"The food security situation in the arid and semi-arid regions of Kenya is rapidly deteriorating." (source [PDF])
source: IFRC [PDF]
More Maps? => ReliefWeb.NL …
Month: January 2006
Ploum Ploum
Speaking of 1960s & Co, Monsieur Glückauf! today indirectly pointed me to Jean-Marie Boursicot’s Film Library [which] provides a huge database of more than 700 000 commercials. They also have this Gauloises commercial I’ve mentioned the other day.
A country/continent search on "Africa" reveals the following commercials among others:
FIAT 13, une voiture pour homme, une voiture pour toi ! (1970)
(nb: a french commercial with a KENYAN numbaaa plate? :-)
PLOUM PLOUM parfum de Paris (1966)
OMO washes brightest (1965)
SOL, la première lessive bleue (1976) (=OMO?)
BLUE BAND, la margarine bonne mine (1985)
SIMBA, pour une cuisine Zaïroise plus raffinée .(1993)
And a classic 3:15min piece from 1952 for ASPRO (Aspirin®):
(watch his clothing!)
and within another ASPRO commercial from Algeria:
shuukran, Aspro…
Sorry, direct/hot linking of these mpeg files didn’t work – see it as an incentive to take a stroll through this interesting historical library of commercials and make your own picture of how the world has changed during the last 50 years. Well, has it really changed?
The criticism I have is that (I think) people watch these phoney worlds on tv and try to adopt their lifestyle according to what they see. So what about those that orientate themselves and their standard of living on these commercials and yet don’t have the resources to actually compare these tv worlds with reality (in the West)?
Remember those Royco Mchuzi Mix commercials from early 1990s Kenya where all the kids of this posh mid-class family gather round the table, asking mum for another round of spiced chicken ("more please!")? How many families back in those days were actually living that way? And today? Today, it seems, even the hawkers on the streets have a GSM mobile phone. Yes – that’s our Africa. Not (only!) this half-naked guy as seen in the Aspro commercial. Yani, is this still the african Africa or the westernized Africa? Wrong question?
How did this world of Cussons Soap, Smirnoff Vodka, BlueBand Margarine & Royco Mchuzi Mix – as seen on tv – actually affect the lifes of ordinary people?
In the same way (attention, interest, desire, action) it affects people around the globe? Maybe. However, I am sure, recent advertisment campaigns like the following picture of a billboard in Nairobi, Kenya contribute a lot to the economical boom – especially in places where people desperately try to improve their living standard and virtually stick to anything exotic to emphasise their progress on this.
golden afrique
Despite all those indy/alternative/emo/electro/whatever-tunes I normally go for, I am an avid collector of (good!) music from the continent. Not necessarily new stlyes from the West or East – but the Golden Age of 1960s when music was still kick-ass and many African countries busy with celebrating independence (Uhuru!!). Why? I don’t know. It’s just a passion.
Next movie I am almost dying to see, though, will be HIP HOP COLONY!
(pls feel free to check out Kenyan Hip Hop over @ Msanii_XL‘s blog :-)
wapi? (part 2)
wapi?
@afromusing: hint, hint :-)
fumbo bumani
Curiousity had kept me busy, wondering what’s in that Tower at Parliament Buildings in Nairobi, Kenya.
Possible answers to this serious question – which could have been an issue with Hon. Watchman – included "toilets, a secret golf range, city clerks peddaling on a bicycle that generates power for the installed clock, a Star Gate entry where the outside is all narrow but you have a whole real sized city inside" as well as the assumption that it only containes offices stuffed with paper. You know, all those files that had gone missing over at Nyayo House eventually had to be placed somewhere, kwasababu: the Kenyan bureaucrazy might depend on something also known as "Bubudiu", however, nothing is really lost. I am sure they still have those files labeled T.Mboya, J.M.Kariuki, J.Ward, J.Kaiser somewhere deep down in that pile of papers, as well as the names of thousand others that have ….well, bubudiued their way into contemporary Kenyan history.
Ory’s posting on "unveiling the mysteries of the Kenyan Parliament" today pointed me to the (old) website of the Kenyan Parliament – wapi we’ll find an unspectacular answer to the Tower Mystery:
The Tower
The Tower, from which an excellent panoramic view of Nairobi used to be seen, contains offices, archives, water tank and clock. The height of the top of Lantern frame is one hundred and fifty feet from the ground, while the view-point is one hundred and twenty-four feet. (source)
Majumba makubwa husitiri mambo.
If You See Kaye…
My roommate and I took these interesting weather conditions with their -11.4°C (+11.5°F) temperature & icy wind as a perfect incentive to eventually clean the unconspicuous cultural heart of this shared flat:
Mr. Refrigerator a.k.a. kichaga bia
While outsourcing the contents of this beloved and very important beer container to the already frozen balcony, the low temperature had its share on my beer and stole the bottle with malt beer:
Oettinger Malz Bier – EUR 0.39 / 0.5l (that’s what I call cheap!)
And then, right after that above mentioned box got its required TLC and everything else back in place, Bwana exceedingly smart JKE had this brilliant idea of opening up another deep frozen bottle of beer right in front of this computer…..with the consequence that the whole damn ******************!!!! content literally ejaculated on my pc screen, the keyboard, mouse and the rest of the table.
Good smell, though.
Mbuzitwins
Just as ministers in governments inevitably think of a self-service store once they are in power, the following picture – aptly named "mbuzi twins" – might cause my kenyan readers to think of nyama and nyama mtoto.
…whereas my german readers will think something like: "oh, look, a sheep goat. Huu…oh, is she pregnant or something?"
The conformity between both cultures, and hence the point where the story becomes interesting, is that people are eating meat in both countries and having their share of corrupt politicians while in the end of the day, nothing really changes (1, 2) (to the better).
Angîmîtuîria na ûmîrîte ndangîmîona rikiî.