My African-Country-a-Week project has arrived in Senegal. This is a former French colony with 13 million people and per-capita GDP of $2100, making it one of the wealthier countries in Africa. It is also one of the continent’s most stable democracies. I needed a break from reading weighty books, so I watched a documentary instead…. [Read More]
Blog
Category: Africa
Eritrea: I Didn’t Do It For You
Eritrea is a tiny, poor country, ranked 222 out of 229 on GDP per capita. History has not served it well. It was an Italian colony, a British colony, and the site of a U.S. military communications station; it was a UN administered region, annexed by Ethiopia, and winner of a civil war to establish… [Read More]
Zimbabwe’s One Hundred Trillion Dollar Note
I cheated – it’s from eBay. All my travels are in the midwest these days.
Sudan: The Other Nile
Sudan is the country of the week in my African exploration project. I found a book called “The Other Nile” by Charlie Pye-Smith on our bookshelf; it was published in 1986 and is firmly in the World Traveller genre. Those tales of Western youth who go backpacking around the world and write about their experiences… [Read More]
So I bought a Zimbabwean 100 trillion note on eBay
Picture to follow when it arrives. It was $5.95. If the seller were the Zimbabwean government (it’s not), I’d think that it was a revenue-raising gimmick, the way that so many small countries produce stamps for collectors.
