My life.

Wireless Africa Technical Workshop (Nov 2008)

The workshop is the 3nd planned workshop by the network project, Wireless Africa. This event was a specifically capacity building workshop to help develop business cases for chosen country entrepreneurs and improve practical hands-on wireless network applications for technicians in each Africa project. The intent is that this group learning would lead to collaboration and lessons learned among country members as they attempt to improve their current rural telecommunications infrastructure practices and thus develop more sustainable(and possibly expandable) business models within their community networks.

Summary:

Wireless Africa can offer leadership in linking the research of all ten cases of isolated rural community wireless networks. At the workshop, participants were asked to understand the need for their work to engage in policy implications on telecommunications, to improve their knowledge on other value-added applications for wireless networks, and to advance business practices through use of demand side studies and accounting templates. The process in which these networks change the way they operate need to be well documented and brought together so that mistakes are not replicated and instead solved as a collaborative group of like-minded social entrepreneurs or technicians as is the hope of Wireless Africa.



For policy and practice, Alison Gillwald (IDRC project: #103114) from Research ICT Africa! (RIA!) was asked to present their recent 2007 Household Survey results as well as ensure the RIA! researchers contact Wireless Africa researchers to improve policy dialogue. Wireless Africa also asked African network for Localization (Anloc) research network leader, Dwayne Bailey (IDRC Project # 104475), to link localization researchers to Wireless Africa researchers to ensure African local languages are also utilized within the projects. Steve Song from Shuttleworth Foundation and Toni Eliasz & Rudi von Staden from Ungana Afrika presented their business cases of ongoing projects called the Village Telco and feasibility business study in Eastern Cape respectively. These informative presentations were an indication of the need to share and collaborate between other ICT research networks as well as ongoing projects within the continent.

Technical side: Alberto, Louise, and Sebastian have been long-standing wireless networking trainers with ICT4D – IDRC worldwide. They once again helped our technical strand to improve their knowledge of open-source applications and devices which can be used to improve the teams’ community wireless networks in terms of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), billing tools, bandwidth management and updated mesh-setups. Their technical manuals and open source applications are well-documented (some on website) and provided to each participant on DVD.

Business side: All 10 African teams walked away with a draft business case template as well as their first attempt to “sell” their team’s idea under an “elevator speech” – short concise three minute presentations about their community wireless network. During the workshop, teams received constructive criticism on their ideas of micro-services and whether their plans would reach any profit or worthwhile investment from future interested parties. Katherine and Xolani from Ninjani helped to build the survey methodology called card sorting to help gather data on their client’s needs for wireless communications and possible micro-services to be offered by the African team. Teams are to email their draft business plan to Uys by December 15, 2008. After feedback, teams will send their final copy by January 15, 2009. All in all, the workshop was a good mix of theory and hands on participation.

Finally, the beginning formation of a Wireless Africa Alliance started to take shape during the workshop. Kafui (Ghana), Houda and Jamal (Morocco), Muroro (Zimbabwe) and Ochuko (Nigeria) volunteered to be the first temporary steering committee to further develop the role and mandate of an alliance in improving telecommunications infrastructure policy, practice and learning dissemination. The Wireless Africa organizing team (or consortium) agreed to support the WAA’s work.

TakeBacktheTech - 16 days of activism

I recently met Jac and her APC crew who thought of this innovative way to explore violence against women through ICTs.

At the recent Feminist Tech Exchange in Cape Town, it is actually amazing to learn of how women are suppressed from their freedom of expression around the world. Websites are continuously torn down or hacked if it does not suit a certain government's views. Children are tricked to participate in graphic, explicit websites or forums. The right to protect your information and privacy could be invaded as each day passes.

Being based here in South Africa, where words of violence and abuse directed at women and children (even from the incoming president) are mind-boggling, it is imperative that one explores the new and innovative ways to beat the system. Please follow takebackthetech during the next 15 days of activism if you believe in a better world.

