Passing through Chipembere in Blantyre, Malawi

Photos from Chipembere Highway in Blantyre (Kabula) Malawi as captured on 17th June 2009












Photo credits: Kondwani Kaunda and Bennett Kankuzi.
More photos on Malawi at http://ilovemalawi.blogspot.com

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Of foreign adoptions and the Day of the African Child

Today, its 16th June, a day in which we celebrate the life of an African child. Originating from remembering the massacres of the innocent children in Soweto, South Africa in 1976, we now reflect on the plight of the African child. Indeed we now reflect on the need of the African child to have access to quality education, health, protection against abuse etc. This is because the future of our beautiful African continent lies in the hands of the African child.

Some kids on Chizumulu Island on Lake Malawi in Malawi!

In this post, I would like to share my thoughts of having western 'celebrities' come to Africa to adopt our orphans and vulnerable children. In particular, I would like to refer to a case in which Madonna has been allowed to adopt another child in Malawi. I do not wish to hide that I am one of the many Malawians who are not happy with this decision.

Imagine if all our orphaned children were put up for foreign adoption, what would become of their destiny and indeed the destiny of Africa at large? Obviously as Africans we have our own culture and traditions that can not just simply be ignored for material prosperity in a foreign adopted home. Much as we appreciate that a child needs material care, we can also not ignore the need to protect the African identity of the child. If at all, one is interested in the welfare of African children, the solution is not to just pick one or two kids out of the many thousands of orphaned children out there! What is wrong with helping the kids while the kids are right here in Africa like what Oprah Winfrey does? This idea of 'fishing out a single kid' out of Africa as what Madonna is doing can simply be rated as 'media charity'.

A question then pops up in my mind! Is it that as Africans we have failed to take care of our African children? Maybe we can say so? How? It is very surprising that these kids being put up for foreign adoption are being found in orphanages. If not mistaken, this orpanage syndrome is a new phenomenon across Africa. Why do I say so? Normally, in an African communalistic setting, one is supposed to take care of relatives children as if they are your own children. So even if a parent dies, the relatives of the deceased are supposed to take care of the children. But what do we see now? Relatives quickly send the orphaned children to orphanages. This is why there are so many children in the orphanages now.

Where has our African Umunthu spirit gone? Is this a sign that African cultural values are being eroded? In addition to this, we should go back to our African traditional values that always insist that those who are mature enough are the ones who should get married and have children who they can manage to take care of. Otherwise, we shall keep on having problems of children who lack parental care.

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Facebook in Kiswahili is a great idea!

Just read on BBC news website that a Kiswahili version of Facebook has been released! Honestly speaking, I am thrilled. Long at last, African languages are also gaining prominence as communication medium in the cyber world. I do not know KiSwahili, but this idea is just great! At least to me... What about you?

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To google or to bing?

Of late, this blog has been getting a lot of hits from Bing, the new search engine or rather "decision" engine from Microsoft. So, having gone to www.bing.com, I encounter a simple and clean interface of a new kid on the block in the search engine arena.

Personally I like the simple interface of Bing. In addition to this, provision of preview of websites listed in the search results is a big plus. I do not know if Bing is faster than Google or whether Bing is just a propped up Windows Live?

However, in my opinion, I think Google will this time around have a serious competitor in the search engine world! So whether to google or to bing thats one's choice. But surely only time will tell, who leads the pack!

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