Im Back....

I realise I haven't posted in a while, and that is because unlike these other bloggers, I have actual work to do. I mean did you see this post at Aidwatch? They had to shut down their entire operation because they decided to do a bit of work. While the rest of us are juggling to do both.....sigh*.

Anyways, Im sort of still recovering, both mentally and physically, so bear with me.

I did bring you back some goodies from my field trip to Akobo though....

Looks like your average oldschool radio right? Wrong! This badass little music machine also accepts USB flashdrives as well as SD cards.

Now this may not be a surprise to some of you, but I had not seen this before and it excited me in ways........

This is one thing I love about developing countries. In the developed world, where most technological innovations were made, the products have to be marketed in a flashy, shiny and high end way to make it appealing to a constantly bored market. Whereas for the developing world, the technologies have already been developed, so all they have to do is pick and choose which technology is practically relevant and market it in that way. They get to skip that bullshit "it came from the future so lets stretch this out over many many products" stage (am I still making sense?)

As a result, developing countries are able to be just as up to date with technology without the ridiculous costs.

Also, the wide availability of mobile phones with camera means that now its not just the white guy that gets to have a 'cultural safari' with the local community, but the community is now able to photograph the white guy as some exotic animal that has lost its way.

Hey, look at that. I still managed a rant. Looks like Im not too exhausted to be a dick.

A going away joke from the Lou-Nuer: A Murle cattle raider in Khartoum sees a Holstein-Freisian cow and tries to steal it......

HAHAHA get it?

*Oh and don't you try jumping on this boat with me Roving Bandit, all you do is copy and paste......and Im talking about your day job...ZING!

Zangief in Akobo?

Within every language there is typically a word used to get the attention of a person whose name you don't know. In Arabic it is Isma, in Malay it is wei and to some extent in English it is Oi! The latter two can be considered quite rude though. The Nuer in Akobo have, by far, the coolest phrase:

Wooriah!

Now you may be asking, "Why is this so cool?". Well if you were ever much of a video game geek back in the day you may be familiar with this sound. The only example I could find of this being used in an old school game is Zangief in Street fighter II (1:20).
I've also heard this sound being attributed to Warcraft II and Im quite confident there are some other fighting games that came out of Japan that used this sound.

Talk about a warrior culture
(Or if you have database access)

Starknaked Redemption/ Escape from Akobo-Naked/ The Nude Escape

So I was in Akobo last week and had some adventures. This was one of them as told to a friend of mine in the US. The format might appear a bit weird but it was a simple copy and paste from our skype conversation.

"Ok......so it was a beautiful sunny afternoon in the town of Akobo
the birds were singing, and the kids were laughing
There was a gentle breeze that swept the landscape intermittently touching the ground surface like a skipping stone
I was sat with some guys who work in the other organisations that were operating in Akobo. Working hard, there was a silent atmosphere where all that could be heard is the concentration of each individual focus on their task at hand
then, all of a sudden there was a single sound of a pop that rang across the lands.
It broke the concentration and possessed everyone's attention
they all looked up like meerkats keeping look-out, as if they were waiting for something more
Just like that, the sound returned more rapidly, accompanied by a similar yet distinctly different sound
By that point everyone knew what it was
..........gun shots
2 rifles

We got up from our seats a ran towards the river, we ran towards where the noise was coming from.
As we approached the location, i looked in the opposite direction to see a mass body of small children from our neighbouring orphanage running away.....running away from the shots.
By the time we had reached the river bank, the shooting had stopped
All that was left, was two naked bodies emerging out of the water on the opposite side of the river
Two men, running for their lives towards the Ethiopian border
They had escaped
I asked the youth leader who was by my side at the time what had happened
He explained to me that the two prisoners were taken to the river to bathe
They had then taken advantage of the situation, dived deep into the water and swam across it to escape
They had succeeded.......nakedly."