While it’s a beautiful clear Sunday in Lilongwe, things back in Congo aren’t quite as sunny. What was initially reported as an unidentified disease outbreak in my old home province of Kasai Occidental is now confirmed to be Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever. Friends in the province report 170 confirmed deaths and about twice as many infections. Realistically speaking from my former life in hemorrhagic fever health communications, Ebola is a self-limiting bug, striking in remote places and killing most of its victims before they have a chance to pass it on to too many others. That being said, it still leaves a morbid wake in its path.
On the political side, Fred reports that Laurent Nkunda in eastern Congo is still standing strong against integrating his private militia into the...
Having just spent a short but entertaining stint in Costa Rica, I have to say, I'm a bit in awe of the place. Granted that even as Africa goes, Cong's a bit the bottom of the barrel, so to speak. But Costa Rica is downright pleasant.Some of the more fascinating bits wereTraffic lights! Everywhere!Kids riding bikes and skateboards (as opposed to playing with balls constructed from old plastic bags)Bee-yew-ti-ful roadsPotable water right out of the tapNotable absence of pushy hawkersIce in beer - this one I'm not such a fan ofEven apart from novelties such as traffic lights, the country's tourism industry is booming with 51% of the country forested, up from only 25% a few decades back. There's a strong national health care system in place (ranked one step above the US's on the World Health...
Imagine this: you arrive home from a rough day of drinking beer by the pool, only to discover that due to yet another power outage, you will be hiking the 8 flights of stairs to your apartment. Not for the first time, you wonder what made you decide to live in a building with no backup generator.We've had 'power fluctuations' courtesy of SNEL (the municipal power company) nearly every day for the past two or three months and it's been getting old. REGIDESO (the municipal water company) has not been much better.So last week's cartoon in the paper (translation: It's his fault! No, it's his!) got a bitter laugh from all who had enough light to read by.Which brings me to my favourite Congo joke:What did Congolese do for light before kerosene...