What would our world be like if all women participated in the knowledge economy?

FTX blog: 11/12/2008


As we reach our last track day here at FTX, I do not see it as the end to learning and practice.

Firstly at AWID, we hope to keep our FTX friends connected with SMS (through newly learned tools) to keep in touch with news and actions happening as we disperse among the 2000+ delegates and go to our separate hotel accomodations. I also hear rumours of a wireless network being set up at the conference as a practical demonstration and possible testing of the new prototype of Freedom Fone.

Secondly, Take back the Tech will be a great way to practice new skills. Done.

Beyond FTX and AWID, I see feminists being better heard through the new tools. But how do we document the possible successes and hardships that we will most definitely run into now that our FTX tech support network is not at the tips of our fingers like now? How will feminist work be shaped because of the use of SMS to advocate for improved access to ICTs for women? What will be the industry reaction be to the changing environment as women gain better skills in wireless networking?

1. Let us not stop questioning.

2. Let us document, video, audio-record, photograph, write, SMS.

3. Let us talking about it one-on-one.

4. Let us get people to see the light.

5.Let us share with each other how our world would look like if women were able to reach their full potential.

Link:

GRACE:
www.grace-network.net

F4W – Feminists for Wireless!

Wireless (wi-fi) community networking has become a recent passion of mine particularly here in Africa. The passion lies in reaching the last mile: seeing rural communities be connected to internet using innovative practices through antennae, wireless routers and motivated people. This is even after overcoming harsh conditions of poor reliability to electricity, dust, lightning, illiteracy, hilly terrain and lack of resources. Wireless does not leave the rural out and in fact, has helped to develop skill and astonishing new ideas of reversing the digital divide trend.

But lets not be too wishful. My observations in Africa is that wireless networking is still dominated by male electrical engineers. But because wireless networking is still such a new concept, the trend can still be reversed. I believe that it has begun here at FTX! My heart filled with hope and optimism as I watched my track participants attempt to dispel usually daunting ideas of hardware and go configure a wireless router and learn more about connecting wi-fi. It is not hard at all! We just need to learn the glossary of the scary tech words and do it. So feminists (male and female), if we want wireless networking to be useful to our underserved rural communities and help women gain access to the knowledge economy, make time to learn these wireless hardware / software skills today.

Shout out to Lillian and Fatima leading us to see Wireless through Women!

Links:

Wireless Africa
Wireless Networking in the Developing World
Community Wireless Resource Centre (Makerere University)

Hands dirty @ Wireless & Mobile

Blogging at FTX (11/11/2008):

Its a windy chilly day in Cape Town, but the weather has definitely not slowed down the energy of the participants at FTX. From the summary of the different track groups, it appears most facilitators have started with concept and technology introductions. Today, the groups are delving deeper into practice and usage of the technologies. In the wireless – mobile track, the participants are getting their hands dirty with testing FrontlineSMS for mass SMS campaigns. As with trying to add Fring to our mobiles yesterday, only one successful test group was able to get the messages out to the South African phone numbers using the software and GSM modem. Lets not despair; we still have time to work out the glitches with our other test groups. As our facilitator, Brenda stated, its the best way to learn about technology!

The Struggle

Dear Patrick,

As alumni to the School of Development Studies, I am in support of your appeal to the university to keep the Centre for Civil Society at UKZN open. During my time at the university, the CCS has encouraged the use of new methodologies and participatory action research to best understand civil society; such new and innovative ideas should be encouraged in the name of the advancement of social research. Their record of publications and support around the world is more than impressive because of its strive to understand the true realities of the underserved, disenfranchised people of Africa.

The Centre has brought a diverse wave of academia to speak on civil society issues and in the recent past I have found as alumni, the CCS tried innovative Web 2.0 and collaborative forums to open the discussion beyond the physical space of the centre. In an area studying the usage of Information & Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D), your attempts to use such creative methods of civil society participation is beyond the steps taken or used in research institutes in Africa.

