Afromusing

• Jesus appears atop mobile phone mast | The Register
  Its a bird! Its a plane! No! Its Jesus atop a mobile phone mast (couldnt resist poking fun)
  (tags: humour religion uganda wireless)
• Egyptian blogger jailed for four years | The Register
  “An Egyptian blogger found guilty of insulting both Islam and the country’s president has been jailed for four years, Reuters reports.”
  (tags: news egypt blogging censorship africa press)
• United Nations - OCHA IRIN Africa News
  Africa News
  (tags: kenya news africa)
• Street Use: Camel Bookmobile
  Kevin Kelly blogs about Masha Hamilton, incidentally she contacted afew kenyan bloggers several years ago when researching this. Some of us had no idea abt it. Bravo masha! Glad she found the camel bookmobile.
  (tags: books kenya interesting)
• Headlines | Kenya risks losing ‘kikoi’ brand name to Britain
  ‘kiondo’ is copyrighted by Japan?!! How do we protect brands in the age of globalisation? What happened with monsanto when they tried to patent basmati rice? lots of ??
  (tags: kenya IP law world globalisation)
• Headlines | Nasty cyber wars as Kalonzo website is hacked
  There is treachery afoot! - Kalonzo foundation displays pro-raila for pres message. Raila looks flamboyant in orange and dons some ‘bling’ kenyan style update:it now displays an old story from 2000 stating that Raila is power hungr
  (tags: web security politics kenya)
• Face value | Digging deep | Economist.com
  “My generation”, she says, “will be judged over whether it helps create a sustainable economic miracle to maintain political freedom.”
  (tags: business africa people inspiration women)

ESL -English as Second Language

At breakfast last saturday, amidst laughter and IHOP pancakes, my friends came up with the following words that started out as English words but are now decidedly names of places in Kenya. Add more in comments if you can think of more!

Embakasi - Embarcation

Kariokor - Career Corps

Thebigwa - The big one

Dagoretti Corner - The great corner

Thogoto - Scottish Mission

Resaf (Kalenjin word for shags) - Reserve
Most of the words above came about during the colonial era.

One more: Konahauthi - Corner House (Nyeri)

I made some inquiries about the $450 solar concentrator (Sun Flower) that i blogged about last year

I contacted Andrew Beebe of energy innovations, about their plans for making the sunflower available for purchase: It is not available for sale in international markets until 2008. According to the EI site, they are still testing and refining the Sunflower.

This is one product I am looking forward to testing it in Kenya once it becomes available, mainly because it is cost effective, and suitable for those wishing to still be tied to the electricity grid, but supplement their energy needs or even resell it to the Electric company.
AOB:

Ugo Okafor of African Architecture had blogged about a solar Chimney/Concentrated solar power plant in Sahara desert. This is a very powerful idea that apparently has a precedent. Bruno De Wachter writes on Leonardo Energy

In the current photovoltaic industry boom, another solar power technology has somehow been overshadowed: Concentrated Solar Power (CSP). CSP uses mirrors to concentrate the sun rays on a pipe or vessel. These contain a gas or liquid that is heated to around 400° C and is then used to power conventional steam turbines. The technology is proven — a CSP plant in the California desert has been functioning very effectively for fifteen years. One major advantage of CSP is that the medium heated during the day can be stored in vessels to keep the turbines running at night.

more here and also a post on a superconducting hydrogen-electricity grid

The CD i blogged about here awhile ago is now available for sale on CD Baby

There is a 20% discount if you buy two CD’s or more. You can also preview all the songs before you buy. Its a very nice CD, I am sure you wont regret buying it.

For valentines you can play ‘Nakupenda‘ for that special someone..hint hint and for anti - valentinos- perhaps you can play ‘kinyangunya‘?

*image from KWFT.ORG.

- Kenya Womens Finance Trust has a program for loaning qualified women in Kenya money for purchase of solar systems.

KWFT Mission is to facilitate access to sustainable financial and non-financial services to economically active women entrepreneurs.

Information gathered from brochures at their main office indicate that they have introduced new products that include solar systems for household, business premises lighting and Income generating endeavors, such as mobile phone charging stations. Listed on there are the many benefits of using solar energy systems in part: Its a one time investment, improved study time for your children, access to information through television and radio, very low maintenance costs, movable in case of migration, easy to operate, helps conserve environment (reduces use of wood).

KWFT has an extensive network of locations in kenya, with offices in all the major regions. To be a member, the application is available online or at any of the locations, it costs Ksh 200. To qualify for the loans one would need to already be a business woman, other requirements apply depending on the type of loans.

The info about the loans for solar systems has not been updated on the site, but is available at the KWFT offices.

Now that i am settled back in, i.e caught up with Dr. Who, and Psych episodes that i missed while i was away, amongst other ’settling in’ activities, here are reflections about the trip.

This was more of a family type trip involving a lot of eating, chilling, recounting old stories - such as the one about me in standard one, going to school with both shoes on, coming back in the evening with only one shoe. When asked what happened to the other…this was my reply “we were playing football, i kicked the ball, the shoe went in the same direction as the ball, the ball came back but the shoe did not”. I was informed that i actually said it with a straight face.

I spent most of the time in shags (upcountry), drove while in Eldoret but was worried and left my cousin’s engagement party early,was afraid it would rain and the car would get stuck in the mud - Not a good prospect when there are no dudes in the car, see… men are good for some things you know?! Well, we still got stuck in the road about 100 meters from the house - It did rain, a lot. I do not recall Decembers at home being so wet, i enjoyed it nonetheless, everywhere was green, lush and wonderful.
I had to ask my cousins in the car with me to keep reminding me to keep left. It was hardest to do this when turning onto the highway. Speaking of which, it would be nice if we had a section of the road for bicyclists, they kept getting into the way. That was not nearly as disconcerting as having a matatu stop smack in the middle of a major road to let passengers in and out, a few expletives did escape my lips.

I attended a concert, Papa Wemba at the Carnivore on Dec 29th - It was preety nice and interesting, his scantily clad dances had all the dudes’ eyes popping out of their heads, well, the male dancers could really break it down too. I was abit tired from the drive from Eldoret so pardon the fact that i just have these two pics.

The people from Project Fame (Kenya’s equivalent of American Idol) were there at the concert, they sang with Papa Wemba - Lots of talent there. I felt bad for making fun of Ms Abura’s outfit - it looked like a toga. (sorry!) All in all it was enjoyable, i just didnt hear my favourite songs like ‘Yolele’… oh well.

Here are two songs for your enjoyment: ‘Show me the way’ and Yolele. (I will take these down in afew days - click on the link for the song.)

Click here for a short clip i took (.49 secs)

Other random tips i should have posted for diaspora folks:

- Carry some clothes that are a size bigger, it is possible to add weight in a very short time.

- Do not believe the dudes who talk you into going with them to F1, saying things like ‘oh its not so bad, people go there with their significant others these days’. Especially if the dudes saying this are also KT’s like you, how the heck would they know?

- This one is not silly - Ssembonge’s tip on checking your dollars to make sure they are not the 1996 series…on point, i looked at afew of the notes i had and just about slapped myself.