Albinos in South Africa

I was searching on youtube about Africa and found a video of an albino girl living in South Africa. She talks about how her father would have nothing to do with her because of her condition, but her mother was just surprised when she was born.  She found another family who had an albino son and in that case again the father left. The girl is going over to help this mother gain knowledge about people being albino and prepare her for the gossip. The lady said that people have thought she slept with a white man and that's how her child became white. A lot of them don't know what albino is. The young albino girl talks about how she doesn't want a boyfriend because a lot of them just want to "try it out" and then dump her. A bunch of albino people gather together and just hang out, the girl says she forgets about her color and they just have fun. Even after all the racism about her color the young girl goes to bed at night and dreams of a family with four children and she hopes that they will be black.

Being albino is the loss of pigment in your skin. I can't imagine what it would be like giving birth in Africa to a child that turned out white. As I gathered information from the video a lot of them didn't know what being albino was and they had their own speculations. As I browsed a few other videos I got the conclusion albinos are not treated friendly in Africa. The other videos were about albinos being killed for their body parts which is absolutely horrible. In the United States it is different to see an albino but not like it would be in Africa because it is a total skin change. This girl said that she had blue eyes, but a lot of white people who are albino I heard of them having red eyes.

This imagine I found on google.com of an African albino person.

Zimbabwe Daily News Paper Returnes!

 After being banned for eight years the Daily News paper is going to return on March 25th when it starts publishing again. The daily paper was banned because of the criticism of President Robert Mugabe. The paper fought with the presidents government for a long time. Relaxing the strict press rules are in action, but with elections coming up tension is rising. They have a power sharing goverment and President Mugabe and his rival Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai have completely different views. Zimbabwe's media is very controlled, there are no privately owned radios or television's in the country.

I found this interesting because our media in the United States post anything and everything. We always talk about how our media influences our children and everything from lies to truth is posted. What would it be like in the United States if we had government control over our media? Do you think a lot of information posted wouldn't be allowed. That also would go agaisnt our freedom of speech and I believe a lot of angry people would rebel against this control over the media. Although, we do have certain types of media control because of certian viewers like the porn industry sets an age limit of 18years old.

Lemurs becoming dinner

Hunger in Africa is forcing families to break taboos and eat Lemurs and other animals for meat, which might cause the animals close to extinction. In Madagascar Radiated Tortoise are close to extinction. These animals once were only eaten on special occasions, but with bad harvests they are being consumed more frequently. Now these creatures are becoming more of a daily diet, and are unable to protect themselves because they are almost completely harmless. They are slow moving and a easy prey. The Tortoise's are also being captured and sold over in Asia for consumption on the illegal market.

Above is a picture of a Radiated Tortoise. These animals can grow up to 16inches in length and weight up to 35pounds. Their diet is mostly grass and fruits, this reptile can live up to 40-50 years. The female Tortoise can produce anywhere between 3-12 eggs taking about 5-8 months before they are hatched. I gathered this information from National Zoo webpage. If you click on the link you will be able to learn more information about these reptiles.

I believe we need to watch these animals and protect them from extinction, but also the people of Madagascar need to eat. As in a previous discussion post we were talking about the climate affecting the harvests and if people don't have food to eat they will starve. I think we should step in and help them out because we want to protect our animals and we also want to protect our people. Therefore a solution needs to be figured out to protect both.

Human Goat?

In Mkaomoto village, residents woke up to a goat given birth. This wasn't a regular birth the people thought the goat had given birth to a baby with human features. This strange goat had many visitors coming to see this goat with human features. They said the goat has a very hard birth and that it started at 2 in the morning the baby goats head resembled a humans head.  Other's thought that a human could of had intercourse with the goat and that is what caused the baby goat to look like this.Unfortunately the baby goat didn't survive and it was buried. Still attracting a lot of the residents, Ganda chief Batholomew Kitunga saw the goat, he claimed that the human features were deformities during formation in the womb. Therefore the people could stop worrying about it being a ghost or anything else.

This was an article I never thought I would have read, but it seemed very interesting to me that the people were coming up with different ideas on how this could of happened. Like all over the world we all have mythical creatures that some people believe in; loveland frog, big foot, and mermaids. Also I thought of the Salem Witches when I read this article because of how they thought the goat might have been a ghost or something spiritual like that. 

I got this imagine off of Google.com, but I can only imagine that thoughts and theories that are going through those peoples minds right now. Even if their cheif said they have nothing to worry about everyone will have their own opinion.

Decline in Coffee Production Next Season.

An article I found about coffee production in East Africa says that Tanzania coffee farmers are facing many battles in the production of coffee for the next season. A long drought is said the blame for the battles.  According to, "Engineer Adolph Kumburu, director general of Tanzania Coffee Board (TCB), told The EastAfrican last week that the global climate changes which result in unreliable weather patterns, increasing cost of production and farm inputs as well as fluctuating world market prices have hit the sector"(Magomba). Unfortunatly this is going to result in the rising price of coffee, which is already at a high. This low supply of coffee is also contributed to the introduction of coffee in Russia and China markets. In 2008 the consumption of coffee didn't meet the supply. According to the article people drinked 132 million bags against the supply of only 128 million bags of coffee. To fix this problem they are planning to increase the growing regions. Tanazania is the 19th largest coffee producer of the world mostly making Arabica coffee.

I am a coffee lover, and I know the prices of coffee are outrageously high at places like Starbucks. I am not sure where Starbucks gets any of there coffee, but this could be the same problem for other coffee farmers are having. I believe prices of everything is going up all over the world, we notice this with our gas prices and groceries.

School closed down with out letting students finish their first term.