Please take this email as a sign of support for the continuation of the Centre for Civil Society. I have asked the SDS alumni to email you for their sign of support.

Regards,


Kathleen

Related websites:
UKZN's Centre for Civil Society website: http://www.ccs.ukzn.ac.za/
Hands of the CCS, COSATU: http://groups.google.com/group/handsofftheccs
SangoNet Support of CCS: http://www.sangonet.org.za/portal/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=9889&Itemid=1
Mail and Guardian article: http://www.mg.co.za/printformat/single/2008-08-12-ukzn-to-clip-bonds-wings

Funding

I am currently busy working on my project literature review as well as assist with background materials for Wireless Africa's own demand studies on wi-fi community networks. It's been intense, I'm trying to write as much as possible (and trying to push away from writer's block) and just prepare for my upcoming trips to Uganda and Nigeria! Woohoo!

In the meanwhile, I've been finding a few funding strategies and grants for possible follow up on ICT4D work (if the proposal is worded well enough). Just thought I'd share and perhaps others can share their own list of funders:

1. Research Into Use (DFID): Innovation Challenge Fund
"The purpose of the African Innovation Challenge Fund (African ICF) is to provide financial support to teams so they can take promising research, funded by DFID, to the next stage of use. The selected initiatives will contribute to RIU’s purpose by delivering significant use of RNRRS and other natural resources research outputs for the benefit (direct or indirect) of poor men and women in different contexts. "

2. SSRC (USA): Media Research Hug: Small Grants Project
"Small grants of up to $7,500 are available for research that supports public-interest efforts to change the media / telecommunications infrastructure, practices, policies or content. The grants are intended for short-term, advocacy-centered research, completable and usable by advocacy partners within the next 4-12 months."

Agriculture, ICTs and Gender in Africa

This last month, I was asked to judge GENARDIS 3, "Small Grants Fund to address Gender Issues in Information and Communication Technologies for Agricultural and Rural Development in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific (ACP Countries)." The applicants that I judged were a wide range of projects attempting to use the tools of radio, computers, and media to reach the disenfranchised in their villages. Unfortunately, there were some applicants that immediately drew the opinion that women = gender, which is still a major misconception of what this small grants fund is all about. The thing is that it is likely to be women and children who are most disadvantaged in these small villages wishing to implement technology in order to improve lives. However, maybe it is not, and it is best to analyse the situation for both men and women first and then distinguish the differences between the two groups. Perhaps we will find a village where males are not participating in computer classes and 99 % are women, then why have these males decided not to participate?

Check out the GENARDIS projects that have won in 2005 and an evaluation on the program in 2007.

More Information:

IDRC - Acacia webpage on GENARDIS

Gender and Natural Resource Management book

Mobiles & Poverty

Since completing my studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, I have been doing a bit of writing based on my mobile phone study. My field work photos are found under "IDRC work" on my flickr page.

Here is one article: i4d: Mobiles are leading the way: A review of IDRC projects

Here is a short case study write-up that I did for the W3C workshop in Brazil in June 2008.

This is an old presentation that I did at UKZN in November. I presented my results and analysis at the IDRC on May 1, 2008 with an updated presentation (ask if you would like a copy).

| View | Upload your own

All kinds of ICT4D conferences have been popping up recently:

- HCC8 - Pretoria, South Africa (25-27 Sept 2008)
- Msociety - Antalya, Turkey (18-19 Sept 2008)
- SAICSIT, Wilderness, South Africa (6-8 October 2008)
- MobileActive08 - Johannesburg, South Africa (13-15 Oct 2008)
- ICTD 2009 - Doha, Qatar - deadline for submissions: Sept 22, 2008 - (17-18 April 2009)
- IFIP, Dubai, UAE - deadline for submissions: August 15, 2008 (26-28 May 2009)

Gender and Wireless Africa

Last month, I attended the Wireless Africa workshop: June 25- 27, 2008, CSIR Convention Centre, Pretoria, South Africa.

