' writing side of the brain so check out my best photo stuff at Lensaholic and that and everything else on mosilager@flickr.

Love:
Aaaah yes... love love love. I'll make a confession, I 've watched Love, actually about 50 times. It's a great movie. It doesn't make me any less of a man (at least that's what all the girls say to my face). Man... and I thought the public humiliation on my birthday theme ended with the silly photo. Here's my other ramblings on how to find the perfect woman, and the marriage profile that actually brought the perfect woman to me :)

Anything I like:
I do have some off-the-wall stuff that I like. I like this post about how different authors would have written Harry Potter. I also like this post about surviving the trip to meet family after getting a job for the first time. And here's what you have to know when living with two dogs. All hopes of one teaching the other good manners will fly out of the window.

Consider yourself tagged if you feel like going on a journey to discover your old posts... and have a long island iced tea on me.

Tagged by Twisted DNA

2007-11-30T22:32:00.000Z

So, way back when, when the world was young, and before my life changed literally into a travelling circus, the incredibly funny mr. twisted dna had tagged me to come up with a few of my favourite things...

finally after consuming some good scotch on the rocks, and upon not finding myself asleep as would normally be the case after such consumption, and not having the internet connection die on me every 12 seconds, I decided to tackle his tag.

I added a twist to the favourites tag... since I moved continents and all... I'm gonna talk about my favourite things that I missed when I was away from home... so here goes...

Mosi Lager - believe it or not my name comes from a beer from the Republic of Zambia... needless to say, I missed this a lot when I was in the States. Now that I'm back... I've only had 2 in about 3 weeks... but they were goooooooood... and before you think i'm an alcoholic... no way i'm an alcoholic, i'm just a scientist.

Switches - in Zambia... the switches to turn things on and off all go the proper, logical way. This is a huge relief because now I don't have to test... I can just look and see if something is on or off. The logical way is that you flip the switch down for ON and flip it up for OFF. Joy... immense joy ensues...

Driving - very happy to drive on the proper side of the road, i.e. the left side. Now people who have driven on the right all their lives may argue with me, but there is only one proper side of the road to drive and that is the left. This is because I am right handed... just like >80% of the world. My right hand is far better at controlling things than my left hand... kendo swords, pens, dumbbells, javelins, pool cues, steering wheels... you get the picture. So right hand steering, left hand gearbox. And don't start with automatic transmissions... I hate them. Manual is the way to go... otherwise just hire a robot to do the driving.

TV - When I first landed in the USA, every channel on TV was showing one thing - a white truck on some highway being chased by several cars. I came across CNN once and they were talking about some farmer and his pig in north carolina, usa as part of their world news. Somehow... didn't strike me as world news. If one solely watches US news... there are no countries called India or Zambia or even New Zealand... there are no sports called cricket or badminton... Now when I turn on the TV.. guess what... India Pakistan test match, UEFA championships, New Zealand - South Africa one-dayers and even rugby... cup... runneth... over... and if I feel melodramatic... B4U and Zee are just a remote click away for Indian songs / movies... laawaris... sharaabi... and some weird movie called kiss kis ko... bbc news... and the british media actually realises the existence of asia and africa. Even the history channel is better over here, watched a show about the history of the Russian navy for about 2 hours... they have a 300 year old history. History channel in the US is all about how great the US is... and innumerable and neverending footage of world war II.

Sports - I just have to walk outside to find a cricket game... and a football game... and did I mention it's summer... and it doesn't get above 33 degrees... ooooh celsius... and centimetres... units that make sense... .woohooo!!!!

TATA - did you know that TATA Africa has been making life easier for all South Africans? I didn't either... and probably never would have in the states.

Walking - I get to walk a lot here... you can actually go to 2 different shops in one trip by walking... and not having to jump in the car, drive 2 minutes across pedestrian inaccessible roads to get to the next store...

No killings - no kid goes to school and kills anybody else... doesn't happen. guns are fairly heavily restricted here so feel good about that.

OK so now what do I miss about the US?

Well... at this point... fast, always on internet... internet here is kinda slow and not around all the time and liable to do weird things... and i have access to one of the best in the country.

Rich - poor divide - not as obvious where I was in the US.. probably because I was one of the poorest... now it's the other way... and it's fairly in-your-face... so that feels bad.

Work - I only start work in Jan... on paper it looks good to have 6 weeks of vacation... but it's boring as hell if nobody else is vacationing with you. me wants to do some research... my curiosity is killing me... research, NOW!!!!

The Angel - The angel was this black Honda Prelude I used to have. Best car ever... it died about 3 years ago... still miss it. Haven't seen anything like that here... just corollas and more corollas :(

No walls around houses - Houses / apartments in Lusaka have big walls with razor wire / broken bottles / electric fences on top of them so nobody can climb over. So everything looks quite forbidding. I miss the security of the US... even though some people may call that security illusory.

Well, as always, if you want to take up this tag, please list a few of your favourite things... and no reference to the sound of music.