In Mbarara police tried to asked students to leave the property of their school because they were shutting it down. The school was getting evicted, the owners of the land said the school owes her Shs60 million. The students are very angry because a lot of them don't have money to get back home and want police to have administrators refund their money, therefore they can get back to their families. They are saying that the school is not licensed to be on the property therefore it must be closed down. Their were 450 students attending Booma High School and they wanted it to close the doors after the first term, but that wasn't happening. Now the students are left with many question on what is going to happen to them and the money they paid for this schooling.

I was shocked after reading this article, and to find out these children are only in high school trying to get an education and the police officers are forced to shut it down.  These poor children are wanting an education and a lot of them are very disappointed. Also to top it off these children came to this school thinking they would get an education and now they can't get a education and can't get transported home because they spent their money on this school. I am hoping that they will get some kind of justice and receive at least their money back. You would think that these schools would be regulated in some way that this kind of thing wouldn't happen. It makes me question where they got their teachers and if they are disappointed in loosing their jobs or what is happening to them? Maybe this whole thing is a misunderstanding, but in the article it said that the administrators failed to show papers to have it legalized.

African singers

I explored the Afropop website, reading information about all different kinds of African singers. Youssou n'Dour is one of the famous singers listed on webpage. He has traveled all over the world performing music from his culture and adding different sounds Youssou is a Goodwill ambassador of UNICEF and is involved with human rights.  Another singer, Oumou Sangare, is from Mali. She has a bluesy beat to her songs. Sangare is involved with female rights, you can recongize this by her lyrics.  Here is a link to Youssou's web page where you can learn more about him and listen to some of his music.  Also Sangare has a myspace page which you can listen to her music and learn more about her too.

Fighting Against AIDS

I thought I would do a blog about AIDs because it is so widely associated with Africa. Since people assume that people in Africa need help in dealing with the AIDs epdemiac I thought I would share some information i've learned while reading an article found on All Africa.com. I am not saying we shouldn't help, or that they don't need help. I am trying to show people that they are also aware of what's happening in their country and trying to do things to stop it. For instance the Kogi State government spent over 100 million on HIV/AIDS last year. The money they spent went directly to the people who need it the most. Those people are the ones living with AIDs they bought antiretroviral drugs, food and  training of people living with the disease. The rates of people living with HIV/AIDS have dropped, but people coming to counseling and testing programs for AIDs hasn't had much attendence. They are not sure about the number of people living with the disease in their state, but they encourage people to not be scared and come get tested for HIV.

I found this article to aviod the negative myths of Africa and show that it is a helping and intelligent country that wants to put an end to the AIDs epediamc in their country. They are doing things to stop this problem, but it is going to take time and the people in the country to step forward. I believe one step at a time Africa will get control over AIDs.

Fleeing Violence

I found an article on the webpage AllAfrica.com about citizens fleeing an area in Sudan called Abyei. Thousands have left because of a break out in violence. Sudan accused a unknown milita for burning a village. The Misseriya tribe threaten to invade Abyei. Leaving the town empty, the South Sudan police clash with the Misseriya tribe. Tensions with the confrontations grew as the Misseriya tribe search for pastures during the migration season. North and South Sudan agreed to hold a meeting to address insecurity in the area. The Kadugli agreement, agreed that the South Sudan police would leave Abyei and pass on the security in the area upon the joint integrated units. In previous years 100 peacekeepers where in the area to withhold the peace after the civil war between north and south Sudan. Abyei's status was supposed to be determined  in January on whether to maintain its current administrative status in the north or join the south. Unfortunately the vote on Abyei never took place. South Sudan officials said that militiamen allied with north Sudan burned a village in the area on Saturday. Chieftains of Misseriya tribe told north Sudan officials in a meeting seek peace with the south in order to reach a lasting solution to Abyei. Although the Misseriya tribe said the would enter Abyei in ten days if they weren't allowed to take there livestock to an area. North and south Sudan fought a civil war for nearly half a century. They finally signed a peace deal known as the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005.

I found this article interesting because of the violence among the different groups of people. With such a diverse country I think it would be very difficult to establish order. I take this into a lot of consideration because if you think of all the different beliefs the different tribes have you would never want to let go of those for a different group therefore trying to make peace and everyone feel like they are getting treated equal would be hard to do. Also since we learned about all the languages they speak communication would be a huge issue when trying to debate these issues. Lack of communication ruins relationships and makes it very difficult to understand others. I think this is a huge cause of the violence. Also it will be a very hard, long, process if ever fixed.

Man sentenced to death in Egypt over Copt killings

I found a news article on the BBC World News link. The article was about a man, who is sentenced to death for killing seven people. The man, Hamam Kamouni, shot six Coptic Christians and one Muslim police officer.  The shooting was thought to have happened in result of a twelve year old girl getting raped. Two other men are being charged in the shooting also, but there verdict has not been decided yet. Hamam Kamouni's trial was held recently after a bombing that had killed 23 people. Some were satisfied with the verdict, except for the defence lawyer said that the crime was influence by the bombing. Coptic Christians have a very little population in Africa, the Coptic Christians have become sour in the fact that justice has taking so long to be served. They feel like they are treated unfair in Africa with crimes against them going unpunished. The government denies the unfair treatment claimed by the Coptic Christian's, but the Pope ordered officials to listen to their concerns more.

What I found interesting was that in Egypt they have the death penalty like some of the states in  United States. I didn't know that the justice system had any similarities as the system in the United States. Even though towards the end of the article you see a group that feels discriminated against, you at least know that justice was served.  Also what I found interesting was that people claimed the bombing had an influence in the verdict, in the United States I know that sometimes trials are moved to different counties because of pre publicity. I wounder if their justice system ever considered this? What caught my attention was the justice system in Egypt sounds like it is pretty well set up, for what little information I got from the article. I know in other countries in Africa there is little to no justice.