Here are some excerpts from my report:

Day 1 – Wednesday, 25 June 2008

Purpose: The purpose of the workshop was to introduce the Wireless Africa research project, share current wireless community network initiatives throughout Africa and choose the three countries as case studies for review of their sustainable business models. There were at least 40 participants in total (10 women participants) and all proceedings will be found here.

One country presentation highlights:

Emphasize goals towards development: Prof Hicham Bouzekn, Al Akhawayn University, Morocco stated that the success in working with regulators and even mobile operators depends on “the way you present your project, […] cannot be perceived as a threat. It must show some goal of development, and a benefit to the country”. Prof Hicham’s Wifi project had also seen their regulators pushing the researchers to aim big, increasing their research sites by two-three more areas in Fez.

Business Models: As for presented business models, the range was also diverse among the countries and within the country institutions. The 16 countries had telecentres models, government owned models, NGO style setups and primary school network ideas. Within the institutions, the range of products and services could be from running a microfinance institution to internet café side projects with a whole gamut of income generating projects done within. While aware of the idea of business models, none of the countries had actually written up a business plan or prepared such documentation in the past. Fantsuam was possibly the closest organization with $USD figures of their operation costs and revenues through their cross-subsidized model of business.

Village Telco example: Steve Song (Shuttleworth Foundation) and Rael Lissoos (dabba.co.za) presented on the Village Telco model (wiki.villagetelco.org) which is in place in Orange Farm, South Africa. Running for the last two years, Rael has been able to provide wireless services to this community with use of pre-paid cards for internet and phone services. The recent village telco workshop (June 16-20, 2008) can be found here. Steve did a presentation summarizing their workshop asking the question can a mesh network be developed for $5000 USD and deployed and break-even within 6 months. From the workshop came the “Mesh potato”, a hardware/software package which allows for phone/internet connection, and asterisk, BATMAN and network management software. Check out more information on Steve's blog.

Day 2 – Thursday, 26 June 2008

2.1 VoIP and Wisp in a Box Presentations: Louise Berthilson (it+46), Alberto Escudero-Pascual (it+46) and David Rowe (Free Telephony Project) presented their current work on VoIP in a Box. David showed the simplicity of wireless point-to-point setup by getting his children to set up a wireless phone in a public park. Sebastian Buettrich followed with the development ideas of WISP in a box (still in progress with completion date aimed around +/- October 2008). From both technology presentations, it was clear that low power was a major roadblock that needed to be addressed immediately as power is usually one of the most costly expenses in running these technologies. “Big power is low power,” as stated by Alberto. All projects must consider looking at low power using technologies in order to see sustainability. So why not consider the 1Watt computer? Another major challenge was how to move from small to large scale networks with out destruction, particularly address network management problems once capacity starts to reach a point of over optimal. How does one prepare for this point? Another major obstacle discussed is learning retention – local transfer and avoid staff turnover – in a business model. While some acknowledge that they will need to continuously input training, the discussion looked a use of retired professionals, training business people to be a trainer for a business, young 3rd year undergraduate students volunteers, other motivation techniques, use of local women or grandmothers (my idea), training government officials.

Gender Presentation: I gave a short presentation on gender research based on the firm desire by Wireless Africa management to incorporate gender into their research plan. The presentation was based on the IDRC – Acacia lessons learned from the Gender Awareness Workshop in Fez, Morocco in 2007. Here is the presentation:

| View | Upload your own

The purpose of the session was to ask country/researchers to consider adding gender as part of their research agenda in their planning and consider four possible strategies of implementation. Why is this area of study exciting? As technology is fairly new in many of their societies, great insight comes from research on the adaptation and usage of technology by both sexes. Secondly, as implementers, one can have great influence in whether such tools become gender biased or not in the community by way of constructing opportunity for both men and women with the technology. I emphasized “What are we losing out?” asking the audience what innovation and economic advances will the project be missing if they exclude specifically women from the knowledge society? As little has been written in the field of gender and wireless community networks (even in North America), I also challenged the group to work towards presenting their gender research to the Acacia Conference in Dakar, October 2009.

