Daily Archives: July 8, 2009
African Poetry Senegal : Noliwe by Leopold Sedar Senghor
Noliwe
The weakness of the heart is holly…
Ah! You think that I never loved her
My Negress fair with palmoil, slender as a plume
Thighs of a starlet otter, of Kilimanjaro snow
Breasts of mellow rice-fields, hills of acacias under the
East Wind.
Noliwe with her arms of boas, lips of the adder
Noliwe, her eyes were constellations there is no
need of moon or drum
But her voice in my head and the feverous pulse of the
night…
Ah! You think that I never loved her!
But these long years, this breaking on the wheel of the years, this carcan strangling every act
This long night without sleep I wandered like a
mare from the Zambezi, running and rushing at the
stars
Gnawed by a nameless suffering, like the leopards in the
trap.
I would not have killed her if I had loved her less.
I had to escape from doubt
From the intoxication of the milk of her mouth, from
the throbbing drum of the night of my blood
From my bowels of fervent lava, from the uranium
mines of my heart in the depths of my Blackness
From love of Noliwe
From the love of my black skinned People.
By: Leopold Sedar Senghor
Suggested Books
- Leopold Sedar Senghor: From Politics to Poetry
- The Collected Poetry (Caribbean and African Literature)
South Africa Mobile Advertising Revenue Surges in 2009
- Image via Wikipedia
An explosion of mobile phone useage
The following press release about a report from the mobile advertiser mKhoj shows the way that mobile phone usage has exploded on the African scene and how the various players are fighting for market share. What is interesting here is the way that India has taken advantage of multilingual/multicultural marketing in the mobile technology market in Africa. The key paragraph in the press release for me is the following.
Several aspects make the South African market very different from European or North American markets, including cultural and sociological factors. Not only does South Africa have 11 officially recognized languages, scores of other African, European and Asian languages are spoken in South Africa. Couple this with mobile penetration over 100%, and you have an ideal opportunity for mobile marketers with advanced targeting capabilities to capture the cultural context and nuances of languages.
I find this interesting and I predict that we will see an increase in multilingual multimedia mobile capacity and marketing not just in South Africa, but across Africa.
Additional articles
In addition to the report below you might be interest in the following related articles:
NY Times :Â Indian and S. Africa Cellphone Giants Plan Merger (you need free registration to access this article)
NEW DELHI — Bharti Airtel of India and MTN Group of South Africa dusted off plans Monday to create the world’s third-largest telecommunications company, an entity that would have $20 billion in annual revenue and 200 million subscribers.
Press Release:
South Africa Mobile Advertising Revenue Surges in 2009 According to mKhoj:Â Nokia losing share; iPhone entering the South Africa smartphone market
BANGALORE, India and PALO ALTO, Calif (July 8, 2009)
Today mKhoj, a global mobile advertising network, released South Africa metrics for its network that indicated mobile internet usage is surging in the country, and that the mobile advertising market in that country is very healthy. Over the past six months, mKhoj delivered 5000% greater monetization levels for its publishing partners, and its network inventory grew more than 3000% in the South African market.
The report also showed Nokia making up 39% of the market, dropping handset share of network traffic from 46% in January. Samsung currently holds 33% of the market, and rose from 20% in January. The iPhone made its entrée into the market, but only contributes 0.06% of the total network traffic, making it a relatively small but growing player.
Several aspects make the South African market very different from European or North American markets, including cultural and sociological factors. Not only does South Africa have 11 officially recognized languages, scores of other African, European and Asian languages are spoken in South Africa. Couple this with mobile penetration over 100%, and you have an ideal opportunity for mobile marketers with advanced targeting capabilities to capture the cultural context and nuances of languages.
According to the latest Business Monitor International report, South Africa’s mobile operators will continue the ongoing deployment of HSDPA and HSUPA, which improves mobile users’ experience by increasing peak data rates. This, combined with the launch of new multimedia handsets, is expected to increase South African data service usage even more in the near future.
The top five handsets by market share are as follows:
1.Samsung SGH – E250 – 9.16%
2.Samsung A110 – 4.93%
3.Nokia N90 – 4.54%
4.Nokia N70 – 2.93%
5.Samsung M620 – 2.60%The majority of mobile browsing occurred on MTN Group Ltd., one of Africa’s biggest mobile phone companies, currently in merger talks with India’s Bharti Airtel Ltd. Cell C and Vodacom take second and third place, respectively.
The top three carriers by mobile ad impressions are as follows:
1.MTN
2.Cell C
3.Vodacom“We believe these results reinforce our partners’ confidence in our value to provide the best results through intelligent mobile web advertising solutions,†said Naveen Tewari, CEO and founder of mKhoj. “We’re proud to be recognized as the leading mobile advertising network in South Africa.â€
About mKhoj
Founded in 2007, mKhoj is a global mobile ad network that delivers the best results to its partners through its intelligent mobile web advertising solutions. mKhoj allows advertisers to discover their target audience using its advanced targeting technology via mobile Internet sites and it enables publishers of such sites to earn advertising revenue. The mission of mKhoj is to provide both the business model and technology to enable the growth of the mobile Internet. To learn more visit http://www.mKhoj.com.
Mali : Wood, Smoke, Pollution and Sustainability
Pollution and forest destruction in Mali
The smog in Bamako, Mali, has to be experienced to be believed these days. A pall hovers over the town making breathing difficult and exacerbating chest infections already prevalent this season. One major cause of this, apart from traffic pollution, is woodburning or charcoal burning. These are the main forms of cooking fuel for the majority of people here and other forms of cooking fuel are just too expensive for most. In the evening smoke from fires adds to the already polluted air from the evening rush hour traffic fumes.(From my old diary)
Some sources reckon that between 1990-2005 Mali lost 4.9% of its forest and woodland habitat. You can find a detailed examination of this here. The main problem is that until alternative cooking fuels are available people will still cut wood. Solar cooking has been proposed as a solution but is very slow to take off as it requires a different way of cooking to that which people are used to. One project which tried to introduce solar cookers to Mali is evaluated in an article: Mali solar cooking project – one year later. They found that the solar cooker boxes were not used for main cooking, only used during the hottest hours of the day and mainly used for heating water.
Mali transporting wood
[Source: Jason Parker's Photos Flickr]
Africa Photography Mali : Photo of houses on the road to Guinea
Mali, Houses on the road to Guinea
[Photo credit : Sociolingo Africa]
African architecture fascinates me. When I was working in Mali I noticed considerable differences in houses in various parts of the country.
I took this picture of a group of houses (a compound) on the road to Guinea, Mali, in 2000. I had not seen houses painted like these before. The houses are made from mud brick with conical shape thatched roofs.The paint for the decoration is a kind of coloured mud. Some of the ‘houses’ are storehouses. These are considerably smaller than the ‘living’ buildings. The grey walled house to the of the picture is most likely a kitchen, the apertures allow the smoke from the wood fire to escape.
African Solar Powered Donkey Carts
One topic I’m interested in is solar power in Africa. Whilst searching around for info I found the following great story from 2007 about solar powered donkey carts. Now this I CAN see taking off. The retrofitted solar panel:
stores solar energy in the 12V battery fitted under the driver’s seat. This set-up called “HAPPYâ€, powers cell phones, front and rear emergency lights and a small neon tube that illuminates the night. All in all the setup has proved to be of immense utility for tourists. HAPPY could add on a water purifier system for an added income.
I haven’t found out where exactly it is being used, and I’m not sure why its first use appears to be for tourists benefit rather than local people, but it is still a good idea nevertheless.
Solar Donkey Cart
Suggested Books
