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]
Blog
Tag: Africa
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.
Chad: “A Screaming Man”
Chad is a poor country, with about 11 million people who have a per-capita GDP of about $2000. It received independence from Algeria in 1960 and has suffered almost constant civil war as well as invasions (from Libya and Sudan. It’s one of those stereotypical “basket case” countries that investors think of when they write off… [Read More]
Mali – Bamako
The Africa country-by-country project continues, this week with Bamako, set in the capital of Mali. It’s a seriously weird, seriously interesting movie. There are three main parts to it. The first is a mock trial , featuring the people of Mali versus the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The director, Abderrahmane Sissako, filmed… [Read More]
Mauritania: The Struggle for Democracy
Mauritania is a country of about 3.5 million people. It is very poor, and it still has slavery. Slavery is officially outlawed, but it’s hard to stop practices that have been in place for centuries among a nomadic people spread out across the Sahara. France granted Mauritania independence 1960. Most of the post-colonial era has… [Read More]