At the end of the workshop, the three pilot projects were announced: Ghana (onevillage Foundation), Uganda (Community Wireless Resource Centre) and Nigeria (Fantsuam Foundation).

More information on Wireless Africa, click here.

CICEWA Workshop #3

This week, I was asked to attend one of our IDRC research partner's workshops here in Johannesburg. Here is an edited version of my workshop report.

1. Project Objective:

The project, “Communication for Influence: Linking Advocacy, Dissemination and Research: Building ICTD Networks in Central, East and West Africa” (CICEWA) has the objective to identify obstacles to universal affordable access to broadband ICT infrastructure in Central, East and West Africa through two sub-regional ICT policy advocacy networks. Their key role is to disseminate research and find effective ways to advocate for ICTD.

2. Workshop

CICEWA hosted their third in a series of workshops (the June one was in Senegal). I dropped in last Wednesday, July 16. The purpose of the workshop was to bring African journalists and researchers nominated by the ICT4D network from East, West and Central Africa to develop a common research framework, and build the network for stronger ICT4D policy advocacy. In the previous two meetings, two regional networks were formed: EAICT4D, coordinated by Harry Hare (KictaNet, Kenya) and GOREeTIC (Coura Fall, APC).

There were 18 participants (7 were women) from both French (Senegal, Congo-Brazzaville, Rwanda, Benin) and English (Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda) speaking African countries. One of the participants was an APC member from South America.

3. Presentation: Telecommunication Reform in South Africa

The first speaker, Robert Horwitz, Professor at UC San Diego, spoke about a paper that he and Willie Currie recent wrote: “Another instance where privatization trumped liberalization: The politics of telecommunications reform in South Africa – A ten-year retrospective”. This journal article was used in the presentation as a possible output model for the country teams. The author spoke further on the research and the methodology undertaken to produce this paper.

A major issue which arises from many transitions from monopoloy state-owned telecommunications to a competitive market is governance. How does a country create a new market structure for telecommunications and then how do you deal with the incumbent? How do you change the tariffs enough for the incumbent (who had provided much infrastructure in the first place) to stay competitive and yet allow competitors? Many known regulators are still unable to provide strong structure to guide this process in a transparent manner.

4. Discussion

The researchers were asked to develop their country’s political narrative or institutional histories and use institutional players, the context, the political structures and understand why things happened and how they are likely to play out.

Major question put to the participants, “Where are the points of entry, on policy, and advocacy, how best to engage, how to provide pressure with impact, and practices of freedom.”

During the discussion, each country described their political and telecommunications story. In summary, there were several issues with the regulator and its ability to help in lowering the interconnection costs between mobile phone operators. There were also examples were cell phone operator competition led to lower prices but cases like Tanzania were there was no price change. There is also the issue of high costs as a result of governments high tax imposition (ex. Uganda has 30 % tax). Discussion also came up on the weak consumer associations in the country who are not able to push for fair competition and lower prices.

In terms of the research, the question came up as to how one revealed the “secret deals” which undermine the processes of good governance particularly during this transition period? How do we start to see transparency and show things as understood and fair by its citizens? How does one expose “never released documents” and hold government accountable?

Fifteen ways in order to retrieve important documents and interview key informants in institutions like government:

a) Be persistent
b) Try talking to people who lost out in a contract or deal
c) Work through the opposition or the chair of certain parliamentary committee
d) Interview mid-level management, reveal certain information, build rapport, allow them to reflect on the big picture
e) Always check sourcing
f) ‘Follow the money’ – check annual reports, stock exchange prices / reports
g) Use the switchboard operator to your advantage
h) Turn off the voice recorder and hope this will lead to information
i) reluctance to give information IS information
j) Ensure anonymity: “off the record” can be called key informants, “respected industry insider”
k) Always ask “who else should I talk to?”
l) Possibly align one’s self with an organization (eg. Statistic bureau) for authority
m) Use cousins / sisters within the organizations
n) Be aware of permits which may be required to conduct research.
o) Use the country’s freedom of information act

Other News:

Village Telco and dabba.co.za gets exposed on the Economist: Read more

IDRC - CICEWA network project links here


Special ICT4D Edition: Computer June 2008 (Vol. 41, No. 6).

The restoration of STC

While I have always had the intention to start updating this blog on the wonderful things happening here in South Africa, it is only until now that I have pushed some keys together and voila, words to screen. Since my last blogpost, I have started venturing into new research terrain working with a network on Community Owned Wireless Networks and testing the waters in the socio-economic side of these pilot projects particularly on gender. I'll also go back into time and reflect on the research findings from my mobile phone and technology spending project last year as well as update on the recent workshop and conferences which will be taking place in Africa on Information & Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D).

Besides that, well you probably heard that Nelson Mandela's turning 90 this Friday! Stories have been running on all the local papers of people who had met Mandela while he was studying as a young lawyer in Jo-burg, to his days spent in prison on Robben Island. I guess you have to give credit to the man, he did his time and the respect and hope he has brought to the people of South Africa is not something one will forget for a very long time.

homemade goods obsession

Today's been fairly creatively stimulating and work un-productive.

Last night, I strutted off into the Centurion evening to a club just off Old Johannesburg Road near where I am staying. Sadly enough, the night of dancing, ended at 12 midnight with a power failure in that part of town. Double Downer (the DJ had no idea what he was remixing), to say the least, but certainly can't be a particularly profitable night for the venue. Well, at least I got my dancing feet moving again.

The next morning, I decided to venture to the Irene Market at Jan Smuts House. Twice a month (1st Sat and 3rd Sat), the diversity of wares are displayed throughout the space surrounded in high shading trees. I was impressed by the range of over 300 stalls of home-made wares, cultural display of cuisine and fun to be spent in Irene.

What did she buy do you ask? Well, first off, a beautiful handmade doll from Vicki's Kid's Stuff (+27 82 806 8401) for R80 or $13. At this booth there were nappie bags and other baby wares. I then stopped at this booth which made these incredibly innovative purse made with a zipper. Pam from Dizzy Zippy (Yvonne: +27 83 248 2376) greeted the passerbys by rolling out this zipper and then zip around and around until it becomes a purse. It's fantastic. Their product ranges from small pencil cases to school bags ranging in price from R40 - R 150 ($ 6.50 - $25).

For lunch I had some Portuguese Rissois near the entrance for R7 ($1) and a 100% real orange juice for R8.

In the beginning, I cruised through the food section only to find some delicious Acacia/Eucalyptus raw honey (R30 or $5) produced in Irene by Bees Knees (+27 12 667 2372 or cjprussell@xsinet.co.za). On the label, it states unheated and unfiltered: “Nature's Best for Connoisseurs off the Comb with all its Natural Pollen” Then next to the honey booth, was the Mustard Shop with some homemade tasty Sweet Basil salad dressing (R20 or $3.40) and DELICIOUS olives mixed with peppadews (R30 or $5 for small plastic container). yum.

My highlight of the market was passing through south africa's history in images. Post cards and other products from digitized material of a man's artifact collection passed down by his father (former professor of Anthropology). A beautiful collection converted into post cards, birthday calendars and tin cans. The Colonial Heritage (The Reed Foundation) boasts of “100 year old postcard & photographic reprints of Old Colonial and Republican South Africa) +27 72910 1661 / +27 82 884 9989. I was able to score some amazing images (R10 or $1.70 per postcard or R70 or $10 for birthday calendar) of the Bluff, Durban with dated shots of 1435 and hear the story from Thatcher and Amber about the infamous Rickshas in Durban when they first arrived from Japan in 1892. Today, most people recognize the ricksha on Durban's ocean front as a tourist trap or the raddest part of surf classic, Endless Summer.

stoked on the visit and will definitely try to go back. Highly recommend arriving there between 8:30am - 10am otherwise feel the wrath of the longest line-up to the market. Parking is R5.

Best Travel Tackling Techniques: O.R. Tambo Johannesburg Airport

I can say I'm a O.R. Tambo regular. Fly out Friday, Fly in Monday. I actually have started find there is a group of vigilante weekend warriors who do the trip as I do to Durban. In the last three months, I share some of the wonderful tidbits that have helped me kill through 30-90 minute wait (either because your cheap flight is delayed or you got to the airport so dang early just in case there is an accident on the road that could be backed up for hours).

1) The Keg and Aviator: Yes, the best way to kill time at O.R. Tambo is finding a nice pint and cheese nachos and just let the hair down. Actually x-nay the nachos - they are kinda not fun and will not meet your expectations. Tucked away at the far end of the restaurant floor, it's worth the few steps further. Do not let them seat you near the entrance; ask to be seated near the back with the flat-screen TVs and people and catch the most recent sport highlights. Sit at one of the long lounge tables, so much room, and it's usually never full. Killer.

2) Sushi at the Ocean Basket: Okay so they may take FOREVER to deliver a few maki rolls, but who cares? The craving must be satisfied and if you are lucky, you might have the women who delivers you the soft rock hits of the 80s on her synthesizer and voice. YEOW.

3) Wi-Fi internet: love it. Sit just about anywhere and time kill on Facebook and digg and other random websites. The phasing out can be so easy.

4) Hand Luggage only: Okay for within country travel, it's worth it. You stare at the long queues and feel the luggage getting heavier and heavier.

5) Lastly, Shaded Parking # 3: Totally wicked find. While not as cheap as Supersaver parking in butt-f* no-where, Shaded Parking #3 is half the price of the other covered lots and it's still close enough to walk if you feel like. The bonus is of course the free shuttle that takes you right to your vehicle or any of the departure gates. love it. I wish I clued into this one 2 months earlier.

9 Great Websites for South Africa Trip Planning

I have been so lucky to have many of my friends from home come visit me in my last few years in South Africa / Kenya. I always have loads of questions thrown my way on Africa in general and travel and living tips in the area. This is my top 9 things to consult before jumping across the ocean to live/work/study or party/travel in South Africa!


1) Free Classified listings in Durban:
It's the craigslist of South Africa! So great for finding rental apartments and cars!

durban.gumtree.co.za/

2) Cheap Flights within South Africa:
All countries have their cheap flights within the country... Kulula, Mango and 1time are the way to go at reasonable rates if you happen to get the right deals. JNB to DUR can be as low as $20-$50 one way!

www.kulula.com
www.flymango.com/
www.1time.aero/

3) Cheap Car Hire in Jo-burg:
I have my old Toyota Corolla beater for 2500 R ($415) a month as I look for a possible permanent vehicle. Best price I have found so far for an automatic.

http://www.rentawreck.co.za/

4) Backpacking in S.A. and Mozambique:
This free guide is on recycled paper at any of the backpackers across South Africa. It is a great way to move across this country at a great price!

www.coastingafrica.com/

5) Good Eats in S.A.:
I love their top 10 lists.

www.eatout.co.za

6) Events in Durban and S.A.:
Haven't used it much but looks promising...

www.ijol.co.za

7) Blogs in Africa:
Get a real sense of what's happening around Africa...

www.amatomu.com
http://afrigator.com

8) Social Bookmarking in Africa:
what are people finding as interesting in Africa?

www.muti.co.za

9) Techy stuff on Africa:
I got some of my social bookmarking links from here. Really innovative stuff.

http://www.bandwidthblog.com/2007/09/14/south-africas-web-startups-to-watch/

S.A. universities: fight for your right...

I am frustrated. Students at the University of the Witwatersrand were shot at with rubber bullets as they attempt to protest against the hike in next year's tuition rates. How ridiculous. You have some of your intellectuals and leaders at one of the top universities in the country with the inability to protest and speak up for their rights to education. I ask those who still represent tertiary education or part of student bodies to support the Wits students with emails, publicly denouncing violence on this protest and messages to these institutions that these are not radical, weapon toting hooligans... these are your future leaders who wish to voice their frustration with the difficult undemocratic S.A. system.

What happened to spare fun time?

I'm back and forth from Durban and Jo-burg as I strive through the last four months of my internship with IDRC. Currently, I'm trying to bag this research project analysis on mobile phones and technology spending and its relation to poverty in rural Kenya and Uganda. Yesterday I took a half day course with Hilary at UKZN's ITD school on the qualitative tool, Nvivo. Super simple to use and I think will be useful to sort out my 200+ pages of transcripts (yes, it took me literally 2 weeks to listen to tapes and do this). My only issue is that Nvivo7 only works on Apples with the intel chip and I'm one generation behind with my iBook G4. Doh. Looks like time for an upgrade when I get back to Vancouver! In the meanwhile, I'm attempting to download free versions of HyperResearch and Tams Analyzer to see if they can do the same job. I'm also do it the old school way, wading through the date on paper with post-its, highlighters and coloured dots as I'm a visual learner, but time is running out and I need something interesting for my presentation to the School of Development Studies on Oct8!

Recently, I was sent this wicked article on Buddeblog called, "Changing societies and the role of telecoms" and makes you re-think again, what's with all the work and where's the balance of giving back to society or at least having fun?

This blog talks about people having more time to engage in social activities when they have telecommunication technology. It reminds me of a comment from a man in Meru, Kenya, when I was conducting interviews... We were talking about the time when the community was having water installed into homes. He recalls one neighbor protested paying for the water and asking, “what will my wife do if she does not fetch water?”. Can you imagine? Rather keep her busy fetching water and keep her from doing other social or functional activities.

I like his props to Canadians and New Zealanders on working to integrate Aboriginal culture (still a way to go but trying more than other countries!)

I especially like this paragraph:

“With the economy changing from scarcity to surplus we should use this unique opportunity to tap into these old cultures, with a view to re-evaluating ourselves, our lives and our communities. A good starting point would be to study these cultures, to try and find some answers to the environmental changes that are currently having such a serious impact. As I write this, half of Greece is on fire – how many more warnings do we need before we start to make changes?”

Maasai captures crowd

with his voice on this video. Best artist from the display of Kenyan artists on Friday night. Read more with a few UBC business students who attended the event....

men do nail polish

While I am going through my field notes from my research this week, I am going to try to recollect some of the most interesting things spotted or experiences. For example, back in June, I interviewed a group of nine women in a hair salon about their mobile phone use and changes in their lives. During this time, I did notice something odd. While salons are usually separated for men and women (like our barbers and salons), there was a man doing nails for a young woman. Yes, I suppose if this was in Vancouver or in some super trendy salon, it would not be strange. But in the context, I asked my research assistant about it, and she said that he was actually not working at the salon. He was a hawker (people selling knick-knacks on the street) and men had picked up the job of doing manicure/pedicures in the area. If a salon does not offer the service, they walk through and do the job. I also noticed another man doing nails from a woman's home several days later.

So talking about gender equality, do nails become a gender-neutral (or is it in this case a male-dominated occupation?) job in rural Uganda? What other examples of jobs exemplified as women-dominated are now being taken on my men even in contexts that appear to be extremely gender-biased? A man carrying a baby on his back in East Africa or man being the "house help" (where the wife works and the man stays home)?